It depends on what your true goal is. Do you want to become wizardly, or merely competent?
Study the libraries used to implement the code in question to become competent in that application. Most of the confusion of thought regarding code has to do with specific libraries used. By encapsulating complexity in libraries, it streamlines the main code - but then requires you to dig into the libraries to understand what's going on. This 'state' is difficult to maintain in their head for most people.
If you want to become generally 'wizardly' at all code you come accross - start off learning Assembly code for the gear you're most likely to encounter (probably INTEL processors). After that, everything else is easy. Following craw-walk-run - move on to learning about compilers and interpreters that you use (C/C++ and CPython or bash are good choices to look at). Finally, after you get a good understanding of the lower level hoops that your programs make the CPU jump through, then start looking at the higher level code you're interested in.
I like to conceptualise the different meta levels of the program stack -- from the microcode that defines the CPU functionality -- all the way up to the high level languages as boxes within boxes -- each level standing on the shoulders of, and building on the strengths of the simpler lower level constructs. Another visualisation you could use are those russian nested dolls -- one within another and so on.... If you can understand what is going on at the different levels when any one high level command is executed, you can have a better handle on what your code -- or any code for that matter, is doing. Computers are actually very simple when you get down close to the hardware --- it's all the cruft we've layered on top that leads to complexity - much of which is really unnecessary, and the result of people trying to code fast, rather than efficiently. I'm not suggesting everyone code in Assembler -- but there has to be a balance, a 'middle way' that avoids layers of high level garbage that you have to sift through because someone decided they wanted to use their favorite (big/ugly) library/framework, rather than implementing it in a more streamlined fashion. This state is largely the result of people seeing every problem as a nail, and every tool as a (their favourite) hammer - without any deeper understanding.
I think 'computer science' courses today give short shrift to that key understanding. This, as you may be able to tell, is a pet peeve of mine.
In the past, at least, they realised where the cow was that gave the cash... Now it seems like they are doing all they can to liquidate it.
Based upon the theological leanings of most of the power elite, I expect this last ditch effort to destroy everything is only a symptom of apocalypse mania.
It should be interesting, post 2012 when we are all still here and having to function, how they're going to deal with that. You can only last inside your bomb-proof shelter so long before the zombie mobs break in to eat your eyeballs.
I was 39 then; I had been working in technology for 7 years (since I was 32 - I spent 12 years in the military and some years in college prior to that) - which makes me 47 now. I saw the writing on the wall since I began working, and vowed not to become 'just-a-programmer'. But I have been programming since I was 16, and couldn't see doing a job where making computers jump through hoops was not involved - so I became a jack-of-all-trades who could program instead.
In that time, I saw the whole IT developer team outsourced, and weathered numerous downsizing initiatives. Yet here I am today - still employed. And while coding is not my primary function, I still get to write code and solve interesting problems. Today I'm a technical architect, and valued for what I bring to the table when it comes to design. I've worked in Technical Support, as a System Admin, in the Network Engineering team, and later as a developer analyst for a subsidiary group that needed that function for things IT couldn't or wouldn't do - using all the information I gleaned from those other positions. I continued to grow and learn new things; today I primarily code in Python - and I never stop learning new things about technology.
Today people are surprised when I tell them my age, because everyone thinks I'm in my 30s when they work with me. I can thank my mom and dad - since I don't have grey hair yet, but also I think my attitude had a lot to do with my success - while I'm certainly not untouchable, I've become a valuable asset for those above me, beyond the words in my resume, or the list of my skills. This makes me more valuable than just-a-programmer, and also gives me a deeper well of skills to fall back on if the axe were to fall.
Looking back on the intervening years, I believe I made the right decision. That would be my advice to you as well: don't be just-a-programmer, and expect to have a job when young people fresh out of college and outsourced people in other countries will do the same job for 1/2 the pay. Re-imagine yourself as something more, and go do it. Beg forgiveness later.;)
I got my IPad the first day they came on the market (version 1). I did weigh the utility of having the 3G option, but found that I could not justify the extra cost - both for the device, and the recurring broadband plan, and power usage associated for something I wouldn't use often. I don't regret that decision at all.
I do think manufacturers should provide the option, but keep it optional.
I suppose it's okay for your 9-year-old child (if you have one) to work in a factory? Or should we return to the squalor of tenement housing - circa 1900? Or allow corporations and political machines to run amok as seen in the scandals at the turn of the previous century that make Enron et al pale in comparison. What about the vote for women?
That is not to say there weren't any mistakes (18th Amendment anyone?) - however, I think the world as we know it, as bad as we may think it is, would be much worse without progress/reform.
Without progress, we would still be drawing on cave walls and hunting wild animals with our bare hands to feed our families. The first time someone broke off a tree branch or fashioned a flint knife to improve his odds of success - progress was happening.
Don't conflate ultra-liberalism with progressivism.
My old man was a printer - and set much type using the old linotype machines with lead type. For those who don't know, a "slug" is the cast lead line of type produced by such machines.
In today's world of electronic publishing software, I'm surprised anyone remembers that stuff. This, of course makes the item doubly funny - as there would be no slug to speak of on such a system.
Kind of like pulling up at a gas station and looking for a hitching post to tie up your car.
Dinegrating technology and it's uses is a thinly veiled attempt to overlay the "public service" meme onto the young people he was addressing.
To say one particular mode of living is "correct" for everyone is wrongheaded. Far better for these graduates to explore their own way of living - not because it is any better or worse than any other, but because it is their own. From such insight true progress is made.
I have to call BS on your statement that more effective communications occur with young people via text in all cases. I would posit that is an extremely rare edge case.
Writing is an art and a skill that has to be developed for clarity --- and too often even with the best quality and intentions, misunderstanding and confusion reigns supreme. It is something everyone struggles with, even after we have included various conventions in near real time communications (emoticons, and other indicators of emotional context) fatal disconnects between the sender and receiver occur.
Sometimes a face to face meeting is required to gauge the unspoken context. While I agree less meetings are not a bad thing, more care must be taken to choose meetings - particularly in an environment where there are less overall opportunity for face to face. Even then, leaders in such an environment must make more efforts to get face time on an informal basis.
Btw - did you react negatively to the phrase, "call BS on your statement"? There was no animosity in that statement from me - just the first turn of phrase that popped into my head. I left it in there on purpose. Without the process of editing, it is easy to cause confusion in excess of the perceived value gained from instantaneous communication.
That's a silly comment - code documentation or whatever, obviously he does a lot of typing. If he increases typing speed by 30% he reduces the time spent on typing by 30% and so can do something more important with that time. If this is only 20 min per day that may still be enough to make improving relevant. I'm pretty much in the same position, I write emails, comments (on/.), papers and various things on the net - it adds up.
This statement presumes that a person can think in a clear and complete manner as fast as 130WPM to take full advantage of the speed increase. I often get in trouble when I think and type too fast, without consideration before I hit the send button.
Quality is much more valuable than quantity where thought is concerned.
Bingo -- I learned touch typing on a manual typewriter in the Air Force long ago - and had to pass with 25 WPM - more difficult that you think when your energy has to make the type bar strike the page with enough force to imprint the letter through the ink ribbon. With the advent of IBM Selectric typewriters it got faster, and with computer keyboards faster yet. The last time I tested on a computer keyboard with complex sentence structures and words, I got a 60 WPM score.
And that was just copying a text presented to me (which is generally not what I do in my job - since 99% of what I receive is electronic, cut and paste works much better than wasting time transcribing). When it comes to formulating sentences in my head for writing my speed drops - because I am also, contrary to popular wisdom on the subject, editing my text as I go along (particularly so in IM, message boards and so on). When I write program code I slow down even more, as I have found it better to get code syntactically correct the first time (able to pass through the compiler) rather than spend time debugging at that stage (I basically save my debug cycles for more complex errors). I spend a lot of time thinking about a program before I actually start writing the code, and this pays dividends in more concise and better structured code and algorithms. I am constantly amazed at how verbose my colleagues are - when I have to refactor their code, I invariably end up cutting 30% or more lines from the code in the process (and sometimes more).
On average I would say I type about 40 WPM when writing, and about 30 WPM when coding. I still bang the hell out of the keyboard - occupational hazard of learning to touch type on a manual typewriter - and as a result I've spent some cash on ergonomic contact switch keyboards that can take a beating (Kinesis Maxim is my weapon of choice today).
When people talk about measuring programmer performance, they almost always bring up the idea of using the number of lines of code generated as a metric. This is really stupid, because your best programmers by and large will produce the least amount of code to get the job done - and will generate the smallest number of bugs (a biproduct of having a smaller code base - the more complex a program is, the more likely there are to be bugs that are hidden or even undefinable until runtime interactions expose them).
If you are one of the rare few who can think of a complex system and code if fluidly at 90+ WPM - 99.999% correct the first time, my hat is off to you. If you are like the other 99% of us who have done any real programming of the course of years, I think you'll be able to relate to what I am saying.
BTW - the text you are reading was edited extensively on the fly as I was typing - and netted me a sub 20 WPM score I would guestimate....but it is much more readable than the disjointed flashes of ideas and wordy sentences it started with.
The people charged with enforcing the laws are not those charged with revising them.
In truth there are many laws on the books that no one enforces in the USA, yet they have not been revised. So discretion has and can be used. However, there are interests at work here that might be behind selective enforcement. Could be one of his neighbors with connections in city hall who is angry about the impact of his yard on neighborhood property values. Might be a government official with a bee in her bonnet. Who knows?
I'm sure the requirement to block all non-brick-and-mortar companies (e-bay, amazon, etc) on the intrawebs will go over like a lead balloon there. China might be able to pull that off...not the EU.
Slashdot Mirror
It depends on what your true goal is. Do you want to become wizardly, or merely competent?
Study the libraries used to implement the code in question to become competent in that application. Most of the confusion of thought regarding code has to do with specific libraries used. By encapsulating complexity in libraries, it streamlines the main code - but then requires you to dig into the libraries to understand what's going on. This 'state' is difficult to maintain in their head for most people.
If you want to become generally 'wizardly' at all code you come accross - start off learning Assembly code for the gear you're most likely to encounter (probably INTEL processors). After that, everything else is easy. Following craw-walk-run - move on to learning about compilers and interpreters that you use (C/C++ and CPython or bash are good choices to look at). Finally, after you get a good understanding of the lower level hoops that your programs make the CPU jump through, then start looking at the higher level code you're interested in.
I like to conceptualise the different meta levels of the program stack -- from the microcode that defines the CPU functionality -- all the way up to the high level languages as boxes within boxes -- each level standing on the shoulders of, and building on the strengths of the simpler lower level constructs. Another visualisation you could use are those russian nested dolls -- one within another and so on.... If you can understand what is going on at the different levels when any one high level command is executed, you can have a better handle on what your code -- or any code for that matter, is doing. Computers are actually very simple when you get down close to the hardware --- it's all the cruft we've layered on top that leads to complexity - much of which is really unnecessary, and the result of people trying to code fast, rather than efficiently. I'm not suggesting everyone code in Assembler -- but there has to be a balance, a 'middle way' that avoids layers of high level garbage that you have to sift through because someone decided they wanted to use their favorite (big/ugly) library/framework, rather than implementing it in a more streamlined fashion. This state is largely the result of people seeing every problem as a nail, and every tool as a (their favourite) hammer - without any deeper understanding.
I think 'computer science' courses today give short shrift to that key understanding. This, as you may be able to tell, is a pet peeve of mine.
In the past, at least, they realised where the cow was that gave the cash... Now it seems like they are doing all they can to liquidate it.
Based upon the theological leanings of most of the power elite, I expect this last ditch effort to destroy everything is only a symptom of apocalypse mania.
It should be interesting, post 2012 when we are all still here and having to function, how they're going to deal with that. You can only last inside your bomb-proof shelter so long before the zombie mobs break in to eat your eyeballs.
...no one, or very few people at least, are going to consent to having their current homes leveled to make way for it, whatever the it is.
Two words for you: eminent domain.
I wrote the following Journal entry about 8 years ago (2003): http://slashdot.org/journal/52223/Banish-Programmer-from-your-vocabulary Some of the advice there is dated (specific tools that are no longer interesting), but the overall message, I believe is still valid.
I was 39 then; I had been working in technology for 7 years (since I was 32 - I spent 12 years in the military and some years in college prior to that) - which makes me 47 now. I saw the writing on the wall since I began working, and vowed not to become 'just-a-programmer'. But I have been programming since I was 16, and couldn't see doing a job where making computers jump through hoops was not involved - so I became a jack-of-all-trades who could program instead.
In that time, I saw the whole IT developer team outsourced, and weathered numerous downsizing initiatives. Yet here I am today - still employed. And while coding is not my primary function, I still get to write code and solve interesting problems. Today I'm a technical architect, and valued for what I bring to the table when it comes to design. I've worked in Technical Support, as a System Admin, in the Network Engineering team, and later as a developer analyst for a subsidiary group that needed that function for things IT couldn't or wouldn't do - using all the information I gleaned from those other positions. I continued to grow and learn new things; today I primarily code in Python - and I never stop learning new things about technology.
Today people are surprised when I tell them my age, because everyone thinks I'm in my 30s when they work with me. I can thank my mom and dad - since I don't have grey hair yet, but also I think my attitude had a lot to do with my success - while I'm certainly not untouchable, I've become a valuable asset for those above me, beyond the words in my resume, or the list of my skills. This makes me more valuable than just-a-programmer, and also gives me a deeper well of skills to fall back on if the axe were to fall.
Looking back on the intervening years, I believe I made the right decision. That would be my advice to you as well: don't be just-a-programmer, and expect to have a job when young people fresh out of college and outsourced people in other countries will do the same job for 1/2 the pay. Re-imagine yourself as something more, and go do it. Beg forgiveness later. ;)
To paraphrase Ferris Beuller, "Tech moves fast. If you don't pay attention, you might miss IT."
I happen to know that 'pretentious' is an adjective too - but that doesn't mean I should waste everyone's time pointing that out about you, parent.
Oops. Sorry everyone.
I got my IPad the first day they came on the market (version 1). I did weigh the utility of having the 3G option, but found that I could not justify the extra cost - both for the device, and the recurring broadband plan, and power usage associated for something I wouldn't use often. I don't regret that decision at all.
I do think manufacturers should provide the option, but keep it optional.
These stories pop up from time to time, and only affirm my observation that we (CS people) are our own worst enemy.
Mediocrity is the outcome. Stop it!
(Well..progressive shit never works anyway).
I suppose it's okay for your 9-year-old child (if you have one) to work in a factory?
Or should we return to the squalor of tenement housing - circa 1900?
Or allow corporations and political machines to run amok as seen in the scandals at the turn of the previous century that make Enron et al pale in comparison.
What about the vote for women?
That is not to say there weren't any mistakes (18th Amendment anyone?) - however, I think the world as we know it, as bad as we may think it is, would be much worse without progress/reform.
Without progress, we would still be drawing on cave walls and hunting wild animals with our bare hands to feed our families. The first time someone broke off a tree branch or fashioned a flint knife to improve his odds of success - progress was happening.
Don't conflate ultra-liberalism with progressivism.
Add another zero there cowboy.
I was thinking a sealed 30 gallon drum would make an excellent Faraday cage - as the static discharge would be along the surface of the metal.
Anyone have a better expedient method of keeping small things safe?
My old man was a printer - and set much type using the old linotype machines with lead type. For those who don't know, a "slug" is the cast lead line of type produced by such machines.
In today's world of electronic publishing software, I'm surprised anyone remembers that stuff. This, of course makes the item doubly funny - as there would be no slug to speak of on such a system.
Kind of like pulling up at a gas station and looking for a hitching post to tie up your car.
Wouldn't that be an editorial?
Dinegrating technology and it's uses is a thinly veiled attempt to overlay the "public service" meme onto the young people he was addressing.
To say one particular mode of living is "correct" for everyone is wrongheaded. Far better for these graduates to explore their own way of living - not because it is any better or worse than any other, but because it is their own. From such insight true progress is made.
That would be $99 per year - partner.
I can look at REAL tits, thanks.
You must be new here....
I have to call BS on your statement that more effective communications occur with young people via text in all cases. I would posit that is an extremely rare edge case.
Writing is an art and a skill that has to be developed for clarity --- and too often even with the best quality and intentions, misunderstanding and confusion reigns supreme. It is something everyone struggles with, even after we have included various conventions in near real time communications (emoticons, and other indicators of emotional context) fatal disconnects between the sender and receiver occur.
Sometimes a face to face meeting is required to gauge the unspoken context. While I agree less meetings are not a bad thing, more care must be taken to choose meetings - particularly in an environment where there are less overall opportunity for face to face. Even then, leaders in such an environment must make more efforts to get face time on an informal basis.
Btw - did you react negatively to the phrase, "call BS on your statement"? There was no animosity in that statement from me - just the first turn of phrase that popped into my head. I left it in there on purpose. Without the process of editing, it is easy to cause confusion in excess of the perceived value gained from instantaneous communication.
Okay... How do you know Vin Diesel is not a nerd?
drizzle that becomes black ice on a winter road is the spawn of the devil.
drizzle is merely evil.
...or get this keyboard
That's a silly comment - code documentation or whatever, obviously he does a lot of typing. If he increases typing speed by 30% he reduces the time spent on typing by 30% and so can do something more important with that time. If this is only 20 min per day that may still be enough to make improving relevant. I'm pretty much in the same position, I write emails, comments (on /.), papers and various things on the net - it adds up.
This statement presumes that a person can think in a clear and complete manner as fast as 130WPM to take full advantage of the speed increase. I often get in trouble when I think and type too fast, without consideration before I hit the send button.
Quality is much more valuable than quantity where thought is concerned.
Bingo -- I learned touch typing on a manual typewriter in the Air Force long ago - and had to pass with 25 WPM - more difficult that you think when your energy has to make the type bar strike the page with enough force to imprint the letter through the ink ribbon. With the advent of IBM Selectric typewriters it got faster, and with computer keyboards faster yet. The last time I tested on a computer keyboard with complex sentence structures and words, I got a 60 WPM score.
And that was just copying a text presented to me (which is generally not what I do in my job - since 99% of what I receive is electronic, cut and paste works much better than wasting time transcribing). When it comes to formulating sentences in my head for writing my speed drops - because I am also, contrary to popular wisdom on the subject, editing my text as I go along (particularly so in IM, message boards and so on). When I write program code I slow down even more, as I have found it better to get code syntactically correct the first time (able to pass through the compiler) rather than spend time debugging at that stage (I basically save my debug cycles for more complex errors). I spend a lot of time thinking about a program before I actually start writing the code, and this pays dividends in more concise and better structured code and algorithms. I am constantly amazed at how verbose my colleagues are - when I have to refactor their code, I invariably end up cutting 30% or more lines from the code in the process (and sometimes more).
On average I would say I type about 40 WPM when writing, and about 30 WPM when coding. I still bang the hell out of the keyboard - occupational hazard of learning to touch type on a manual typewriter - and as a result I've spent some cash on ergonomic contact switch keyboards that can take a beating (Kinesis Maxim is my weapon of choice today).
When people talk about measuring programmer performance, they almost always bring up the idea of using the number of lines of code generated as a metric. This is really stupid, because your best programmers by and large will produce the least amount of code to get the job done - and will generate the smallest number of bugs (a biproduct of having a smaller code base - the more complex a program is, the more likely there are to be bugs that are hidden or even undefinable until runtime interactions expose them).
If you are one of the rare few who can think of a complex system and code if fluidly at 90+ WPM - 99.999% correct the first time, my hat is off to you. If you are like the other 99% of us who have done any real programming of the course of years, I think you'll be able to relate to what I am saying.
BTW - the text you are reading was edited extensively on the fly as I was typing - and netted me a sub 20 WPM score I would guestimate....but it is much more readable than the disjointed flashes of ideas and wordy sentences it started with.
The people charged with enforcing the laws are not those charged with revising them.
In truth there are many laws on the books that no one enforces in the USA, yet they have not been revised. So discretion has and can be used. However, there are interests at work here that might be behind selective enforcement. Could be one of his neighbors with connections in city hall who is angry about the impact of his yard on neighborhood property values. Might be a government official with a bee in her bonnet. Who knows?
The EU can't regulate external states.
I'm sure the requirement to block all non-brick-and-mortar companies (e-bay, amazon, etc) on the intrawebs will go over like a lead balloon there. China might be able to pull that off...not the EU.
And here I always thought schools were day care (jails) for kids so their parents could go to work...