hi, On Fri, 2007-09-14 at 18:49 +0100, Roshan wrote:
> True. But I wonder, doesn't the IT industry train > newcomers on specific languages and appropriate tools > and then put them on (bench) or projects? I'm really tempted to get into a rant about how the average sweat shop works but I think I'll try and control myself. What you is true for sweat shops that really don't care about the how much their code coolies know as long as their hours are billable. To them training on a specific sub-version of a tool is the least expensive way to get the coolie's time to be billable. However, in the long run, the coolie has not really improved him/herself. I remember, Philip mentioning that the more important quality in a programmer is how well they can learn new stuff - not how much of a particular tool they know. > I don't know much about the FOSS industry (I'm sure, > its more of a community-pick'd up employee) and > therefore, would need a balance between good > programmer and familiarity with specific tools. Since most FOSS projects work as almost pure meritocracies, how clued in you are makes a big difference. Nobody really knows which particular set of tools you use since you tend to work alone. (As an aside - http://www.unc.edu/depts/jomc/academics/dri/idog.html ) > Umm, so they should start with the text-editor, see > the syntax highlighting, go to the terminal, compile / > run /interpret etc. When they are comfortable with > that, they'll customize the text editor to compile on > shortcuts. When that is done, they'll look up to an > IDE. Is that what you intend to say? (confirming) The tools and helps allow you to abstract out parts of the tool chain that you're using. This becomes more important on larger projects. So, what I am saying is, Use minimum aid for smaller pieces of code. Once you know what you are doing start delegating the mundane stuff to the tools. (Try relating this to learning to fly - If you only learn how to fly with an auto pilot, you won't have much of a chance when the shit hits the fan :) -- Always glad to share my ignorance - i've got plenty. -- http://mm.glug-bom.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxers
