EPTThe Big Programming Thread - Page 230
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Thread Rules 1. This is not a "do my homework for me" thread. If you have specific questions, ask, but don't post an assignment or homework problem and expect an exact solution. 2. No recruiting for your cockamamie projects (you won't replace facebook with 3 dudes you found on the internet and $20) 3. If you can't articulate why a language is bad, don't start slinging shit about it. Just remember that nothing is worse than making CSS IE6 compatible. 4. Use [code] tags to format code blocks. | ||
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lannisport
878 Posts
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white_horse
1019 Posts
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SgtCoDFish
United Kingdom1520 Posts
On January 14 2013 11:55 white_horse wrote: I'm planning on taking a summer course in web programming and web database, but which language do you think I should learn first? HTML, php, apache, etc. or does it not matter? I have C++ programming experience. If you're wanting to do web programming, you'll REALLY want to know HTML (and CSS). Make sure you're learning modern stuff; there are older guides out there which will guide you wrong. If they're using tables for anything but showing tabular data, it's probably a bad guide. Then JavaScript is an important web language and would also be helpful. But that's not so important. If you're looking at databases, the no.1 thing you need to know is SQL. You need to understand how it looks and how to use it. Other than that there's a plethora of languages being used nowadays, and I can't really advise you to learn any one (other than HTML/CSS/SQL and a bit of JS, which are all worth knowing). People will argue fanatically about the benefits and negatives of any one language and it can be hard to get sense out of them. I'm not so up to date with cutting edge web dev, so I'll stop here. GL! | ||
tofucake
Hyrule19228 Posts
On January 14 2013 11:55 white_horse wrote: I'm planning on taking a summer course in web programming and web database, but which language do you think I should learn first? HTML, php, apache, etc. or does it not matter? I have C++ programming experience. HTML is required for any website. Your C++ experience will help you in PHP, but it doesn't all transfer over easily. Apache is almost entirely relegated to configuration of the server. You can do some funky stuff with it but that stuff is kind of useless if you can't make a website in the first place. Go with HTML, imo. | ||
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Craton
United States17295 Posts
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white_horse
1019 Posts
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icystorage
Jollibee19350 Posts
How was your first job as a software engineer? Was there any pressure? Were you afraid? Any realizations? I am a graduating student of CS and majored in software engineering, I had my internship and I thought it was okay but now I'm afraid. I'm afraid of not meeting expectations and I'm not confident about my knowledge and skills. How is it at the entry-level? | ||
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clickrush
Switzerland3257 Posts
On January 14 2013 16:43 icystorage wrote: I have a question for you guys. How was your first job as a software engineer? Was there any pressure? Were you afraid? Any realizations? I am a graduating student of CS and majored in software engineering, I had my internship and I thought it was okay but now I'm afraid. I'm afraid of not meeting expectations and I'm not confident about my knowledge and skills. How is it at the entry-level? This sounds like: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome It is normal to have those feelings and they probably won't go away for some time at least. But don't take them too seriously. Just be passionate, work hard and be nice to other people. It worked for alot of us so far  | ||
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phar
United States1080 Posts
Also, to a large extent, you shouldn't be confident of your knowledge and skills, because right of Uni you frankly don't really have much in the way of knowledge or skills. That's ok. Nobody does. Being confident of knowledge and skills that you don't actually have is a good way to stop learning, get stuck in a rut, never improve, and generally leave a bad impression on your peers. What you do have (or should have) is some good fundamentals (grab bag of algorithms and data structures), the beginnings of the right mindset for programming/design, and the skill of how to learn stuff. That's basically all Uni is teaching you - how to learn stuff, and in particular for CS, how to learn complicated shit fast by breaking it into pieces. You'll learn basically everything important on the job. Just don't be afraid to ask questions even if you think it sounds stupid. Hell, my co-workers and I still always ask questions that sound stupid, and some have been in the industry 10++ years. It's ok, it doesn't matter. Keep an open mind, accept that other people are going to know a lot more than you for awhile (depending on your employer I guess), and try to learn as much as possible. | ||
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Ruscour
5233 Posts
I've been doing this teaching someone programming but it'd be nicer in something lighter than Visual Studio. | ||
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adwodon
United Kingdom592 Posts
On January 14 2013 16:43 icystorage wrote: I have a question for you guys. How was your first job as a software engineer? Was there any pressure? Were you afraid? Any realizations? I am a graduating student of CS and majored in software engineering, I had my internship and I thought it was okay but now I'm afraid. I'm afraid of not meeting expectations and I'm not confident about my knowledge and skills. How is it at the entry-level? About 3 months as a Junior Software Engineer here, working mainly in C for a company that makes graphics / capture cards. I didn't graduate as a CS student, I have an MSci Physics and did Java / C++ on my course and did some stuff in Python in my spare time and after I graduated ( like the edX AI course ). I don't know what you'll know, probably a considerable amount more than me but it doesn't really matter. As long as you understand the basics well enough to pass an interview you'll be fine. The majority of what you'll likely be doing, if my experience is anything to go by, will simply be based around learning the software you're working with. You won't be thrown in the deep end, rather be tasked with relatively straight forward stuff ( making dialogues in windows for instance ), which expose you to a lot of the software so you can learn how it all fits together without needing to know the serious stuff. You won't be expected to write any complex code or crazy new algorithms, rather reuse stuff that's already in existence and implement it in a straight forward manner ( reuse is important ). You'll have to learn a lot about the tools of the trade, source safe / windbg or whatever your company uses. Some of which I'm sure you'll know but there will be little extras to pick up on. You'll be expected to code to their style so I would look not only at what their code does but how its written. Nothing is worse than a team of people all with different coding styles, if you don't like their style, tough, its not your decision. Don't be afraid to ask questions, people should help you, and eventually you should learn who's best to go to for the type of problem. For instance, I go to the previous new guy for basics and when I know I've made a stupid mistake because he was in a similar position not to long ago and seems to be able to identify them quickly. However try to avoid asking the same questions, or requiring help for the same problems, you are expected to make mistakes, but you're expected to learn from them. Oh and if your company doesn't provide you with one, get a notepad, a small one and an A4 one. The small one for taking quick rough notes when speaking to people, and an A4 one for writing down more detailed things, and ideas about what you're going to be doing. Coding shouldn't be your priority, you need to think about what you're going to do before you do it, although as someone with little experience you will probably be a bit clueless before you start coding ( at least I was, I never understand what I'm doing until I'm halfway through writing it ). Of course I have no experience of Agile or web stuff, so everything I've said could be completely wrong. If you give us an idea of what you'll be doing maybe someone else can give you a better idea. I know I feel a lot more confident now, I look back at the stuff I did before I started here and I wonder how the hell I managed to do anything ( I had no clue how to use a debugger properly for instance ). Don't worry about feeling like you know nothing, if you can pass an interview you know enough, that's what they're for. If not, its their fault for hiring you, not your fault. | ||
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icystorage
Jollibee19350 Posts
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KaiserJohan
Sweden1808 Posts
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Gowerly
United Kingdom916 Posts
On January 14 2013 16:43 icystorage wrote: I have a question for you guys. How was your first job as a software engineer? Was there any pressure? Were you afraid? Any realizations? I am a graduating student of CS and majored in software engineering, I had my internship and I thought it was okay but now I'm afraid. I'm afraid of not meeting expectations and I'm not confident about my knowledge and skills. How is it at the entry-level? My "Software Experience" is in making games. So, naturally, I was afraid. I was made to feel quite welcome, though, and generally you're given starting tasks that are there to judge your skill levels. You should be given work that will help you improve your skills. My biggest realisation from it all was that your programming skills are not quite as important as your problem solving ability, and you'll do better the more you're able to spot edge cases in designs and your own code (basically bug mitigation). Granted that, with games, you're spending more time dealing with other people's APIs. However, the principles are generally similar. In general, though, you will find out whether this is the career for you within a few months. You either love it or you hate it. | ||
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Tobberoth
Sweden6375 Posts
On January 14 2013 16:43 icystorage wrote: I have a question for you guys. How was your first job as a software engineer? Was there any pressure? Were you afraid? Any realizations? I am a graduating student of CS and majored in software engineering, I had my internship and I thought it was okay but now I'm afraid. I'm afraid of not meeting expectations and I'm not confident about my knowledge and skills. How is it at the entry-level? Depends on the job you get, but if you're entry level, you're not going to get something which requires experience anyway, so relax. Like others have said, whats important is how you solve problems, and you capacity to learn new things. When I got my job, I had zero experience with C# and ASP.NET, which I was told immediately would be what I would work with. I got 1 week to learn it, which was enough because that's what you learn in university, to study. Also, obviously, what was required of me was reasonable considering my experience on the subject, I wasn't expected to go into really complex code deep in the codebase in the start, but instead got to work with separated modules a little bit at a time. When you have a fulltime job doing something, you get into the groove pretty quickly, so I wouldn't worry about it. | ||
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lepape
Canada557 Posts
Realistically speaking, if someone starts in a Computer Science program in his late 20's, with no prior programming knowledge whatsoever and with average skills in maths, what's his chance of doing as well as other students and becoming an above average programmer? (and I mean without studying 120 hours a week trying to catch up) | ||
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Tobberoth
Sweden6375 Posts
On January 15 2013 00:32 lepape wrote: Short question : Realistically speaking, if someone starts in a Computer Science program in his late 20's, with no prior programming knowledge whatsoever and with average skills in maths, what's his chance of doing as well as other students and becoming an above average programmer? (and I mean without studying 120 hours a week trying to catch up) Just fine, depending on the CS program. Programming actually has very little to do with math in most areas. If you're coding drivers etc in C, you might need math to optimize algorithms etc, and if you program video games, you need math for graphics/physics, but if you just work on company applications, web applications, databases etc, math is quite irrelevant, it's all about general problem solving. As for prior programming knowledge, most CS programs probably have introductory courses which are good enough to get you going, at least if you're a veteran computer user, which pretty much any young person today is. I'd say any person who is interested in becoming a programmer can do so without much issue. Question is of course what you define as an "above average programmer". | ||
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ShoCkeyy
7815 Posts
+ Show Spoiler + Just playing, I'm about to start school again and want to see which field I should go into. My current experience is mostly front end developing (HTML, CSS, PHP, JS, jQuery, MySQL). Was thinking of going into a class where I can possibly learn backend developing and my skills to a better level. I'm thinking some along the lines of either Computer Engineering - something I can learn more about PHP, C#, C++, ASP.NET, ASP, AJAX and so on. | ||
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DumJumJmyWum
United States75 Posts
On January 14 2013 11:55 white_horse wrote: I'm planning on taking a summer course in web programming and web database, but which language do you think I should learn first? HTML, php, apache, etc. or does it not matter? I have C++ programming experience. I recently got into the field of web programming and got a job doing web stuff (both front end and back end). I would highly recommend "HTML and CSS: Design and Build Websites" by Jon Duckett. It's pretty new and up to date, not to long, and easy to read. For javascript, I read "Modern JavaScript: Develop and Design" by Larry E. Ullman For php I read the Murach book. I think the Murach series books are pretty good. | ||
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PizzaParty
Canada169 Posts
http://kotaku.com/5975610/the-exceptional-beauty-of-doom-3s-source-code Also made me discover this guy's site http://fabiensanglard.net/ | ||
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