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That's like a carpenter who has never learned how to use a circular saw. Sure, you can work your way around it with all the other tools you have, but why would
by tomerv 5y ago
That's like a carpenter who has never learned how to use a circular saw. Sure, you can work your way around it with all the other tools you have, but why would you? Just put 1 hour into studying it, and have a new tool under your belt.
- sudhirj 5y agoYeah, but I've filed along with "learn every regex operator". Might be interesting, but not sure where it would be useful these days.
- codesections 5y agoOff topic, but I used to have "learn every regex operator" in that category but, after I actually did, I've been amazed at how often regex operators come in handy.
- JohnBooty 5y agoRight, but we could also say this about thousands of other things in the world of software engineering. There is not enough time to learn everything, or even 1% of it. It's often best to have "wide, shallow" knowledge that is selectively deep in some places. I don't have much experience with time-series databases, but I know what they are and I'm familiar with their use cases. So if the need ever arises I'll be able to reach for the correct tool and invest my learning time wisely.
- magicalhippo 5y agoThen again, should take about 5 minutes tops to get bitshifting enough that you know where to look if you ever need it.
- BenjiWiebe 5y agoPersonally I'd disagree with the only 5 minutes. I'm comfortable with bit shifting, and I've done some ATmega projects without Arduino (just plain C), some of which were bitbanging. It took me several hours over the course of a couple days for the light to dawn. For some reason it just didn't want to click. And it still took practice to get comfortable with it.
- magicalhippo 5y agoMy point was that you don't need to be comfortable with it unless you need it. Learn enough to know what it does, so you know when you see a use-case and can come back and do the hard work.
- h2odragon 5y ago> never learned how to use a circular saw. More like a hand plane, or perhaps a chainsaw. Sure they're tools that work on wood but you can do lots of woodwork without ever needing one. Once upon a time i diddled Grey codes and similar and the elegance of bit banging is lovely and foundational... but someone who makes ships in bottles need never know how to cut down a tree. To mash a metaphor.