Thread: who is self taught among u ppl?

  1. #31
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    Quote Originally Posted by grumpy View Post
    Second, "talent" is subjective. What you consider talent, I may not, and vice versa.
    I actually find this discussion amusing, as when I was young, I had argued on the same side you are. God-given talent is not always screamingly apparent, such as a 9 year old Concert Pianist who started playing at the age of 3 (Ethan Bortnick). Also, in you saying Vaughan had no "Consistency and repeatability", then there must be some 'Standard' from the dawn of time that all music is played to - obviously not so. Rather like saying, "When you draw a tree, THIS is how it must be done, if it is to be drawn correctly".

    And I have yet to encounter anyone who has an innate talent for anything to do with software development.
    You are acknowledging innate talent, putting yourself into such a meaningful position in life that allows you to know the majority of programmers alive in the world, and implying that you have garnered from said people their backgrounds enough to make a judgement on their skill being solely the product of strict learned behavior.

    Wow?

  2. #32
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    Quote Originally Posted by Incantrix View Post
    If everything is merely technical, then there can be no such thing as God-given talent, to which I strongly disagree. Have you never tried to do something and found out that you just can not improve at it? I can not, as an example, redo the Sistine chapel, I cannot beat Tiger Woods (in his prime) at golf, I can not run faster than Usain Bolt, I could not spar and win vs Bruce Lee, cannot out Theory Einstein.... et al. People here are arguing that they 'could' do these things, simply by learning them.
    Generally that's because people give up before they improve enough to be satisfied with their own progress. If you've read Gladwell, it takes on average about 10,000 hours of solid practice at an area to really become great in that field. I'd wager good money that Michelangelo practiced painting far more than you did, Tiger Woods practices golf more than you do, etc. What many people call 'talent' is really just the product of lots of dedicated practice.

    Aptitude does exist, of course, too. Intelligence is not uniform, for example, and programming is an intellectual discipline. And a lot of programming is learning how to think about the problem you're trying to solve, so people who naturally think along those lines will pick it up faster, while others will need to develop the patterns of thinking that will result in success. However, almost anyone could learn to be a good programmer if they were willing and able to devote years of their life to it.
    You ever try a pink golf ball, Wally? Why, the wind shear on a pink ball alone can take the head clean off a 90 pound midget at 300 yards.

  3. #33
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    Quote Originally Posted by Incantrix View Post
    Also, in you saying Vaughan had no "Consistency and repeatability", then there must be some 'Standard' from the dawn of time that all music is played to - obviously not so. Rather like saying, "When you draw a tree, THIS is how it must be done, if it is to be drawn correctly".
    Not so. You asked if Vaugn's work might be considered lacking. I provided two criteria on which some people might consider it to be lacking. I did not suggest all music is played to a standard.

    Quote Originally Posted by Incantrix View Post
    You are acknowledging innate talent, putting yourself into such a meaningful position in life that allows you to know the majority of programmers alive in the world, and implying that you have garnered from said people their backgrounds enough to make a judgement on their skill being solely the product of strict learned behavior.
    I have never suggested that there is no such thing as talent. I said I have yet to encounter anyone who has an innate talent for software development.


    In any event, looking over your posts, it appears you are trying to obscure the points being made behind some form of condescending religious dogma. So I will cease participating further in this thread.
    Right 98% of the time, and don't care about the other 3%.

    If I seem grumpy or unhelpful in reply to you, or tell you you need to demonstrate more effort before you can expect help, it is likely you deserve it. Suck it up, Buttercup, and read this, this, and this before posting again.

  4. #34
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cat View Post
    ... it takes on average about 10,000 hours of solid practice at an area to really become great in that field.
    Then explain the 3yr old who can play the piano without any instruction whatsoever.

    I am not arguing that you can learn to be very good. I am saying that there are those who are naturally gifted at certain things, which is separate from learning, and allows them to excel beyond the level of strict learning.

    You asked if Vaugn's work might be considered lacking. I provided two criteria on which some people might consider it to be lacking. I did not suggest all music is played to a standard.
    Critera (n) A standard of judgment or criticism; a rule or principle for evaluating or testing something.

    You are finally correct in one thing, that there is little point in continuing the thread, this board is not the forum for it. It was not intentional on my part when making the statement I did, that it would branch off.

    The Mods should close this thread.

  5. #35
    and the hat of copycat stevesmithx's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by phantomotap View Post
    >_<

    The man himself, Bjarne Stroustrup, was corrected in a mailing list here a few months back.
    Interesting.. Could you please share the link?
    I won't probably understand it just curious what mistake a legend like himself would make..
    Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted
    - Albert Einstein.


    No programming language is perfect. There is not even a single best language; there are only languages well suited or perhaps poorly suited for particular purposes.
    - Herbert Mayer

  6. #36
    Guest Sebastiani's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by grumpy View Post
    And I have yet to encounter anyone who has an innate talent for anything to do with software development

    Oh, well in that case, allow me to introduce myself...
    Code:
    #include <cmath>
    #include <complex>
    bool euler_flip(bool value)
    {
        return std::pow
        (
            std::complex<float>(std::exp(1.0)), 
            std::complex<float>(0, 1) 
            * std::complex<float>(std::atan(1.0)
            *(1 << (value + 2)))
        ).real() < 0;
    }

  7. #37
    Officially An Architect brewbuck's Avatar
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    To respond to grumpy's comment about innate talent, I'm not sure I agree that there's no such thing as innate programming talent, but if there is, I don't think it has a huge influence on how effective you are as a programmer. I technically started programming at age 5, so there is some sort of "innate" ability there maybe, but I realized long ago that it doesn't give me that much of an advantage.

    If there is any innate talent which is strongly relevant to programming, it is the talent of being able to think clearly. That talent has applications far beyond just software development.
    Code:
    //try
    //{
    	if (a) do { f( b); } while(1);
    	else   do { f(!b); } while(1);
    //}

  8. #38
    Registered User rogster001's Avatar
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    If there is no way of identifying someone with a natural talent for something, how can a natural talent for that something be said to exist?
    I specifically said 'a natural talent for dev' in relation to this point, software development is what i meant. In sports and music there are lots of examples of people who were just born to do it - people who happen to have falen into the vocation that happens to be the best suited thing to them, snooker players are a great example, alex higgins, stephen hendry, ronnie o sullivan - the latter being absolutely the best example - can beat most players with style, lefthanded, when he is actually a righty. That lad could never have found another thing to do that he could be better at, no way. - its pure natural talent.

    I wouldn't agree that solo writers would be representative of a "gift" for software development. I've seen too many solo writers who are absolutely shocking in a large team environment
    Regarding this comment i was talking about programmers who did not work in team environments like they are today - I mean those who created top popular work largely alone, I am talking manic miner for example
    Last edited by rogster001; 02-20-2013 at 06:20 PM.
    Thought for the day:
    "Are you sure your sanity chip is fully screwed in sir?" (Kryten)
    FLTK: "The most fun you can have with your clothes on."

    Stroustrup:
    "If I had thought of it and had some marketing sense every computer and just about any gadget would have had a little 'C++ Inside' sticker on it'"

  9. #39
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    Quote Originally Posted by Incantrix View Post
    Then explain the 3yr old who can play the piano without any instruction whatsoever.
    I don't think there's any need for explanation, because I deny that any such person has ever existed (at least if by "play" you aren't counting just mashing piano keys randomly).

    Even the biggest-named child prodigies such as Mozart or Beethoven had years of musical instruction from their fathers and others before they did anything on their own, and their earliest works, while skillful for their ages, certainly were far below the standards they would set in their adult careers. I don't think they disprove the 10,000 hour rule at all; they just started their 10,000 hours when they were two or three years old and practiced for many hours every day.
    You ever try a pink golf ball, Wally? Why, the wind shear on a pink ball alone can take the head clean off a 90 pound midget at 300 yards.

  10. #40
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    I think I've probably had more formal teaching than a lot of people. At university they did make some attempts to teach us programming (albeit Scheme and Ada 95). In my first couple of years of work I went on a couple of C and C++ training courses. They were really useful -- I didn't learn much from the C one except some good practices, but learned quite a lot on the C++ one.

    I don't think I would have found them so useful or interesting if I was actually there to try to learn the language -- as it was I had a reasonable grasp of both languages so I was able to pick up on the interesting bits and fill in some of the blanks in my knowledge.

    I've definitely learned the most from my job. Half sheer experience -- you can't write code all day every day for years and not become reasonably fluent. As well as that though, I've learned a lot from the people I work with. They're (mostly) very rigourous in their approaches, and experienced in finding the right approach to solve the problem. I'd rate myself as a great C programmer, an average software engineer, and an average, possibly below average C++ programmer. I've heard people far more experienced than me agree with Stroustrup on "C++ is a not a language that is ever "fully learned".".

    I don't know if I've met any innately talented software engineers. Some of the guys I work with did amazing software engineering things when they were just kids. But then, they're generally very clever and would probably have been great at anything.
    I think some people are more suited to it than others. I think I'm well suited to it, but I'm not innately talented. At university, I studied maths and computer science (joint honours) and it didn't take me long to realise I'd completely hit the wall with maths. I got through it and got a good degree, but it was a struggle -- it wasn't just challenging, it was outright beyond my capabilities.
    I've never had that feeling with computers and software. I've felt overwhelmed and out of my depth many times, but if I keep at it I'll eventually figure it out. I don't think that's true for everyone -- so I think there's something there. I also think that my tendency to imagine the worst in every situation makes me a good engineer, but a crap person

  11. #41
    Programming Wraith GReaper's Avatar
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    I've talked about my programming life story before, you can find everything in this thread.
    Nothing important has changed since I started that thread, mind.
    Devoted my life to programming...

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