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A Middle-Aged Writer's Quest To Start Learning To Code For the First Time (1843magazine.com)
OpenSourceAllTheWay writes: The Economist's 1843 magazine details one middle-aged writer's (Andrew Smith) quest to learn to code for the first time, after becoming interested in the "alien" logic mechanisms that power completely new phenomena like crypto-currency and effectively make the modern world function in the 21st Century. The writer discovers that there are over 1,700 actively used computer programming languages to choose from, and that every programmer that he asks "Where should someone like me start with coding?" contradicts the next in his or her recommendation. One seasoned programmer tells him that programmers discussing what language is best is the equivalent of watching "religious wars." The writer is stunned by how many of these languages were created by unpaid individuals who often built them for "glory and the hell of it." He is also amazed by how many people help each other with coding problems on the internet every day, and the computer programmer culture that non-technical people are oblivious of.
Eventually the writer finds a chart of the most popular programming languages online, and discovers that these are Python, Javascript, and C++. The syntax of each of these languages looks indecipherable to him. The writer, with some help from online tutorials, then learns how to write a basic Python program that looks for keywords in a Twitter feed. The article is interesting in that it shows what the "alien world of coding" looks like to people who are not already computer nerds and in fact know very little about how computer software works. There are many interesting observations on coding/computing culture in the article, seen through the lens of someone who is not a computer nerd and who has not spent the last two decades hanging out on Slashdot or Stackoverflow.
Eventually the writer finds a chart of the most popular programming languages online, and discovers that these are Python, Javascript, and C++. The syntax of each of these languages looks indecipherable to him. The writer, with some help from online tutorials, then learns how to write a basic Python program that looks for keywords in a Twitter feed. The article is interesting in that it shows what the "alien world of coding" looks like to people who are not already computer nerds and in fact know very little about how computer software works. There are many interesting observations on coding/computing culture in the article, seen through the lens of someone who is not a computer nerd and who has not spent the last two decades hanging out on Slashdot or Stackoverflow.
The Economist's 1843 magazine details one middle-aged writer's (Andrew Smith) quest to learn to cook for the first time, after becoming interested in the "alien" logic mechanisms that power completely new phenomena like oven cooking and effectively make the modern world function in the 21st Century. The writer discovers that there are over 1,700 actively used recipes to choose from, and that every chef that he asks "Where should someone like me start with cooking?" contradicts the next in his or her recommendation. One seasoned chef tells him that chefs discussing what recipe is best is the equivalent of watching "religious wars." The writer is stunned by how many of these recipes were created by unpaid individuals who often built them for "glory and the hell of it." He is also amazed by how many people help each other with cooking problems on the internet every day, and the kitchen chef culture that non-technical people are oblivious of.
Eventually the writer finds a chart of the most popular recipes online, and discovers that these are Beef,Chicken and Pork. The syntax of each of these recipes looks indecipherable to him. The writer, with some help from online tutorials, then learns how to cook a basic recipe that tastes a lot like orange hair marmalade with small hands. The article is interesting in that it shows what the "alien world of cooking" looks like to people who are not already kitchen nerds and in fact know very little about how the chemistry of cooking works. There are many interesting observations on cooking/chef culture in the article, seen through the lens of someone who is not a cooking nerd and who has not spent the last two decades hanging out on BigCookDot or Potoverflow.
I guess some things never change:
Well, my computer makes my dog look like Albert Einstein. I plugged it in and turned it on, and instead of going to work on my telephone-company letters, it started asking a lot of idiot questions, such as what day it was. So I typed in the following computer program:
NEVER YOU MIND WHAT DAY IT IS. WHAT I WANT YOU TO DO IS STRAIGHTEN OUT ALL MY FILES AND COME UP WITH A NICE HEALTHY LIST OF MY TAX DEDUCTIONS, TAKING PAINS TO GIVE ME, RATHER THAN THE INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE, THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT, BUT NOT CLAIMING ANYTHING THAT WOULD LAND ME IN THE SLAMMER, IF YOU GET MY DRIFT.
And the computer said:
SYNTAX ERROR
Do you believe that? This machine that doesn't even know what day it is tells me, the paid professional writer, that I have a syntax error.
The average American reads at the sixth or seventh grade level. The Econmist is college level. If you want to improve your reading comprehension, read The Economist or The Wall Street Journal. I wouldn't worry about his coding. His comments might be more readable than most comments by programmers.
I have ran into many programmers that didn't get their degree in computer science and didn't take any computer science courses in college, and they all fall in the same level. Mediocre
Maybe just correlation, not causation. I have a degree in CS, but I mostly I learned programming in my spare time. The fact that I was interested in programming led me to sign up for the education.
"How do I sort this list?"
Call the sort() function, usually.
Andrew Smith, the author of the article Slashdot is reviewing, seems to have no deep knowledge of technology, and no serious interest in learning.
And he's getting silly answers because he's asking the wrong question. Asking 'what is the best way to learn to program?' is like asking 'what is the best way of learning to write well?'. Do you want to learn to write news articles, opinion, marketing copy, novels, technical manuals? The answer will be different in each case, with the possible exception that (as with learning to program) you will be told to practice a lot. If you start with the problem that you want to solve, you will get very different answers, but they might actually be useful.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
My experience in college is that academic computer science is completely different than real-world computer science. I learned only math and algorithms in college. Everything else I had to learn on my own in my spare time.
Granted, my college days were in the early 2000's, and I didn't exactly go to the best school, but all we did back then was algorithms in C. Exclusively. We were also forced to do our work with Emacs and submit our homework to a VAX system using nothing more than a mainframe cheat sheet. If something went wrong, we were stuck. It was confusing and useless to participate unless you already knew what the hell you were doing.
I learned a HELL of a lot more about real programming after I left college and started to work with other, more experienced people. Then it became more obvious what they were trying to teach us in college, but failing miserably.