Being a rock star programmer
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ihoecken wrote:
But there is more than reading code.
If you re-read the original post, you will see that it does not say that reading code is the ONLY way. It says that reading code is the best way.
Yes I read it. But when it says "reading code is the best way" then I think I just have to read good code, analyse it and then start it for myself. But there is more to do. You can easy learn programming without reading good code, but you the most can't easy learn programming just with reading good code. So, I say: this isn't the best way! Greetings, Ingo ------------------------------ PROST Roleplaying Game War doesn't determine who's right. War determines who's left.
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The best way to improve is to study code that is better than your own. Read good code written by experts, in a variety of programming languages. Study it until you understand how it works and what makes it good. That's it.
The One Tip That Rules Them All[^] The IronMonkey claims that the one tip to being a better programmer is the above. To read good code. Anyone care to agree or disagree? (And you can skip his waffle at the begining of the post.) regards, Paul Watson Ireland Feed Henry! K(arl) wrote: oh, and BTW, CHRISTIAN ISN'T A PARADOX, HE IS A TASMANIAN!
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doDo what I did today: I managed to have a C++ destructor recursively call itself. This Is A Bad Thing. :sigh:
Software Zen:
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The best way to improve is to study code that is better than your own. Read good code written by experts, in a variety of programming languages. Study it until you understand how it works and what makes it good. That's it.
The One Tip That Rules Them All[^] The IronMonkey claims that the one tip to being a better programmer is the above. To read good code. Anyone care to agree or disagree? (And you can skip his waffle at the begining of the post.) regards, Paul Watson Ireland Feed Henry! K(arl) wrote: oh, and BTW, CHRISTIAN ISN'T A PARADOX, HE IS A TASMANIAN!
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doWhat are we talking about, coding, programming or software engineering? And what are they? And how do you measure them? Coding: The act of writing code. What is good and bad code? Good layout? Efficient use of stack or heap regarding variable declaration? Good choice of variable and function names so the code reads well? Or speed? Refining an algorithm to perfection? Developing good, logical algorithm? Or is it writing maintenable code? Programming: Is it the same as coding? Is it understanding the platform? Software engineering: Designing the architecture? Modularising the code into logical, reusable chunks? All well and good, but if the customer doesnt like it it is all wasted efort. Getting the product out on time at the right quality and the right price is the only criteria. Nunc est bibendum
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Do what I did today: I managed to have a C++ destructor recursively call itself. This Is A Bad Thing. :sigh:
Software Zen:
delete this;Quite appropriate to your sig then. Trying to think of an instance, already destructed, that is meant to call it's own destructor... regards, Paul Watson Ireland Feed Henry! K(arl) wrote: oh, and BTW, CHRISTIAN ISN'T A PARADOX, HE IS A TASMANIAN!
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do -
What are we talking about, coding, programming or software engineering? And what are they? And how do you measure them? Coding: The act of writing code. What is good and bad code? Good layout? Efficient use of stack or heap regarding variable declaration? Good choice of variable and function names so the code reads well? Or speed? Refining an algorithm to perfection? Developing good, logical algorithm? Or is it writing maintenable code? Programming: Is it the same as coding? Is it understanding the platform? Software engineering: Designing the architecture? Modularising the code into logical, reusable chunks? All well and good, but if the customer doesnt like it it is all wasted efort. Getting the product out on time at the right quality and the right price is the only criteria. Nunc est bibendum
So you have no opinion then? regards, Paul Watson Ireland Feed Henry! K(arl) wrote: oh, and BTW, CHRISTIAN ISN'T A PARADOX, HE IS A TASMANIAN!
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The best way to improve is to study code that is better than your own. Read good code written by experts, in a variety of programming languages. Study it until you understand how it works and what makes it good. That's it.
The One Tip That Rules Them All[^] The IronMonkey claims that the one tip to being a better programmer is the above. To read good code. Anyone care to agree or disagree? (And you can skip his waffle at the begining of the post.) regards, Paul Watson Ireland Feed Henry! K(arl) wrote: oh, and BTW, CHRISTIAN ISN'T A PARADOX, HE IS A TASMANIAN!
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doThey're both right.
- You need good tools - if you spend all your time fighting with your tools, you won't spend time improving your skills.
- You need to be a bit introspective - if you can't look critically at your own output and the practices that led to it, you won't be motivated to improve.
- You need to find and recognize work that is better than your own. Looking only at your own code, it's too easy to become blind to alternative ways of doing things better. And if you never read code in languages other than what you use, you'll find it hard to break out of the mindset that your language was written towards.
I was glad to see "#4 Don't learn APIs too well" - as bad as it is to find someone wasting effort re-implementing something that their platform already provides, it's almost as bad to find someone unwilling to attempt a task because their API of choice doesn't provide a clear path to it, or using a convoluted program structure in order to fit with some API or framework (MFC doc/view, i'm looking at you). If you approach a problem with the idea that you'll be writing your own API and then save time by finding bits that are already done, you'll be far happier and more productive.
---- Scripts i've known... CPhog 0.9.9 - make CP better. Forum Bookmark 0.2.5 - bookmark forum posts on Pensieve Print forum 0.1.1 - printer-friendly forums
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The best way to improve is to study code that is better than your own. Read good code written by experts, in a variety of programming languages. Study it until you understand how it works and what makes it good. That's it.
The One Tip That Rules Them All[^] The IronMonkey claims that the one tip to being a better programmer is the above. To read good code. Anyone care to agree or disagree? (And you can skip his waffle at the begining of the post.) regards, Paul Watson Ireland Feed Henry! K(arl) wrote: oh, and BTW, CHRISTIAN ISN'T A PARADOX, HE IS A TASMANIAN!
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doOne must know the client or it would be like knowing a language in another country, but not knowing the culture. It also implies that you could become a master chief by just reading a cook book which is clearly not the case. We have a validation error here (-: David David
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The best way to improve is to study code that is better than your own. Read good code written by experts, in a variety of programming languages. Study it until you understand how it works and what makes it good. That's it.
The One Tip That Rules Them All[^] The IronMonkey claims that the one tip to being a better programmer is the above. To read good code. Anyone care to agree or disagree? (And you can skip his waffle at the begining of the post.) regards, Paul Watson Ireland Feed Henry! K(arl) wrote: oh, and BTW, CHRISTIAN ISN'T A PARADOX, HE IS A TASMANIAN!
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doReading good code is meaningless. For someone without talent it is as Solomon once said "a chasing after the wind...". Without ability it cannot be done. Without desire there is no need to do it. Being a rock start programmer requires three things: 1. Talent 2. Ability 3. Desire If you have the talent with the ability driven by desire you will become a rock star programmer. Regards, John McPherson "Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Arthur C. Clark, inventor of the telecommunications satellite
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Troposphere wrote:
Nobody said that reading good code would turn just anybody into a good programmer. It is a given that the advice refers to people who are already programmers, have significant talent, AND have the motivation to improve their skills.
No of course not. But there is more than reading code. You need background information. Programming is like writing not only practice. There is a theoretical part. Of course there are writers and programmers who learned it just by reading, but the most have to do more. Otherwise nobody would have to go to a university. Greetings, Ingo ------------------------------ PROST Roleplaying Game War doesn't determine who's right. War determines who's left. -- modified at 8:26 Thursday 30th March, 2006
I Would agree 100%...i have never been to school for programing and i have a good job doing it www.aes4you.com[^] I was in prison for 5 years and i taught myself by reading books. I got out April 1st (perfect day lol) and got a job within a few months of being out...not because of a degree but because i have read so much code and so many books that I just know what im doing. I can program in 12 languages profesionaly, and know enough of others that i could use them profesionaly givin a short amount of time to review them. Pablo
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The best way to improve is to study code that is better than your own. Read good code written by experts, in a variety of programming languages. Study it until you understand how it works and what makes it good. That's it.
The One Tip That Rules Them All[^] The IronMonkey claims that the one tip to being a better programmer is the above. To read good code. Anyone care to agree or disagree? (And you can skip his waffle at the begining of the post.) regards, Paul Watson Ireland Feed Henry! K(arl) wrote: oh, and BTW, CHRISTIAN ISN'T A PARADOX, HE IS A TASMANIAN!
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doI'm not sure that counts as a ROCK star programmer. I mean, rock is all about being loud and a little bit crazy. So pristine perfect code doesn't seem very rock n roll to me.... And I'm pretty sure to be a rock star programmer you would have to code in all caps to emphasize the loudness. And a punk rock programmer would be all about the open source "do it yourself" languages. I could go on all day with this stuff.... ;)
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The best way to improve is to study code that is better than your own. Read good code written by experts, in a variety of programming languages. Study it until you understand how it works and what makes it good. That's it.
The One Tip That Rules Them All[^] The IronMonkey claims that the one tip to being a better programmer is the above. To read good code. Anyone care to agree or disagree? (And you can skip his waffle at the begining of the post.) regards, Paul Watson Ireland Feed Henry! K(arl) wrote: oh, and BTW, CHRISTIAN ISN'T A PARADOX, HE IS A TASMANIAN!
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doI agree completely. If you read the paragraph, the fifth word is IMPROVE. There's nothing about beginning. What I take from this is simply never stop trying to improve. I do this all the time. I spend hours every week downloading code from various sites to see how other people do things. Someone mention in another message that going back to your old code doesn't help. I disagree. By going back to your old code you have the chance to implement what you're learned. Not only that, you can't learn something from the code unless you actually step through it. Just reading a snippet will give you the structure of the language. But it will not show you exactly what it does. To do that you have to fire it up and step through the code. That's where actually using it reinforces the concept.
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The best way to improve is to study code that is better than your own. Read good code written by experts, in a variety of programming languages. Study it until you understand how it works and what makes it good. That's it.
The One Tip That Rules Them All[^] The IronMonkey claims that the one tip to being a better programmer is the above. To read good code. Anyone care to agree or disagree? (And you can skip his waffle at the begining of the post.) regards, Paul Watson Ireland Feed Henry! K(arl) wrote: oh, and BTW, CHRISTIAN ISN'T A PARADOX, HE IS A TASMANIAN!
adapted from toxcct:
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do -
I believe in the age old phrase: practice makes perfect e.g. -Write code -Work out how that code could be written better -Repeat '--8<------------------------ Ex Datis: Duncan Jones Merrion Computing Ltd
I third that.. You can only learn so much from code examples. Because code clips written by top people are not always the way I or you would write it, in other words a function could be wrote a billion different ways …with the same return. Who cares if it has 1 less line of code or runs 0.098 nanoseconds faster. The important part for me is knowing how it works and how it could be modified if needed in the future, and if optimization is required I will do that (time permitting.. no pun intended). There is also satisfaction knowing you wrote that. Don't get me wrong, I use code clips that are written by others also, this saves a lot of time and who want's to recreate the wheel on some of these low level routines. Question: Have you ever came back to something you wrote months earlier and said.. I didn’t write this… this looks like something off Albert Einstein's chalk board (not that I'm at his level but just the opposite I don't ever understand his chalk board)… stuff that looks completely foreign with cryptic notes. I have spent hours sometimes trying to figure out what I did. Conclusion: Write Code, Write more code, Edit code, Modify code, Fix Code, and Optimize code. That's how you become a good programmer by doing it!
