The Big Programming Thread - Page 363

On October 01 2013 07:44 RoyGBiv_13 wrote:
cross post from HN today that is relevant to the topic of the Big Programming Thread's weekly programming language + Show Spoiler + discussion.
http://pastebin.com/ed1pP9Ak

Doesn't really matter what language you start with, or targeting which platforms or structures. Like most things in life, hours put in programming varies directly with the competence and skill of the programmer. What really matters most is learning how to learn.
Chances are, if you don't put in the effort required to excel, you'll end up somewhere in software middle-management.

It is now time to conclude this long-winded rant. I would like to end with a piece of advice for those who are thinking of becoming a software engineer. My advice would be - do not become a "software engineer". I know there is a lot of demand right now, but 1) the demand won't last forever; 2) most of the "software engineer" jobs are boring as shit.

If you really like programming, try to specialize. Like algorithms? You can be a computer scientist. You can become a systems programmer and develop OS internals. Try digging through Linux source code. If you're into programming languages, you can get into writing compilers. I hear LLVM is amazing. If you like graphics, dust off those math books and get good OpenGL tutorial. Whatever you do, don't just be a generic "software engineer". It sucks bad.

On October 01 2013 07:15 Abominous wrote:

Nobody stops him from taking interest in artificial intelligence, theoretical computer science, computer security or any other specialisation within CS.

It's just that most programming jobs require CS degrees, so most students go there to grab a degree and find a job so the unis adapted.

Personally, I'm all for a more scientific approach and as someone mentioned earlier writing down those "old" programs in C was a tremendous effort and I'm not a fan of programming nowadays, it has lost its charm, almost everyone can do it with these higher level languages and low understanding of the depth behind it leading to unoptimized applications because of deadlines and a market where a good GUI is more valuable than the product itself. Back in the days, programming had scientific background, now kids fresh out of high school are typing lines of code knowing what it does but not why and how. Face it, programming has become trivial.


EDIT: All of the above is the reason I personally dislike programming nowadays, I'm more of a science nerd as you can see, but to be fair, it's not all bad news with the changes I mentioned above.

On September 30 2013 18:30 CorsairHero wrote:

Why not just get 2 24" 1200p monitors? 27 seems like overkill unless the screen is quite far away..

On October 01 2013 08:53 Blisse wrote:


My workplace has dual mirrored 27" and I often find myself wanting the other 27" for random stuff like design assets, reference or using the emulator. Plus, my current monitors have the worst colour reproduction I've ever experienced which makes any sort of design work a huge question mark.

I finally feel like I'm at the point where I legitimately have a reason to get bigger monitors rather than just wanting something more.

On October 01 2013 07:46 Kambing wrote:


Those two sentences contradict each other. If kids are writing code that they don't understand, then programming is far from trivial. What can be said is that, we're still learning how to effectively teach it when the ground underneath us changes rapidly.

On October 01 2013 15:03 Abominous wrote:

They understand the code, not the work behind it. And in todays world, 90% of programmers do not need to understand what's going on behind and why.

On October 01 2013 15:03 Abominous wrote:

They understand the code, not the work behind it. And in todays world, 90% of programmers do not need to understand what's going on behind and why.

On October 01 2013 15:50 Manit0u wrote:
Heh, you guys have it good. Discussing C and Java as learning platforms...

When I was in highschool they forced us to learn in Turbo Pascal, what an atrocity this was. I had to learn some C myself, then moved on to C++ and LPC. Personally, I think that it doesn't really matter what will be your first programming language, as long as you learn it well switching to and learning others will be much easier (most of the time, I'd very much love to get into Python but I love my braces too much, even though I understand how it works I refuse to do it the "python way"). Although python might be great for beginners since it's relatively easy to learn and it at least teaches you proper code formatting (and there's nothing worse than having to work with someone who is very poor at that).

On October 01 2013 11:26 ObliviousNA wrote:
I just got twin U2713hms. Yes they're expensive, but they're practically orgasmic to code on. SO much screen space it's ridiculous. Excellent color, crisp text. You need good eyes with win7 DPI scaling though. The ones I got from Amazon (mini sale last week, 600 instead of 630) were revision A00 July '13, totally defect free. They seem to have fixed their QC issues, at least for their distribution centers delivering to CA.

I'd recommend them to anyone doing serious coding, if they can afford it.

My monitors:
+ Show Spoiler +

On October 02 2013 08:28 billy5000 wrote:
Like many others, my school uses java also. I've learned some languages that are more suitable for the web (php, node.js), but now I'm looking for an all-purpose language for everyday tasks and ideas. I actually wouldn't mind java for this, but having some experience with other "more up-to-date" languages such as scala and python, java doesn't cut it for me. It's just not an elegant language--the same reason why I'm not looking to pick up C for a general purpose language. And the reason why I'm not continuing with python is that the code can get really funky when you want to implement algorithms in its idiomatic way (also, I'm still not used to looking at a heavily nested code with just indents).

So far I thinking about Go, but I was wondering if you guys had other suggestions.

On October 01 2013 15:21 Tobberoth wrote:

Just like programmers in the old days didn't have to know exactly how a CPU is wired electronically.

It's just another level of abstraction. It gives more power to programmers at lesser cost, but the actual problem-solving is the same. One the one hand, you can be pissed that someone can, for example, make a flash game more advanced that NES games with less than half the knowledge of the people making the actual NES games... on the other hand, you can appreciate that the programmers of those days could not make modern games with the tools at hand.

Yeah, simple shit is easier to make today, but the difference between a bad and good programmer isn't shown in simple things. The level you have to perform at to be considered a really good programmer today has simply been raised, it's not enough to be able to do some sweet optimization on a sorting algorithm, you have to be able to juggle big code bases and far more calculations per second.

package de.vogella.algorithms.sort.quicksort;

public class Quicksort  {
  private int[] numbers;
  private int number;

  public void sort(int[] values) {
    if (values ==null || values.length==0){
      return;
    }
    this.numbers = values;
    number = values.length;
    quicksort(0, number - 1);
  }

  private void quicksort(int low, int high) {
    int i = low, j = high;
    int pivot = numbers[low + (high-low)/2];

    while (i <= j) {
      while (numbers[i] < pivot) {
        i++;
      }
      while (numbers[j] > pivot) {
        j--;
      }

      if (i <= j) {
        exchange(i, j);
        i++;
        j--;
      }
    }

    if (low < j)
      quicksort(low, j);
    if (i < high)
      quicksort(i, high);
  }

  private void exchange(int i, int j) {
    int temp = numbers[i];
    numbers[i] = numbers[j];
    numbers[j] = temp;
  }
} 

qsort (p:xs) = qsort [x | x<-xs, x<p] ++ [p] ++ qsort [x | x<-xs, x>=p]

quicksort (p:xs) = (quicksort lesser) ++ [p] ++ (quicksort greater)
    where
        lesser  = filter (< p) xs
        greater = filter (>= p) xs

class HelloWorldApp {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.println("Hello World!"); // Display the string.
    }
}

main() {
    printf("Hello World");
}

putStrLn "Hello, World!"

On October 02 2013 09:52 sluggaslamoo wrote:


Then why start with Java. Why not use Haskell?

1. Its a "higher level of abstraction" to Java.
2. You can write things with less code.
3. You can problem solve better with Haskell
4. You don't have to worry about memory management as much as Java

...