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I think the point is a reasonable one, if overly specific. A programmer who does no outside reading on his profession will be ill-equipped to do research when
by Dove 16y ago
I think the point is a reasonable one, if overly specific. A programmer who does no outside reading on his profession will be ill-equipped to do research when the need arises, and is more likely to want to be spoon-fed easy problems and cook up naive solutions.
While Programming Pearls is a reasonable test -- akin to checking whether someone has a classics background by asking a question about Moby Dick -- it should be acknowledged that everyone has some holes in their background, possibly even glaring and regrettable ones. A better question might be, "Describe a favorite clever hack and where you read about it."
- Xurinos 16y agoA programmer who does no outside reading on his profession will be ill-equipped to do research when the need arises I do outside reading, but I would be hard-pressed to make this claim. How is outside reading correlated to research ability? This is like saying, "If programmers are not playing a musical instrument outside of work, then it is obvious they do not have what it takes to think in patterns and perfect their skills."