As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. If you feel that this question can be improved and possibly reopened, visit the help center for guidance.
Closed 10 years ago.
I'm a total noob. Over the last three or four months, I've worked through a dozen books, dozens of online tutorials, and watched hundreds of screencasts teaching myself first Rails (along with html, css, etc), Node, JS and my favorite Coffeescript. I've built lots of toy programs at this point, and I'm really itching to get started on my first real project, ie. the startup idea I've had burning inside me that got me motivated to learn how to do this in the first place. I know at this point that I want to build with Node and Coffeescript. It would be easier, I think, to do it with Rails (due to the enormous amount of easy to access information), but Node just makes so much more sense, and it is definitely the direction everything seems to be moving in, and I think that its far more suited to the sort of very dynamic, user-involved application that I have in mind. Looking at the various frameworks out there, tower most definitely sits the best with me, and just really seems to be doing everything right.
That said, I have a couple of questions (actually hundreds, but a couple for now). First, is anyone actually already using tower for production environment, real-world, mission critical development? The impression I get is that viatropos already is, but I wasn't 100% sure because of discussions being held in the "issues" tracker on github.
Second, I've spent hours upon hours pouring over both the "finalized" documentation on the towerjs site as well as the wiki on github, and I still feel completely overwhelmed and unsure of where to get started. Tower seems to have so many moving pieces, and I think that really understanding how they all fit together can only come from actually using them, but being able to use them without understanding how they all fit together creates a chicken-and-egg dilemma that is quite frustrating. Tower has a lot of clear, well-written documentation, in fact a deal more than any of the other "full-stack" Node frameworks out there. But what is missing, at least for someone like me, is a clear starting point. The perfect thing, in my opinion, would be a nice tutorial that walks someone through the building of the infamous Todos app (or far better, something more interesting), explaining each step as you go, so someone like me could take that as a starting-point for gaining a more gestalt-like comprehension of using the framework, and build something with limited but full-functionality, that I could then use to begin creating something with more functionality.
However, as far as I am aware, nothing like this currently exists (and I didn't really expect it to, with tower being such a young framework), so I'd like to ask instead for some advice on where to get started. Does anyone have a full, working example of a towerjs app that I could look at in all its glory, play with, and maybe rebuild piece-by-piece to try to understand it, or else perhaps a list of steps to get me moving forward with learning it through trial-and-error? Or an other reccomendations at all?
I apologize for the long-winded message, and thank everyone for their time in advance. Towerjs is a really cool framework, and I eagerly look forward to seeing how it develops.
Related
As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. If you feel that this question can be improved and possibly reopened, visit the help center for guidance.
Closed 11 years ago.
I have graduated from my university almost a year ago. Since then I have worked with many different technologies, such as PHP, JQuery, ASP.NET, C# etc. Recently I have switched to a company where powerbuilder is being used for development.
The problem is that I haven't mastered any of the above languages. I can do stuff with those but when it comes to the complex tasks I often struggle with it because I don't have enough deep knowledge about it. After looking at powerbuilder for a few days I sense that this is going to happen again because most of the application code have been done using some sort of library which requires some advanced level of skill on powerbuilder.
My question is, is it OK for me to work on different technologies without mastering a single one of them?
If you choose to specialise the you are taking an opportunity cost by making yourself unavailable for other types of work. This is good if you can be confident that your chosen specialisation will last for a reasonable length of time. However, you can guarantee (along with death and taxes) that software will change. You will always be required to learn some new framework or approach in order to remain current.
So to avoid finding yourself at an intellectual dead end (are transputers still in use anywhere?) you should adopt a doctrine of constant learning. Learning is usually fun and almost always leads to a joy of discovery of some new tool or design. And never keep this knowledge to yourself (it only has a half-life of 18 months anyway). Share what you have learned with others.
So to answer your question: don't specialise.
According to the Pragmatic Programmer book, one of the tips for a good programmer is:
Invest Regularly in Your Knowledge Portfolio
Make learning a habit.
This means that you constantly have to use, or learn about, new technologies. While becoming a master in one particular technology may be rewarding, technologies come and go, today more quickly than ever. A mastery in one particular programming language, tool or API may make you a guru today, but may mean nothing tomorrow.
IIRC they also recommended developers to master several technologies, but remain versed in many - at least in the sense of having heard about them, played around with them, being able to engage in a conversation about them.
So, I would say yes - specialization is necessary, but this doesn't mean one should ignore domains outside his own.
There is no 'right answer' to this question other than maybe, 'it depends'.
You will find it easier to find better jobs if you specialise, as you call it. I would think of it more as working with a specific language/framework. Further, it is important to solve difficult problems and gain experience, irrespective of the language chosen.
Once you've accepted the above as a truism and specialised, then I would suggest that you branch out and learn new languages. Fortunately, languages become easier to learn when you have more experience.
However, more than anything, you have to look at keeping yourself interested over a long period of time. That is the real key. If you have interest, you will continue learn and gain experience. Maybe that will mean you do something that is not particularly relevant to most jobs, such as writing a language compiler. Or maybe you will find that the rush of working for big clients on big projects is more important than a specific language/framework.
So that's it - just keep interested, and keep learning. And, where possible, build focus in the thing that interests you, as that will make it easier for you to find employment going forward.
It is important to be specialized in at least one programming language/platform, especially early on in your career. By specialized i mean reading a book about it, cover to cover, and having extensive hands on experience developing for it, at work or participating in an open source project.
The idea behind this is that when you specialize in a language, you will learn many concepts that you can carry over to different languages/platforms. e.g: The master of a language can master another with relative ease.
Further on in you career being exposed to many platforms is a good thing, as you start to shift from begin a developer to a developer/architect, and you need to make decisions about which platform to use, the pros and cons of each platform and so no.
So my advice is try to master at least one language, along with its tools and frameworks. After that you can move on to different platforms. It is important to use the right platform for the current project, you will need to determine that case by case, with the assistance of a senior developer.
As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. If you feel that this question can be improved and possibly reopened, visit the help center for guidance.
Closed 10 years ago.
Coding a new 3D engine is fascinating but I there are so many out there. Is it sane for a programmer to start a new one? Are there industry sections in need?
Reasons to do it:
You want to learn about how to make a 3D engine, and don't really care if anyone but yourself uses it.
None of the existing engines do what you want and it's too much trouble to modify their source code (if you can even get it).
You have such an awesome idea and no other engine has done it so you need to do it because whatever you're doing doesn't exist yet.
Reasons not to do it:
You don't have enough of these resources: time/budget/expertise.
An existing engine fits your needs perfectly.
There are lots of reasons to build a new 3D engine (in no particular order):
The old one is a first person shooter, but you want a flight simulator.
The old one works, but isn't easy to use or has too many bugs
Someone else owns the old one
New hardware feature XYZ is fundamentally incompatible with the old engine
Someone is paying you to build one
You've never built one before.
Your game (simulation) only needs χ, but the old engine provides χ, ψ, ζ, α, β, γ, δ, and even π.
I happen to be building an OpenGL-based 3D engine in my off time right now. By implementing it myself, I'm expanding my basic knowledge of OpenGL way more than I would have by programming to someone else's interface (way more than I did when I implemented my own software affine texture mapped engine years ago). The downside is that I may never finish it :)
Generally, you code one if you have a need for one and there doesn't already exist one that suits your need.
Is there someone out there who needs an engine built for them because there doesn't exist one that suits their needs? Probably.
This is highly similar to the question should I write my own program/technology/framework X instead of using an existing one?" and that has been asked plenty, so I won't go over the usual boilerplate reasons.
While the answer to this question will always be somewhat subjective, a great deal depends on the context in which it is asked.
If it's being asked along the lines of I want to learn about game engines and rendering then it always can be beneficial to write your own game engine as developing the code is arguably the best way to learn. However, there may already exist good open sourced well documented engines to learn from as well.
If it's a commercial endeavor, then it's more of an issue of whether or not an existing engine provides what is needed. Modern commercial engines are written by some truly brilliant people and contain all the latest bells and whistles so it's more than likely they would suffice. This is evident by the sheer number of games that have been developed on two of the most popular game engines: idTech and Unreal engine. However, there still may be no tech related prohibiting factors to using an existing engine where writing your own is better. Such as if it can afford to be done, whether the engine can be licensed adequately, and, if the license can be afforded.
Closed. This question is opinion-based. It is not currently accepting answers.
Want to improve this question? Update the question so it can be answered with facts and citations by editing this post.
Closed 9 years ago.
Improve this question
So, I'm almost 100% self taught in programming (save for a course in C after I had already taught myself C). This means that to keep myself programming, I have to be constantly finding materials (i.e. tutorials) on the web (I'm poor). Unfortunately, I've found myself stuck in a sort of limbo, where I understand the basics of programming (in theory, I'm able to grab a new language and get comfortable enough to solve a few Project Euler problems, as is evident by my time spent here) but I'm not able to get any deeper than that, like GUI programming or web interfacing.
I don't know if it's just me, but there seems to be a sort of great divide in terms of the level of difficulty in the tutorials on the internet. All I can find fall under either Maddeningly Easy or Maddeningly Difficult. Are there no intermediate tutorials out there? The kind that say, okay, you've seen this before, here's some code but we'll explain what's happening. But I digress.
Given my lack of ability to breach the practicality gap in terms of programming, I find myself stagnating. I can only teach myself the first six Project Euler problems in so many languages. I need to find something, some sort of project, before my spark dies out. I'm worried about it. I know this is such a broad question, but... can anyone help me out? Point me in some sort of direction?
You need to start making things. You can start out small, but find a project that you can contribute to or that you want to work on yourself.
If you can't think of anything "useful" to make, then start writing simple games: a tetris clone, a top-down shooter, something like that. It doesn't have to have AAA graphics but even a simple game like tetris will teach a lot about the more complex structure of a program, user interface, and that sort of thing. But at the same time there's nothing so complicated than you'll get completely stuck.
Passion is not something that will die out that easily. There are tons of local user groups/developer groups that you can join to learn from them (most of them are free) To get to some of what you defined as intermediate problem, getting a job is definitely the best solution. You could work on Dave Thomas's coding kata. For difficult ones, you can do some facebook puzzles (they get real hard at the second level and up, easily take hours to days to solve)
A couple of suggestions which I might offer, as they have worked for me in the past, when in the same situation:
1) Get involved in an Open Source Project.
One of the best ways to learn programming is to read/review/refactor code created by other programmers. You learn new tricks, as well as good style guides for formatting your code in later work, and start building a good understanding of a pile of packages which you can roll together to create solutions down the track.
2) (If you aren't already) Get a Job as a Programmer.
The single greatest kind of learning experience I have had when it comes to programming is when I need to extend my skillset to solve a particular problem. Being put in a role where you are given a problem, which, when you start, is beyond your skills and then creating a solution using experimentation, sourcing existing solutions online, referring to documentation, asking a learned colleague, etc. is great. It is almost like a trade apprenticeship - you learn as you go and sooner or later you can handle 95% of the solutions autonomously.
One thing I have seen said time and time again on various blogs and forums is that trying to be highly skilled in a wide range of languages is an almost impossible challenge - it is better to pick one (or maybe two) and then practice, practice, practice to develop it's associated skillset to a great degree.
Perhaps you should start working on REAL WORLD projects for either friends or family.
This will give you positive feedback for your efforts and a sense of "acheivement" when the job is finished.
Great programming theory is all very good, but without introducing some kind of "reward cycle" I can understand how frustrated you could become.
You need to start and finish a project that's a large enough to force you to learn different things, but small enough to actually finish. Here are some ideas:
Jabber client
RSS reader
Twitter client
As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. If you feel that this question can be improved and possibly reopened, visit the help center for guidance.
Closed 11 years ago.
Are there any statistics for this? I realize it must vary from person to person, but it seems like there should be a general average.
The reason I ask is that the company I contract for has multiple software products, totaling ~75,000 lines of code - and they seemed disappointed and shocked when they ask me a question about a specific portion that I don't immediately know the answer to (I am the only programmer they have, and did not author the majority of the systems) They think I should just know it all from memory. So I wanted something like a statistic to show them that an average programmer couldn't possibly have all that in his head at one time. Or should I?
You should remember where to find the needed stuff not remember it itself.
You should also be familiar with code structure and architecture enough to make an educated guess where a problem might originate and where you could possibly find the stuff you know exist but not sure where exactly.
You brain works like cache. The stuff you used recently is kept there, more older entries are erased. But there will never be enough memory to remember the code all at once. Because then you will want to remember all API functions, then all specs, then something else. This all is not feasible.
And being surprised with you that you don't remember all the code is probably one more instance of those perversed notions of how programmers do things. Ignore them.
It depends not only on your memorization skills, but also a lot on the code. Obviously, clean, idiomatic code is much easier to memorize than a badly written inconsistent mess.
Probably because clean code can be broken down into much larger "abstract tokens".
Indeed interesting question but I am in doubt if there is adequate answer at all. Here are only obvious factors I see right from the start:
Overall design quality. Even if you are new in well designed code you can very quickly identify where you should look to get answers.
Project documentation quality. For poor documented projects even developers that are in project from the start can't say anything about some parts.
Implementation quality. OK. You have good general architecture, good documentation for interfaces but even one really bad programmer could break all of this. This is because many companies are very strict about code reviews and I think it is the only one technique to prevent such situation.
Programmer experience. As you move ahead you see number of 'already known' code "bricks" in software new to you and experience is great help in this so contractors are often very experienced specialists familiar with various approaches and this gives average contractor ability to move much faster then full time programmer which is brilliant but worked 10 years in only 1 project context.
General person smartness. My opinion this is really not so important as most of others factors but it is really important.
... but the common problem is often companies hire contractors for some existing software improvement and they simply think this is only about to hang picture on the wall. You should perform some negotiation to force them to understand part of work is to understand what really should be done to meet their requirements at all. And such "learning" requires resources and is part of work itself. But I think it is slightly off-topic for StackOverflow (despite I voted up ;) ). Is it more for Startups discussion?
Even if you have written all that code you might forget portions of it. But you'll be able to recall it once you review it.
I think its natural for a programmer to forget some portions of his/her code after a long time.
Ask them how they want you to spend your time: surveying vast amounts of code you didn't write and perhaps writing up internal documentation, or whatever currently keeps you occupied It's not a facetious question. If they want quicker response to new issues, they need to invest in research.
I don't think there's a meaningful answer to this measured in LOC. As a manager, what I want to know is that someone in your situation can answer a question in a reasonable amount of time -- and unless I know you're in the middle of something, I wouldn't expect that 'reasonable amount of time' to be 'instantaneously'.
You should be able to understand all the components within the system and how they interact so that when there is a problem you can isolate one or two likely components and drill down.
I find it helpful to draw a few diagrams and keep them handy so I can use them to communicate with my boss\customer as well as jog my memory.
As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. If you feel that this question can be improved and possibly reopened, visit the help center for guidance.
Closed 10 years ago.
I remember the old effective approach of studying a new framework. It was always the best way to read a good book on the subject, say MFC. When I tried to skip a lot of material to speed up coding it turned out later that it would be quicker to read the whole book first. There was no good ways to study a framework in small parts. Or at least I did not see them then.
The last years a lot of new things happened: improved search results from Google, programming blogs, much more people involved in Internet discussions, a lot of open source frameworks.
Right now when we write software we much often depend on third-party (usually open source) frameworks/ libraries. And a lot of times we need to know only a small amount of their functionality to use them. It's just about finding the simplest way of using a small subset of the library without unnecessary pessimizations.
What do you do to study as less as possible of the framework and still use it effectively?
For example, suppose you need to index a set of documents with Lucene. And you need to highlight search snippets. You don't care about stemmers, storing the index in one file vs. multiple files, fuzzy queries and a lot of other stuff that is going to occupy your brain if you study Lucene in depth.
So what are your strategies, approaches, tricks to save your time?
I will enumerate what I would do, though I feel that my process can be improved.
Search "lucene tutorial", "lucene highlight example" and so on. Try to estimate trust score of unofficial articles ( blog posts ) based on publishing date, the number and the tone of the comments. If there is no a definite answer - collect new search keywords and links on the target.
Search for really quick tutorials/ newbie guides on official site
Estimate how valuable are javadocs for a newbie. (Read Lucene highlight package summary)
Search for simple examples that come with a library, related to what you need. ( Study "src/demo/org/apache/lucene/demo")
Ask about "simple Lucene search highlighting example" in Lucene mail list. You can get no answer or even get a bad reputation if you ask a silly question. And often you don't know whether you question is silly because you have not studied the framework in depth.
Ask it on Stackoverflow or other QA service "could you give me a working example of search keywords highlighting in Lucene". However this question is very specific and can gain no answers or a bad score.
Estimate how easy to get the answer from the framework code if it's open sourced.
What are your study/ search routes? Write them in priority order if possible.
I use a three phase technique for evaluating APIs.
1) Discovery - In this phase I search StackOverflow, CodeProject, Google and Newsgroups with as many different combination of search phrases as possible and add everything that might fit my needs into a huge list.
2) Filter/Sort - For each item I found in my gathering phase I try to find out if it suits my needs. To do this I jump right into the API documentation and make sure it has all of the features I need. The results of this go into a weighted list with the best solutions at the top and all of the cruft filtered out.
3) Prototype - I take the top few contenders and try to do a small implementation hitting all of the important features. Whatever fits the project best here wins. If for some reason an issue comes up with the best choice during implementation, it's possible to fall back on other implementations.
Of course, a huge number of factors go into choosing the best API for the project. Some important ones:
How much will this increase the size of my distribution?
How well does the API fit with the style of my existing code?
Does it have high quality/any documentation?
Is it used by a lot of people?
How active is the community?
How active is the development team?
How responsive is the development team to bug patch requests?
Will the development team accept my patches?
Can I extend it to fit my needs?
How expensive will it be to implement overall?
... And of course many more. It's all very project dependent.
As to saving time, I would say trying to save too much here will just come back to bite you later. The time put into selecting a good library is at least as important as the time spent implementing it. Also, think down the road, in six months would you rather be happily coding or would you rather be arguing with a xenophobic dev team :). Spending a couple of extra days now doing a thorough evaluation of your choices can save a lot of pain later.
The answer to your question depends on where you fall on the continuum of generality/specificity. Do you want to solve an immediate problem? Are you looking to develop a deep understanding of the library? Chances are you’re somewhere between those extremes. Jeff Atwood has a post about how programmers move between these levels, based on their need.
When first getting started, read something on the high-level design of the framework or library (or language, or whatever technology it is), preferably by one of the designers. Try to determine what problems they are trying to address, what the organizing principles behind the design are, and what the central features are. This will form the conceptual framework from which future understanding will hang.
Now jump in to it. Create something. Do not copy and paste somebody's code. Instead, when things don’t work, read the error messages in detail, and the help on those error messages, and figure out why that error occurred. It can be frustrating, when things don’t work, but it forces you to think, and that’s when you learn.
1) Search Google for my task
2) look at examples with a few different libraries, no need to tie myself down to Lucene for example, if I don't know what other options I have.
3) Look at the date of last update on the main page, if it hasn't been updated in 6-months leave (with some exceptions)
4) Search for sample task with library (don't read tutorials yet)
5) Can I understand what's going on without a tutorial? If yes continue if no start back at 1
6) Try to implement the task
7) Watch myself fail
8) Read a tutorial
9) Try to implement the task
10) Watch myself fail and ask on StackOverflow, or mail the authors, post on user group (if friendly looking)
11) If I could get the task done, I'll consider the framework worthy of study and read up the main tutorial for 2 hours (if it doesn't fit in 2 hours I just ignore what's left until I need it)
I have no recipe, in the sense of a set of steps I always follow, that's largely because everything I learn is different. Some things are radically new to me (Dojo for example, I have no fluency in Java script so that's a big task), some just enhancements of previous knowledge (Iknow EJB 2 well, so learning EJB 3 while on the surface is new with all its annotations, its building on concepts.)
My general strategy though is I'd describe as "Spiral and Park". I try to circle the landscape first, understand the general shape, I Park concepts that I don't get just yet, don't let it worry me. Then i go a little deeper into some areas, but again try not to get obsessed with one, Spiralling down into the subject. Hopefully I start to unpark and understand, but also need to park more things.
Initially I want answers to questions such as:
What's it for?
Why would I use this rather than that other thing I already know
What's possible? Any interesting sweet spots. "Eg. ooh look at that nice AJAX-driven update"
I do a great deal of skim reading.
Then I want to do more exploring on the hows. I start to look for gotchas and good advice. (Eg. in java: why is "wibble".equals(var) a useful construct?)
Specific techniques and information sources:
Most important: doing! As early as possible I want to work a tutorial or two. I probably have to get the first circuit of the spiral done, but then I want to touch and experiment.
Overview documents
Product documents
Forums and discussion groups, learning by answering questions is my favourite technique.
if at all possible I try to find gurus. I'm fortunate in having in my immediate colleagues a wealth of knowledge and experience.
Quick-start guides.
A quick look at the API documentation if available.
Reading sample codes.
Messing around YOU HAVE TO MESS AROUND (sorry for the caps).
If it's a small library/API with a small or no community you can always contact the developer himself and ask for help 'cause he'll probably be more than happy to help you; he's happy that one more person is using his API.
Mailing lists are a great resource as long as you do your homework first before asking questions.
Mailing list archives are invaluable for most of the questions I've had on CoreAudio related stuff.
I would never read javadoc. As there often is none. And when there is, most likely it isnt up to date. So one gets confused at the best.
Start with the simplest possible tutorial you find within some minutes.
Often the tutorial will lead you to further sources at the end, so then most of the time one is on a path that goes on and on, deeper and deeper.
It really depends on what the topic is and how much info is on it. Learning by example is a good way to start a topic brand new to you, especially if you're knowledgeable in other similar libraries or languages. You can take a topic you're familiar with, and say "I understand how to implement using X, lets see how it's done using Y".
So what are your strategies, approaches, tricks to save your time?
Well, I search. I generally never ask questions, preferring to research myself. If worse comes to worse I'll read the documentation. In some cases (say, when I was doing some work with SharpSVN) I had to look at the source, specifically the test cases, to get some information about how the API worked.
Generally, I have to be honest, most of my 'study' and 'learning' is by accident.
For example, just a few seconds ago, I discovered how to get the "Recent" folder in C#. I had no idea how to do that before seeing the question, considering it interesting, and then searching.
So for me the real 'trick' is that I hang around on forums, answer questions, and accidentally pick up knowledge. Then when it comes time for me to research something; chances are I know a bit about it, and searching is easier and I can focus on the implementation [typically implementing a test program first] and progressing from there.