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> In 2001, Norvig published a short article titled Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years,[20] arguing against the fashionable introductory programming textboo
by neilv 1y ago
> In 2001, Norvig published a short article titled Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years,[20] arguing against the fashionable introductory programming textbooks that purported to teach programming in days or weeks. The article was widely shared and discussed, and has attracted contributed translations to over 20 languages.[20]
Anyone who followed this article would've greatly threatened their chances of being hired by Google, since they would've spent their time on things other than rehearsing for the interviews.
- begueradj 1y agoNo, the book is not about rehearsing you for interviews. In contrary, the book emphasizes on the mastery of your tech which books rehearsing you for interviews neither claim nor can do. The whole idea of the book is to get deep insight into your tech following the 10 000 hours rule which one might achieve within 10 years of practice. It was published against the mainstream idea of that time advertised under the name "Teach Yourself Something In 24 Hours". This book is a call for hard work, mastery and is against rushing when learning.
- wiseowise 1y agoOp means that if they followed Norvig’s advice they wouldn’t be hired by Google, because they’d be studying actual programming instead of rehearsing Leetcode for interviews.
- begueradj 1y agoYou are right. Thank you. On the other hand, mastery through 10 years of practice means and leads to a good knowledge of data structures and algorithms.
- TheCowboy 1y agoI don't think it necessarily leads to a of mastery of data structures and algorithms in the context of leetcode/modern coding interviews. One can do a lot of coding, and even be paid for it, for years and just not even encounter a lot of this material. Though one will have developed much of the same intuition that you typically acquire in a data structures class, it doesn't necessarily mean you're prepared to code mergesort on a whiteboard.
- Sesse__ 1y agoAs someone who's been hired by Google twice, I'm very happy that I spent 99% of my time actually programming. (I did a day or two of Leetcode before the second time, just to make sure I was appropriately calibrated. It didn't exist before the first time.)
- shric 1y agoI don’t know what interviewing at Google is like now but I interviewed for Google in 2008 (no offer) and 2012 (offer) and the questions on both occasions were not of the nature that leetcode could have helped with much.
- neilv 1y agoYou're right about the "Teach yourself X in Y days" books. I should've given some additional context in my comment: The author of this article was heading Google engineering (back when Google was cool), but when the Google engineering interviews seemed to have little or nothing to do with the advice in this article.
- zer0tonin 1y agoGetting hired by Google isn't the end-goal of learning programming.
- alt187 1y agoIt seems the irony has been mostly lost. Gave me a chuckle. :)
- efavdb 1y agoSame joke, published in 1999: "learn greek in 25 years". Wonder if this inspired Norvig. https://www.amazon.com/Learn-Greek-Years-Brian-Church/dp/9608639514 https://www.amazon.com/Learn-Greek-Years-Brian-Church/dp/960...
- udev4096 1y ago[flagged]
- neilv 1y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- udev4096 1y ago[flagged]
- tomhow 1y agoPersonal attacks like this are not allowed on HN, no matter what you're replying to. I can personally agree that the criticism of the article is silly, but that doesn't warrant these kinds of personal swipes, which break multiple guidelines. HN is only a place where people want to participate because many people make an effort to keep the standards up, so please do your part if you want to be a participant here.
- udev4096 1y ago[flagged]