You guys just don't understand that akin to the greatest warrior, the greatest programmer is one that solves a problem without ever needing to write a single line of actual code.
The real mastery comes from the understanding that programming is best applied when you choose not to.
My 1000 hours of coding was done 12-13 years ago, so I don't have any examples at the moment.Originally Posted by Hobbit
What algorism said
Let's see something you wrote at the end of your 1000 hours.
They say to get to the 'I wrote the book' level in just C++ takes 7-10 years of practical experience.
But 1000 hours of coding was enough to allow me to write recursive loops and tree structures for a real world program, encompassing 1000's of lines of code in under a week, in a GUI interface.
You realize that 12-13 years ago is extremely outdated in today's world? You're going to have get those programming skills up a notch if you want to compete. But I don't want you to stop reading books either. Theory is important, but 1000 hours of theory and 0 hours of experience is going to get you nowhere. 1000 hours of experience is going to get you somewhere, but you're going to the farthest by doing 500 hours of theory and 500 hours of programming. Just saying. You need a mix of both. It doesn't hurt to write some small programs while studying the theory to test out your theories and get some experience with them.
Dogbert: You've been watching this video tape over and over for days.
Dilbert: These tennis instruction tapes are great. I can just feel my game improving as I watch.
Dilbert: In fact, I see no need to actually physically play the game ever again.
(source)
You're a real nutcase, Terrance!
There hasn't been one like you around here in a while.
From their parents' basement they stare at the walls and feed their obvious genius.
They're better than us.
That's clear.
And one day.
One day....
If you wanna go pure theory, I'll have to recommend Haskell again. But then keeping up with this trend, you'd likely get a PhD in category or group theory.
True, but in purely computer speak, I've decided to put programming time on low priority in my memory space. I believe studying theory allows me to think more about programming, and understand programming, while actual programming is something that can merely be gained through real world experience, and does not necessarily improve your ability to think about computing in general. In other words, actually programming has a nonlinear effect on your ability to become a good long term programmer. Only thinking about theory has a linear effect on your ability to be a good programmer over the long term.
Or in other words, it is a waste of memory resources to be programming, because all of your programming needs can be met through real world experience. Outside of real world experience or professional programming, it is most beneficial to allocate your time towards studying theory. All of this is likely true over the long term, but not necessarily the short term. Over the short term you are likely to benefit more from programming than studying theory.
The obvious conclusion here is that you are right and everybody else is wrong. That's not a sign of mental illness at all. You are a genius, Terrance. Never forget that.
I will say this, industry does have bad practices. In fact, it's compounded by the fact that years of "experience" makes people feel even more correct in their methodologies. But theory will never teach you things like good code structure and theory will not help you actually build software for real (especially C++).
I'd recommend studying theory at first but at a point in time, you're gonna need to learn how to do things like figure out a build tool and how to deploy your software.
According to this video Lecture 1: Administrivia; Introduction; Analysis of Algorithms, Insertion Sort, Mergesort | Video Lectures | Introduction to Algorithms (SMA 5503) | Electrical Engineering and Computer Science | MIT OpenCourseWare
the lecturer says, if you want to be a good programmer, program for 2 years. If you want to be a world class programmer, program for 10 years, or if you want to be a world class programmer, program for 2 years and take an algorithms class. He said this at around minute 50 in the video.
Obviously: programming by actually developing software, even as a hobby or to experiment with some new algorithm you studied recently, is "real world experience". So your claim that "it is a waste of memory resources to be programming" is bogus. It is like a physics student claiming that trying to solve physics problems on paper or conducting a well known experiment for practice is a waste of time when the student could just be reading another physics textbook.
I agree (though I think the lecturer's estimates are rather optimistic), and that squares with what Elysia wrote in post #93:
It looks like you're good to go, so get started instead of mulling about talking about studying theory in an online forum instead of actually studying theory and/or writing experimental programs.
Look up a C++ Reference and learn How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
C is literally in the name. So no, he wouldn't have. Maybe he still would have gone the same route. But FORTRAN++ or ALGOL++ would certainly have a very different language from C++.
Also, while I have only watched 1 and a half MIT lectures so far, the algorithms class at MIT is clearly modeled around the theories taught in TAOCP, thus this further proves my thinking that studying the theory of TAOCP is of high value.
You could lecture others on corporate-speak. Your curriculum could be titled "On how to talk a lot, but not say much at all. The art of meaningless content padding.". I can't help but think this whole topic is basically you (not so subtly, though hindsight is always 20/20) trolling the board since the very start.
Nobody's saying theory isn't of high value, so sure, go through your TAOCP copy till the letters wear off. (By the way, could you name drop that book a few more times in your next post? Also, just how many hours of programming experience from 12 years ago do you have? I don't think you hammered that point enough...)
Still, you should program along the way - there's theory and then there's practice. You want to determine and keep a useful and healthy balance of both. Without implementing stuff in a real world setting you'll be oblivious to common pitfalls and common solutions in a given environment. Otherwise you may end up with an inflated ego full of superficial understanding of knowledge you never even tried to put to practice.
