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> "being able to convey ideas more clearly and more accurately is a delightful skill that will find uses all over life, regardless of if your job is programmer,
by aufreak3 14y ago
> "being able to convey ideas more clearly and more accurately is a delightful skill that will find uses all over life, regardless of if your job is programmer, EMT, chef, etc."
Very well said!
The "programming is not for everybody" arguments seem to come from looking at programming as the activity of coding at the master level. Anyone who's gotten anything done by asking someone to do it, or has found some information by asking a question of someone has engaged in the core activity of programming - i.e. the thinking behind what needs to be done and what information is needed for some task at hand and the communication of that thinking.
The making aspect of programming should also not be overlooked. Just as making your own table is fun even though you may not have made a good table by carpentry standards, or you may paint something to decorate your wall even if won't go for a penny on ebay, coaxing a machine to help you with something is also satisfying.
- seanp2k2 14y agoAnd this is why whiteboard programming interviews where syntax matters are toxic. I almost have the cojones these days to walk out as soon as they pull that crap, but it's a big red flag to me when they want the REAL regex to validate an e-mail address (though typically asking them if they want "the most naive implementation or the RFC 2822-compliant one" is enough to shut them up. http://www.regular-expressions.info/email.html http://www.regular-expressions.info/email.html if you don't get why this is a bad idea (it's the equiv. of memorizing pi to the thousandth digit).