On May 10, 2006, at 10:05 PM, Marc Geddes wrote:
TOO MUCH TALK TOO LITTLE ACTION. START DOING SOMETHING!
Sounds good, but TOO MANY CAPITALS.
USE JAVA FOR THE USER INTERFACE AND
C# FOR THE CORE PROGRAMS
Eh, wha...?
You do not need to learn Java and C# -- they fill the same niche for
most purposes -- and your time would be better spent learning one of
those languages very well. My advice: pick two very different
languages and learn them extremely well. If you choose wisely, you
will rarely feel hindered by programming language and can program any
damn thing you want. The specific language is mostly irrelevant*, so
choose something that you like. C# and Lisp, Java and Haskell, C++
and Python, Obj-C and Ruby, FORTH and Smalltalk, whatever.
Though if you do not know programming very well, I do not know why
you concern yourself with this. You do not yet know enough to make
good choices. You can do user interfaces reasonably well in a myriad
of languages, and can do "core programs" in most of them. If you do
not know why you are using a specific language, you probably do not
gain too much by using it other than familiarity. Learning
algorithms, data structures, and theoretical computer science in all
its glory is far more important anyway.
*It may be irrelevant in theory, but in practice an experienced
person would (a) pick a couple languages that play well together, (b)
use at least one language that grants some type of access to bare
metal, and (c) use at least one language that is extremely efficient
to develop in and maintain. In Silicon Valley these days, the C++/
Java/Python stack is extremely popular. I've developed production
code in a buttload of languages, but prefer C and Python myself.
I've signed up for a computer science degree and am now down the
labs all day frantically trying to 'pump in' the expert systems
needed to save my arse.
You have to love it, the feel and the deep logic of it, or you will
never be any good at it.
Learning it is easy, grokking it is hard. I've worked with many self-
styled programmers and software engineers who never really grokked
the field after decades of experience, try though they might. Make
sure you are doing something that comes naturally to you.
J. Andrew Rogers
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