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Joel Spolsky is doing an IAmA on reddit
- ceejayoz 15y agoA dedicated ama.stackexchange.com could be an interesting experiment.
- gecko 15y agoI'm not really convinced that StackExchange is the best system for that. You'd really want one StackExchange per person; otherwise, the one-answer-per-question nature of StackExchange, with voting for "correct" results, which result in bizarre gaming behavior and impossible-to-follow discussions.
- chrisboesing 15y agoYou could use the tag system. The questions would be at ama.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/Joel+Spolsky. The person who posted the question just had to accept the answer of the person who he had asked.
- scorpion032 15y agoThe native use of reddit is to be able to do an IAmA. Why would you even want anything else for that?
- euroclydon 15y agoI really want to learn C, like he says. I get plenty done without knowing it, and I have few doubts I can continue to find decent work without knowing it, but I haven't been able to gain any traction when I try to learn it. I've got the books sitting front of me, and I've written some trivial visualizations of sorting algorithms using terminal output, but damn if I can find a way to use C as a web developer. If there were just some use case where C would help me get something done, I'd be all over it.
- leon_ 15y ago> but damn if I can find a way to use C as a web developer Write a web app in C? ;) But yeah, in most cases C won't improve your productivity as a web developer. But it will certainly make you understand the computer better. So maybe start a recreational project in C? A command line utility, a demon, a music streaming server - something not really web-dev related.
- euroclydon 15y agoListening to you, I'm thinking about just reading the C books and nothing more. If C's usefulness to non-C-programmers is simply that it gives them greater understanding of how computers work, then reading might suffice.
- BrianHV 15y agoI'd encourage you to write some code, too. There's a lot of intuition you gain by manipulating the bits that you can't get by reading. You may think you know what a pointer is, but until you've had to debug a double-free segfault or a memory leak, it's hard to understand the ramifications of the concept. The standard string handling functions look trivial in documentation, but when you actually use them you'll find yourself forgetting to add null bytes or not realizing that some of the functions mutate the string you're working on. I'd argue it's that process of figuring out how to make things work that gives you the famed understanding of how computers work.
- tedunangst 15y agoI don't think sufficient understanding of how computers work can come from just reading a book. If it could, you should read a book about how computers work, instead of trying to glean that through the lens of C programming. Understanding comes from doing.
- jswinghammer 15y agoIf you have read the K&R C book I am not sure you would say that. It's great no matter what you do with it.
- Apocryphon 15y agoHe mentions how functional programming is valuable, something that many graduates are lacking in. Does JavaScript count as a functional language?
- jrockway 15y agoDo Javascript programmers program in terms of function applications, or do they program in terms of sequences of state-changing operations? If they do the first, then Javascript is a functional language. But without even a function composition or application operator (or function), it's obvious tht Javascript is not intended to be functional. It's an imperative/OO language with lambdas, like Common Lisp.
- olavk 15y agoThere is no canonical definition of "functional language", so I guess it depends on your definition. JavaScript is an OO-language, but it is possible to program in a functional style, just as with many other OO languages. But typical JavaScript development will not teach you the functional programming paradigm, if that is what you ask.
- runevault 15y agoIf you really want to learn functional programming, you are better off trying something that at least makes you go out of your way to code in a non-functional style. Anywhere from all the way off the deep end with Haskell to Clojure and F# being good choices from personal experience.
- harryh 15y agono
- chrisaycock 15y agoEvery time you feel like you've made the world better by upvoting a story about injustice, you're just making yourself feel smug. Forget the upvotes... go work on making the world a better place. He was writing about how stories of social injustice get a ton of upvotes, but nobody actually goes out and does anything to fix the situation. I'm sure there's a lesson here for HN.
- makmanalp 15y agoAptly named "slacktivism" (I didn't coin that one).
- pclark 15y agoCan anyone argue that the time spent upvoting a reddit story of injustice provides negative net value to the world?
- chrisaycock 15y agoIf people felt they had "done something" with the upvote, why would they feel the need to intervene for real? One of the negative consequences of social media in general is that it can lead to very casual and even cynical views of how we relate to one another. Thus, what was meant to bring people together can actually make them more emotionally distant. If I see a hundred stories of trouble in the world, why would I take action on even one of those troubles?
- tomjen3 15y agoI can, I think: When you upvote a story on reddit about some issue you deeply care about, that tricks your brain into thinking that you have done something about it. It is the same problem that announcing your goals makes you less likely to achieve them, because you already see yourself as a person who has accomplished that.
- DavidChouinard 15y agoRelated: http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_keep_your_goals_to_yourself.html http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_keep_your_goals_to_you... (one of Derek Sivers' TED talks)