4 ms·

No one taught me to code. I realize that this is not true for everyone, but for me, it is difficult to comprehend "being taught how to code." What does that eve

No one taught me to code. I realize that this is not true for everyone, but for me, it is difficult to comprehend "being taught how to code." What does that even mean? Learning to code is synonymous with reading documentation and then implementing it. Do it a lot and you get quicker at it. Do it enough, and you memorize the standard library. Congrats, you know how to code. It's an entirely self-driven process. I have helped engineers get up to speed on new tech more quickly than they otherwise would have. But that's not really teaching a skill. It's more like cutting down their search time for information a little bit. It would be completely useless if they didn't already know how to use documentation. Software engineering, on the other hand, is something that can be taught.

jeena 8y ago
I never considered memorizing the standard library having anything to do with coding. Same as memorizing where the books in a real library are to have anything to do with being able to read. Learning to code for me is learning the concepts like variable, loop, if, map, reduce, oop, sequence, array, function, return, lambda, monad, state, side effects, etc. Once you understand this, it doesn't matter what language and libraries get thrown at you, you'll be able to work with it. The rest you can read up in the documentation, and over time, as you say, you'll not need to look as much because you memorize it. But in my opinion that's just optimization after you learn coding.
barrystaes 8y ago
> No one taught me to code. As a kid i learned to code using an old book i found, with a computer but no compiler: I simply had not figured out that EDIT.COM was not QuickBasic. Looks the same but had no Run menu... if only somebody told me! As a kid i could use a teacher.. as a knowledgebase to query, not necessarily as a teacher. It was fun to run what i wrote before, once i figured that out though. Not much later i found out how to delete files..

jeena 8y ago

I never considered memorizing the standard library having anything to do with coding. Same as memorizing where the books in a real library are to have anything to do with being able to read. Learning to code for me is learning the concepts like variable, loop, if, map, reduce, oop, sequence, array, function, return, lambda, monad, state, side effects, etc. Once you understand this, it doesn't matter what language and libraries get thrown at you, you'll be able to work with it. The rest you can read up in the documentation, and over time, as you say, you'll not need to look as much because you memorize it. But in my opinion that's just optimization after you learn coding.

barrystaes 8y ago

> No one taught me to code. As a kid i learned to code using an old book i found, with a computer but no compiler: I simply had not figured out that EDIT.COM was not QuickBasic. Looks the same but had no Run menu... if only somebody told me! As a kid i could use a teacher.. as a knowledgebase to query, not necessarily as a teacher. It was fun to run what i wrote before, once i figured that out though. Not much later i found out how to delete files..