How do I become a super programmer?

Christian Graus

Stands for Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Christian Graus - Microsoft MVP - C++ Metal Musings - Rex and my new metal blog

Christian Graus

Hockey wrote:

KISS

I listen to KISS sometimes, I don't find it improves my code :P

Christian Graus - Microsoft MVP - C++ Metal Musings - Rex and my new metal blog

Matt Gullett

Some of the responses you have received seem a little harsh in my mind. Shooting for the stars and having dreams is rarely a bad thing. It sounds like you have a passion for programming and truly desire to be "great" at it. Some more established programmers may feel that your dream is unreasonable and unattainable (a fantasy) partly due to their personal experiences. I for one don't think that at all. There are a few truly super programmers out there, but most of us are merely good at what we do, and some are just abysmal. There are many reasons for this, but few of them are technical. The reason people become "super" at anything has to do with something inside them, not necessarily inherent in what they do. Jim Collins has written several excellent books on what causes some companies to succeed (Good to Great, Built to Last, Level 5 Leaders, etc). The things that make companies succeed has allot to do with what makes succesful people. A personal drive for excellence, an unwaivering belief in ones goals (not necessarily the path to those goals), and many more things affect this. My advice to you is to first reallize that a super programmer is more than a coder. (This is an assumption about you based on my experience with many other programmers. It may not be true, but your enthusiasm reminds me of this.) A super programmer is someone who not only understand how to read (yes read) and write code, but someone who knows what code to read and what code to write. This is the truly tricky part. Also, communicating your ideas to others is critical to becoming "super". There are litteraly tens of thousands of algorithms, tens of thousands of techniques, etc. None of them matter until you understand what it is you are supposed to be doing in the first place. After you make the leap from coder to full time "listener, problem solver, communicator, constant student, strategizer", and part-time "coder", your journey will be on the right path. From there, it takes years of experience, preferably the help of a mentor, lots of mistakes and mis-steps and no doubt many other major setbacks. Over time, you will inperceptibly improve until one day you will wake up and remember your desire long ago to become "a super programmer", and will realize that your desire was not a destination, but a direction and you are moving in the right one. That's my 2 cents. Good luck with your dream.

Chris Losinger

1-800-the-devl

image processing toolkits | batch image processing | blogging

Raj Lal

Marc Clifton wrote:

By starting off being a mediocre one, and programming, programming, programming!

This is the only way :)

Marc Clifton wrote:

And then one day waking up and realizing that the trick to writing the most complex systems imaginable is to make them out of the most simplest pieces possible.

you can say that again. this is the best answer anyone can get

Omit Needless Words - Strunk, William, Jr.

Mairaaj Khan

Marc Clifton wrote:

I for one know a couple people that definitely meet the criteria of being able to rapidly think up an elegant design to a highly complex problem. These people are geniuses, and I'm amazed at how quickly they can reduce a problem down to essential issues, think of the problem from numerous angles simultaneously, and see how it affects the current architecture and usability, and all so fast they can't hardly articulate their thoughts. So no, I don't think what he's asking is impossible.

Agreed *****

________________________________ Success is not something to wait for, its something to work for.

Lost User

smoke crack and put it off until later

computers are for dicks

kasturi_haribabu

:laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:ha ha Super programmer? Trying to become GOD? If you really meant that you want to give solutions for a complex problems in a imaginable simple way, try following steps... (You can only try... no guarantee... but you know... this is the only way...) 1) Choose your domain 2) Try to reinvent the wheel and get blocked with problems. 3) observe how are they solved in competition/different domain.. 4) Visualize the big picture.. Once you get the Big picture... you are almost done... haribabu.. (Impossible to understand...)

charlieg

"Experience is the only thing that will help you, and the only way you can get that is through varied exposure to programming. Do you have a job as a developer? If not then finding one where you can work on varied tasks with huge amounts of pressure should give you the rewards you seek without becoming too overbearing, and the opportunities for advancement should fall at your feet." Sarcassm? Seriously - I'm not sure. I've been writing code for 25 years... longer if you add the overtime (paid and unpaid). Maybe I'm maturing or I have the post Christmas blues, but "huge amounts of pressure" gets old real fast. My practical experience has been that you can jump tall buildings, your hero status *may* last for 1 day, then it resumes with "what have you done for me today?" status. What say you? As far as the desire to be a super programmer, I would heed the advice to maintain a balance in life... the Carribean is calling me right now.....

Charlie Gilley Will program for food... Whoever said children were cheaper by the dozen... lied. My son's PDA is an M249 SAW. My other son commutes in an M1A2 Abrams

Antony Clements

Marc Clifton wrote:

These people are geniuses, and I'm amazed at how quickly they can reduce a problem down to essential issues, think of the problem from numerous angles simultaneously, and see how it affects the current architecture and usability, and all so fast they can't hardly articulate their thoughts.

That would be me... Sometimes. And sometimes I try and articulate several things at once and it all comes out in gibberish that only I can understand. :doh: Antony Life is nothing but an individuals perception of an immortals dream. - ME

Antony Clements

Quartz... wrote:

Marc Clifton wrote: And then one day waking up and realizing that the trick to writing the most complex systems imaginable is to make them out of the most simplest pieces possible.

it was said again. ;P Antony Life is nothing but an individuals perception of an immortals dream. - ME

David Wulff

Nnamdi Onyeyiri wrote:

What have I missed here?

This place is a lot like Eastenders. You can miss an entire years episodes and still pick it up where you left off.

Nnamdi Onyeyiri wrote:

Its coming up to exam time now, so obviously im finding any and all means of not doing work, and am here

It's good to see you still have your priorities right. :-D

Ðavid Wulff What kind of music should programmers listen to?
Join the Code Project Last.fm group | dwulff
I'm so gangsta I eat cereal without the milk

David Wulff

Because addictions remove focus and become a means onto themselves. If you want to program because you enjoy it, you don't want it to become an addiction or you will never enjoy it.

Ðavid Wulff What kind of music should programmers listen to?
Join the Code Project Last.fm group | dwulff
I'm so gangsta I eat cereal without the milk

David Wulff

charlieg wrote:

My practical experience has been that you can jump tall buildings, your hero status *may* last for 1 day, then it resumes with "what have you done for me today?" status

I was under the impression that Heinze did not care what his peers thought, but rather was looking for his own rewards. Not being corporately rewarded for your acheivements is nothing new, and nothing unique to software development. Skill advancement is your responsibility to seek out and apply in the situations that are open to you, not your employers.

Ðavid Wulff What kind of music should programmers listen to?
Join the Code Project Last.fm group | dwulff
I'm so gangsta I eat cereal without the milk

ClockMeister

I love it when someone says "How do I become super-experienced in a short amount of time"? It's just like saying "how do I get rich quick?". Go get in Amway or something - you'll find that "getting rich quick" doesn't work any more than becoming a "super programmer" overnight does! Here's your answer. Do it for awhile - then you can join the rest of us that have been doing it for 30 years and you'll look like a "super" programmer. -CB :)

pdohara

Another way to improve your programming skills is to read other peoples programs. This is one of the main reasons I am involved in several open source projects. I get to read other smart peoples code.

Tanks for your support
Pat O
Blog

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El Corazon

Captain See SharpHow do I become a super programmer that can whip up any algorithm in a short amount of time and design and write the most complex systems imaginable?

First Switch to R&D and second expand your horizons. Third learn languages that force YOU to do the work, understand the computer and how it works, or heck, get in and check out the assembly generated by your code to understand how it functions inside a computer. Fourth (or should that be Forth ;) ) give up absolutes in that sentence and you will be fine. "Any Algorithm" reminds me too much of my first boss, if one program takes 5 minutes to write, then all programs of any complexity take 5 minutes to write. All algorithms take the time that they take, especially in R&D. Back in '94 I wrote an algorithm inside an OpenGL class, all of 10 lines of code, half the industry was suing to get their hands on it. Algorithms are thoughts in code form. You have to have the idea before you can write it, that means creativity... Which brings us to Fifth.... Boost your creativity. Writing new algorithms vs. coding other people's designs is from creativity. http://www.creativitybootcamp.com/[^]

_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)

El Corazon

Hockey wrote:

Hmmm...KISS??

But that is vacation subject matter! :-D

_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)

Marc Arbesman

I would look into using more patterns. Patterns allow a developer to look at a problem and apply a tried and tested method of solving the problem. I believe super programmers can apply and implement patterns without a second thought and develop an application quickly and with a lot less risk of bugs. There is a ton of information out there about patterns implemented in Java, C++, C# and VB.Net as well as many other object oriented languages. I think even if some claim it impossible to do, we should still strive to achieve this idealistic notion. My $0.02.

Jasmine2501

You need to have a good grounding in the basics of how the world works. Coding all the time is going to strip you of the experiences that will actually make you a better programmer. Someone in this thread earlier said this: "These people are geniuses, and I'm amazed at how quickly they can reduce a problem down to essential issues, think of the problem from numerous angles simultaneously, and see how it affects the current architecture and usability, and all so fast they can't hardly articulate their thoughts." You can't learn those things from coding (20 years of coding experience doesn't hurt, though). Look at the hobbies I have on my home page... all those hobbies contribute to my understanding of the world in some way, and a couple also contribute to my technical ability. Folding origami is pretty far away from the machine, but it allows one to explore mathematical concepts, teaches 3D thinking, teaches step-by-step problem solving, and the ability to recognise intermediate steps that are not obvious from the instructions, etc, etc... Now take car racing in contrast... this allows me to explore my need for speed a little bit, but it also provides me with a non-technical social group to hang with, some education about mechanics and physics, troubleshooting skills, ability to recognise possible enhancements to a system and implement them, ability to understand how multiple things work together, and how the timelines of various devices operations combine to produce the goal (multi-threading = a car that moves). Becoming a total geek is going to hurt you more than you realise. Also, in the career arena, you are going to be competing against a whole lot of 'rennaisance geeks' (the kind with a wide variety of non-technical interests), and the new breed of 'socially capable' geeks. For me, learning how to interact with other human beings has been very helpful. For a discussion of actual skills to be a good programmer, see my blog: http://smoothjazzy.blogspot.com/2006/09/it-job-market-sucks-rocks.html[^] http://smoothjazzy.blogspot.com/2006/12/be-programmer-but-not-today.html[