5 ms·

With only four years under my belt, I spend a lot of my time feeling like a woefully ignorant developer. I was hoping for a little more meat, but the discussio

With only four years under my belt, I spend a lot of my time feeling like a woefully ignorant developer. I was hoping for a little more meat, but the discussion so far seems mostly common sense. What should a self-taught programmer know that schooling or tragedy would have otherwise taught me? For example, I know there are design patterns for data structures. I've modeled plenty of data and nothing has ever blown up on me, but I suspect I could have done it even better with a solid grasp of best practices for data structures. What should I know about these things? edit: Also, I owe StackOverflow et al a huge chunk of my success but damn the you're not logged in slidey bar is obnoxious as hell.

arghnoname 16y ago
I personally think a strong mathematics background is under-rated, and it is uncommon for self-taughts to have one (speaking as one with that background). Of course, even a lot of CS grads don't have the kind of mathematics background I would espouse. It's not about the specific mathematical techniques, but the general way of thinking.
- TamDenholm 16y ago
  Personally I absolutely suck at maths, the only maths I use now is basic mental arithmetic. I'm also completely self taught, but agree with your concept that it's a "way of thinking", because I am a very logical person. Caveat emptor, I'm just a web dev, not a crazy 3d modeller or anything.
  - NickPollard 16y ago
    I think a really important thing that many people realise is that Maths is not just numbers. Arguably most of Computer Science is a kind of Maths, really Maths is just an abstract notation for describing systems. For Programmers in particularly, I think Mathematical Functions[1] and Set theory[2] are some important areas that you should look at. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Function_(mathematics) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Function_(mathematics) [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_theory
silentbicycle 16y ago
Data structures really clicked for me when I started learning OCaml. While it has its strengths and weaknesses as a language, it has an excellent notation for data structures. The combination of pattern matching and type inference really clarifies things.* Whether you use the language in the long run or not, reading chapter two of _Developing Applications with Objective Caml_ (http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/oreilly-book/ http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/oreilly-book/) and doing its exercises, in OCaml, (http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/oreilly-book/html/book-ora020.html http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/oreilly-book/html/book-ora020....), will probably help quite a bit, and shouldn't take too long. * Haskell may help, too, but its emphasis on laziness will also mean many algorithms and data structures won't translate as easily. SML is probably as good as OCaml, but I don't have much experience with it.
- eru 16y ago
  And don't forget "Purely Functional Data Structures".
  - silentbicycle 16y ago
    Yes! I originally mentioned that, but it didn't really fit and I cut it. Okasaki's _Purely Functional Data Structures_ uses SML to describe a variety of "purely functional" data structures, most of which are immutable, persistent, and exploit laziness for amortized performance guarantees. (There's an appendix with Haskell versions.)

arghnoname 16y ago

I personally think a strong mathematics background is under-rated, and it is uncommon for self-taughts to have one (speaking as one with that background). Of course, even a lot of CS grads don't have the kind of mathematics background I would espouse. It's not about the specific mathematical techniques, but the general way of thinking.

TamDenholm 16y ago
Personally I absolutely suck at maths, the only maths I use now is basic mental arithmetic. I'm also completely self taught, but agree with your concept that it's a "way of thinking", because I am a very logical person. Caveat emptor, I'm just a web dev, not a crazy 3d modeller or anything.
- NickPollard 16y ago
  I think a really important thing that many people realise is that Maths is not just numbers. Arguably most of Computer Science is a kind of Maths, really Maths is just an abstract notation for describing systems. For Programmers in particularly, I think Mathematical Functions[1] and Set theory[2] are some important areas that you should look at. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Function_(mathematics) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Function_(mathematics) [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_theory

silentbicycle 16y ago

Data structures really clicked for me when I started learning OCaml. While it has its strengths and weaknesses as a language, it has an excellent notation for data structures. The combination of pattern matching and type inference really clarifies things.* Whether you use the language in the long run or not, reading chapter two of _Developing Applications with Objective Caml_ (http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/oreilly-book/ http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/oreilly-book/) and doing its exercises, in OCaml, (http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/oreilly-book/html/book-ora020.html http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/oreilly-book/html/book-ora020....), will probably help quite a bit, and shouldn't take too long. * Haskell may help, too, but its emphasis on laziness will also mean many algorithms and data structures won't translate as easily. SML is probably as good as OCaml, but I don't have much experience with it.

eru 16y ago
And don't forget "Purely Functional Data Structures".
- silentbicycle 16y ago
  Yes! I originally mentioned that, but it didn't really fit and I cut it. Okasaki's _Purely Functional Data Structures_ uses SML to describe a variety of "purely functional" data structures, most of which are immutable, persistent, and exploit laziness for amortized performance guarantees. (There's an appendix with Haskell versions.)