In this company, there are two kinds of developers
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Leng Vang wrote:
After Google, books, especially tutorial and technical manual are no longer needed.
Why would you, if you can just post your query here? Those who only react to circumstances can Google; the rest are those who prepare, read and study :thumbsup:
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^] "If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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The move is completed and we have learned.... In this company, there are two kinds of developers. Those that came to work here after we still needed to collect technical books (AG After Google) Those that worked here when we still needed to collect technical books. (BG Before Google) ..They are the ones with the 55 gallon disposal bins next to their cubes.
What type of desk set up is at the new place? No cube walls? Stack those books on the edge of the desk to create some personal space.
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You'd be rather limited; tutorials on the internet do not undergo the same screening as most books do. On most topics, the stuff that you Google would be unordered and fragmented, with the scope being based on your personal understanding - you might skip a few rather important things. That's how we ended up with VB6-forms that concatenate a string to form a query to check your password - people who are programming based on what tutorials they can Google :rolleyes:
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^] "If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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What type of desk set up is at the new place? No cube walls? Stack those books on the edge of the desk to create some personal space.
How did you know ;P
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You'd be rather limited; tutorials on the internet do not undergo the same screening as most books do. On most topics, the stuff that you Google would be unordered and fragmented, with the scope being based on your personal understanding - you might skip a few rather important things. That's how we ended up with VB6-forms that concatenate a string to form a query to check your password - people who are programming based on what tutorials they can Google :rolleyes:
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^] "If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
HAve to agree - most online tutorials seems to be written by people who can't teach (or even communicate in some cases), and who don;t appear to know the subject in any detail. Many seem to have "working code" but no real idea why it works or how they got it. Video tutorials on YouTube are the worst. And sausages are the wurst.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay... AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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How did you know ;P
Because in my current job, starting in 2013, I've been gradually downgraded from a cube with 5'6" walls, drawers, and lockable shelves, to a triangular desk area with 8" dividers, to a rolling table 5'6" by 3'. My books are currently stacked almost 3' high on one corner of the table to create some semblance of a visual blind. Big over the ear head phones help with the auditory distractions. It's "collaborative" space. I bet the idiots who designed this format don't have to use it.
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You'd be rather limited; tutorials on the internet do not undergo the same screening as most books do. On most topics, the stuff that you Google would be unordered and fragmented, with the scope being based on your personal understanding - you might skip a few rather important things. That's how we ended up with VB6-forms that concatenate a string to form a query to check your password - people who are programming based on what tutorials they can Google :rolleyes:
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^] "If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
While I do recognize that there are terrible tutorials out there, there are also some terrible books out there. Also tutorials are not the only form of information available. I learned JS/TS almost exclusively through MDN[^] and TypeScriptLang[^]. Don't get me wrong - books are great. But with how rapidly technology is changing, I'd rather read up-to-date online documentation than a probably out-of-date book that isn't due a new version til next year or later. As an aside, being able to filter through web searches, compare sources, and form actual knowledge from the aggregate is an underappreciated skill. Some topics force you to use this method either due to fragmented information or such rapidly changing technology that books as a medium are insufficient. The example that pops into my head immediately is IRC. There are books but if you base an IRC client implementation on that information you'll be missing tons of modern features such as ISUPPORT, SASL, and capability negotiation while including obsolete features such as RPL_BOUNCE and RPL_SUMMONING. TL;DR: Books are great for topics that don't change often. Online documentation is better for rapidly changing, fragmented, or niche topics. Both have their fair share of terrible advice.
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HAve to agree - most online tutorials seems to be written by people who can't teach (or even communicate in some cases), and who don;t appear to know the subject in any detail. Many seem to have "working code" but no real idea why it works or how they got it. Video tutorials on YouTube are the worst. And sausages are the wurst.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay... AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
OriginalGriff wrote:
Video tutorials on YouTube are the worst.
I can't agree more. Video in general is a bad medium for learning programming in my opinion. Re-reading a chapter or paragraph for better comprehension feels natural. Skipping back multiple times to find the exact time someone started talking about a topic is irritating at best. Not to even mention the content quality.
OriginalGriff wrote:
And sausages are the wurst.
Now I'm hungry :|
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While I do recognize that there are terrible tutorials out there, there are also some terrible books out there. Also tutorials are not the only form of information available. I learned JS/TS almost exclusively through MDN[^] and TypeScriptLang[^]. Don't get me wrong - books are great. But with how rapidly technology is changing, I'd rather read up-to-date online documentation than a probably out-of-date book that isn't due a new version til next year or later. As an aside, being able to filter through web searches, compare sources, and form actual knowledge from the aggregate is an underappreciated skill. Some topics force you to use this method either due to fragmented information or such rapidly changing technology that books as a medium are insufficient. The example that pops into my head immediately is IRC. There are books but if you base an IRC client implementation on that information you'll be missing tons of modern features such as ISUPPORT, SASL, and capability negotiation while including obsolete features such as RPL_BOUNCE and RPL_SUMMONING. TL;DR: Books are great for topics that don't change often. Online documentation is better for rapidly changing, fragmented, or niche topics. Both have their fair share of terrible advice.
Jon McKee wrote:
I learned JS/TS almost exclusively through MDN[^] and TypeScriptLang[^].
The syntax, yes :thumbsup:
Jon McKee wrote:
But with how rapidly technology is changing, I'd rather read up-to-date online documentation than a probably out-of-date book that isn't due a new version til next year or later.
Technology is changing? Where? Win10 is largely still working according to the same principles as Win95.
Jon McKee wrote:
There are books but if you base an IRC client implementation on that information you'll be missing tons of modern features such as ISUPPORT, SASL, and capability negotiation while including obsolete features such as RPL_BOUNCE and RPL_SUMMONING.
I'm not saying that some reference-documentation needs to be in book-format; only pointing out that authors spend a lot of time gathering knowledge and putting it in an accesible format. Not just as paper-books (which I prefer, because it squats bugs better than an tablet), but also as ebooks :)
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^] "If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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OriginalGriff wrote:
Video tutorials on YouTube are the worst.
I can't agree more. Video in general is a bad medium for learning programming in my opinion. Re-reading a chapter or paragraph for better comprehension feels natural. Skipping back multiple times to find the exact time someone started talking about a topic is irritating at best. Not to even mention the content quality.
OriginalGriff wrote:
And sausages are the wurst.
Now I'm hungry :|
I'm not really a fan of writing in books, but occasionally a scribbled note has reduced the amount of kicking-myself over the years, particularly for technologies I don't use every year -- such as Perl and XSLT.
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Jon McKee wrote:
I learned JS/TS almost exclusively through MDN[^] and TypeScriptLang[^].
The syntax, yes :thumbsup:
Jon McKee wrote:
But with how rapidly technology is changing, I'd rather read up-to-date online documentation than a probably out-of-date book that isn't due a new version til next year or later.
Technology is changing? Where? Win10 is largely still working according to the same principles as Win95.
Jon McKee wrote:
There are books but if you base an IRC client implementation on that information you'll be missing tons of modern features such as ISUPPORT, SASL, and capability negotiation while including obsolete features such as RPL_BOUNCE and RPL_SUMMONING.
I'm not saying that some reference-documentation needs to be in book-format; only pointing out that authors spend a lot of time gathering knowledge and putting it in an accesible format. Not just as paper-books (which I prefer, because it squats bugs better than an tablet), but also as ebooks :)
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^] "If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
Eddy Vluggen wrote:
Win10 is largely still working according to the same principles as Win95.
Absolutely! I hate it when someone writes a new program and calls it new technology.
The difficult we do right away... ...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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The move is completed and we have learned.... In this company, there are two kinds of developers. Those that came to work here after we still needed to collect technical books (AG After Google) Those that worked here when we still needed to collect technical books. (BG Before Google) ..They are the ones with the 55 gallon disposal bins next to their cubes.
Oh, And I thought those were where you were supposed to take a dump, to save time going to and from the restroom
CQ de W5ALT
Walt Fair, Jr., P. E. Comport Computing Specializing in Technical Engineering Software
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I'm not really a fan of writing in books, but occasionally a scribbled note has reduced the amount of kicking-myself over the years, particularly for technologies I don't use every year -- such as Perl and XSLT.
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Jon McKee wrote:
I learned JS/TS almost exclusively through MDN[^] and TypeScriptLang[^].
The syntax, yes :thumbsup:
Jon McKee wrote:
But with how rapidly technology is changing, I'd rather read up-to-date online documentation than a probably out-of-date book that isn't due a new version til next year or later.
Technology is changing? Where? Win10 is largely still working according to the same principles as Win95.
Jon McKee wrote:
There are books but if you base an IRC client implementation on that information you'll be missing tons of modern features such as ISUPPORT, SASL, and capability negotiation while including obsolete features such as RPL_BOUNCE and RPL_SUMMONING.
I'm not saying that some reference-documentation needs to be in book-format; only pointing out that authors spend a lot of time gathering knowledge and putting it in an accesible format. Not just as paper-books (which I prefer, because it squats bugs better than an tablet), but also as ebooks :)
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^] "If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
Eddy Vluggen wrote:
I'm not saying that some reference-documentation needs to be in book-format; only pointing out that authors spend a lot of time gathering knowledge and putting it in an accesible format. Not just as paper-books (which I prefer, because it squats bugs better than an tablet), but also as ebooks :)
Very true. And I do agree to an extent that paper books (and some ebooks) are scrutinized before publishing depending on the publisher. However, as you alluded to, the majority of the quality is placed upon the author regardless of the type of media. It may be easier to spread misinformation online but at the end of the day the onus is still upon the reader to determine validity. That's why I generally hold no bias towards different media types. I have no idea how these things are handled elsewhere though. In the US you can publish pretty much whatever you want as long as there's profit to be made. Truth and accuracy be damned. Looking at you revisionist history books X|
Eddy Vluggen wrote:
The syntax, yes :thumbsup:
Those links are more than syntax. They list built-in objects and available functionality, cover
thisand prototype-based inheritance, show available WebAPIs and their compatabilities, explain how HTML/CSS/JS interact, discuss the DOM, and more.Eddy Vluggen wrote:
Technology is changing? Where? Win10 is largely still working according to the same principles as Win95.
Oh Windows :laugh: I should have been more specific. Technology was too broad a term. All hail logic gates! The one, true computing technology, haha.
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Because in my current job, starting in 2013, I've been gradually downgraded from a cube with 5'6" walls, drawers, and lockable shelves, to a triangular desk area with 8" dividers, to a rolling table 5'6" by 3'. My books are currently stacked almost 3' high on one corner of the table to create some semblance of a visual blind. Big over the ear head phones help with the auditory distractions. It's "collaborative" space. I bet the idiots who designed this format don't have to use it.
I managed to get moved to the hardware lab. It took an extensive testing of a very noisy electrical motor (it had to be controlled by the software and I'm the hardware communication man in the company since apparently I'm the only one who does it reliably) which had seemingly random errors after thousands of runs. *GROOOOOAN* *CHUNK!* *GROOOAAAN* *CLANG!* for weeks 8 hours/day and suddenly my request to be moved got approved. After 5 years I was asking.
GCS d-- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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I managed to get moved to the hardware lab. It took an extensive testing of a very noisy electrical motor (it had to be controlled by the software and I'm the hardware communication man in the company since apparently I'm the only one who does it reliably) which had seemingly random errors after thousands of runs. *GROOOOOAN* *CHUNK!* *GROOOAAAN* *CLANG!* for weeks 8 hours/day and suddenly my request to be moved got approved. After 5 years I was asking.
GCS d-- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
Was it Stuxnet? :)
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Was it Stuxnet? :)
It had programmable firmware (via logical blocks on the programming interface) running in parallel with commands from the outside. The OS that run the firmware had race conditions with the commands received and the input so after thousands of tests the only solution was to scrap the firmware entirely and controlling the unit completely from RS232 (9600 baud, eternal) including safety stops and level photocells. [Note: safety not towards humans but towards other components of the machine, safety towards humans was managed the hard electrical way] Also it had an encoder... on paper. Actually it counted the clock cycles the enable was "1" so if the STOP_PHOTOCELL was ignored (it happened because of the aforementioned race conditions and the fact that the photocell emitted a pulse when active and then returned to idle state) and the engine arrived to the hard stop, that is a 10kg steel block) the so called "encoder" kept counting in the direction of the movement forever and kept pushing or pulling the load against the physical block.
GCS d-- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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The move is completed and we have learned.... In this company, there are two kinds of developers. Those that came to work here after we still needed to collect technical books (AG After Google) Those that worked here when we still needed to collect technical books. (BG Before Google) ..They are the ones with the 55 gallon disposal bins next to their cubes.
For me personally, the breakpoint was less Google and more Stackoverflow. So it'll be ASO and BSO.
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Eddy Vluggen wrote:
I'm not saying that some reference-documentation needs to be in book-format; only pointing out that authors spend a lot of time gathering knowledge and putting it in an accesible format. Not just as paper-books (which I prefer, because it squats bugs better than an tablet), but also as ebooks :)
Very true. And I do agree to an extent that paper books (and some ebooks) are scrutinized before publishing depending on the publisher. However, as you alluded to, the majority of the quality is placed upon the author regardless of the type of media. It may be easier to spread misinformation online but at the end of the day the onus is still upon the reader to determine validity. That's why I generally hold no bias towards different media types. I have no idea how these things are handled elsewhere though. In the US you can publish pretty much whatever you want as long as there's profit to be made. Truth and accuracy be damned. Looking at you revisionist history books X|
Eddy Vluggen wrote:
The syntax, yes :thumbsup:
Those links are more than syntax. They list built-in objects and available functionality, cover
thisand prototype-based inheritance, show available WebAPIs and their compatabilities, explain how HTML/CSS/JS interact, discuss the DOM, and more.Eddy Vluggen wrote:
Technology is changing? Where? Win10 is largely still working according to the same principles as Win95.
Oh Windows :laugh: I should have been more specific. Technology was too broad a term. All hail logic gates! The one, true computing technology, haha.
Jon McKee wrote:
It may be easier to spread misinformation online but at the end of the day the onus is still upon the reader to determine validity.
I have reviewed a manuscript or two for Manning; every bit of text and code is verified. But yes, MSDN is underappreciated :)
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^] "If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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Eddy Vluggen wrote:
Win10 is largely still working according to the same principles as Win95.
Absolutely! I hate it when someone writes a new program and calls it new technology.
The difficult we do right away... ...the impossible takes slightly longer.
No, I wouldn't say so. It is like saying that C# and assembler coding on the 8086 works along the same principles. The event driven model pushed by early Windows was never embraced by application developers: Some tiny little event triggers an (ideally) atomic state transition. Win16 didn't have preemptive scheduling - there was no need for it. Or wouldn't have been, if developers had adopted the event driven philosophy. Software developers - with the exception of those who come from the digital telephone exchange world - are trained in sequential top-to-bottom programming. Even managing a handful of (more or less persistent) threads is "advanced matter" in the training, and protection of data structures and synchronization are, for the most part, poorly mastered. But that is the only way programmers can handle e.g. peripherals: By setting up a thread that, like a 1970 style Fortran program, runs from top to bottom (although with some loops and conditional statements). Event oriented programming is reduced to exceptional cases, where you set up a callback and attach it to some OnSomethingHappened case. The main body of the application code does not reflect the fundamental event driven paradigm of Windows16, where you might say that everything, the entire application logic, was written as a large number of OnSomethingHappened handlers, all of them tiny and near-atomic. With Windows95 came a collection of "helper" functions for supporting event handling in a more sequential-code-looking way. I saw it as (and believe it was intended as) an outstretched hand to old sequential programmers to ease the transition to "real" event driven programming. It rather started the snowball running down the hill, back to the Fortran style coding. Even in the 1970s, interrupt handlers were required to handle external events (and on most machines you could trigger an interrupt from software as well) - they were called interrupt handlers, not event handlers, but the difference between the two is minimal. After Windows9x, I haven't seen any application code following the event driven paradigm; we are back to the sequential way of doing things. The core of Win10 is still event driven, as OSes always were with peripherals and timing, maybe more so than some other OSes thanks to its historical background. But no application is programmed by the even driven paradigm.
