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Yes er No | 543 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Yes er No
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 23 2012 @ 02:46 PM EDT
Computer Languages come and go. I myself have written in many - so many in fact that there are very few that I can sit down and instantly code on. (C being the exception)

Having said this - I am very productive in pretty much ANY computer language you place in front of me. I am productive because computer programming concepts and the math/science behind computer programming has remained constant for the 30 years I have written code.

So - you need this in Java? Give me a book and some examples of code - I can write what you want. Note: I have written video streaming software in Java

So - you need this in assembly? ... I can do this ... Note: I have written IBM 360/370 code, 6502, 80586 code, and 68XXX code

In fact by NOT specializing and being stuck to a language - I have made myself very employable.

I made a $$$ killing with COBOL and Y2K


Another note: As a manager, this is also what I look for in a potential employee. I look for someone who is not afraid to pick up a book and teach themselves a language. Someone who is successful no matter what is placed in front of them. Someone who likes the challenge, rather than the language.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Yes
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 23 2012 @ 03:10 PM EDT
It takes me approximately 2 hours to be proficient enough in a completely new
language that I can write nontrivial programs mostly unassisted.

This new language would need to not be similar to any of the following for it to
be completely new: C, C++, D, C#, Java, JavaScript, SQL, Python, Pascal, Perl,
Ruby, PHP, x86 Assembly, PROLOG, COBOL, and several dozen other languages I have
written in the past.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

  • Yes - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 23 2012 @ 03:39 PM EDT
Yes
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 23 2012 @ 04:33 PM EDT
The first computer language might take two or three years to learn.

The second one might take a couple of months to learn.

If, in learning those languages, one also learned how to program, then one
should be at least in intermediate level prograamer, after training for one
week, in one's third andvsubsequent languages.

However, if one did not learn how to program, then the third and
subsequent languages will take months, if not years to learn.

Unfortunately 'educational institutions' do not teach programming, when
teaching a computer language. Instead, they produce the programming
equivalent of _Certirfied Mine Sweeper_.


[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Yes
Authored by: blaisepascal on Wednesday, May 23 2012 @ 04:58 PM EDT
I have taken many classes which expect you to learn a new
language within a couple of weeks.

An example: The AI class I took in college had all the
programming done in lisp. Lisp was not a prerequisite for
the course, nor was the course about lisp. It's just that
lisp had the best idioms/tools necessary to teach AI the way
it was taught in that course. So you were expected to pick
up enough lisp to learn the course material and do the
assignments by the time the first assignment is due.

I also took a course which was a comparative programming
language course. Over a 15 week course, we had coursework
and assignments in Pascal, Java, ML, Scheme, Prolog, C, and
perhaps a couple of others, contrasting imperative, object
oriented, functional, and declarative languages. You would
fail the class if you weren't able to get the hang of each
language in the week or two it was discussed.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Yes
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 23 2012 @ 09:58 PM EDT
Writing software is easy. Writing software that: works, does what it is designed to do, and doesn't do what it isn't designed to do takes years of learning, skill, and practice.
A computer language itself it just semantics. The skill needed to develop any software or systems is in understanding the functional needs your working to fullfill, in defining the architecture behind your system, in the management and handling of the requirements and the development process itself. Such issues are largely language agnostic and resolving the above is the only way that any software or system can be released and meet all expectations. The coding itself, though it can be complex, is the easy stuff in the bigger picture.

Unfortunately the development process is often cut down which is why we always have updates and buggy systems that keep us employed.

Heck, it sounds just like the legal system with updates and bugs leading to appeals moving all the way to the SCOTUS.

At the end, it's SSDD.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Engineering classes, not CS
Authored by: artp on Wednesday, May 23 2012 @ 10:53 PM EDT
I remember a grad class that required me to learn CDC Cyber
Interactive Fortran. My brain exploded before I learned it.
Scratch that one! It was worse than trying to learn whatever
language that mainframes (IBM and HP3000) speak, and far
worse than making the leap from standalone PCs to networked
systems.

Engineering (at the U that I attended) was notorious for
assuming that the student could learn a new language in
order to do the assignments.

"As is intuitively obvious to the most casual observer...."

---
Userfriendly on WGA server outage:
When you're chained to an oar you don't think you should go down when the galley
sinks ?

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Begging yer pardon, but...
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 24 2012 @ 05:25 AM EDT
I've never seen a class that expects students to learn a language in a week. Total hooey. Any school propounding you can learn a language in a week isn't worthy of giving out programming degrees.
MIT isn't worthy of giving out degrees? Go watch the lecture videos for 6.001; they teach the fundamentals of LISP in the first hour or so.
MIT 6.001 Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, Lecture 1A. 1 hour, 12 minutes.
Memorising all the functions available in your particular flavour of LISP will take longer, naturally, but after that first class you should be able to write pretty simple programs.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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