3 ms·
Teaching code optimization to 11-year-old son.
- pmichaud 17y agoProgramming, and analysis is tremendously valuable skill for a kid this age to start learning. I've been gently bringing this sort of thing up to my kids since they were old enough to understand the words I was using.
- nir 17y agoI don't know, isn't 11 year old a bit premature for optimization? (sorry, I had to :))
- metachris 17y agonot for the way he did it. he showed the child to think critically, question the problem and focus on the important parts.
- patio11 17y agoOn the plus side, since it appears that he understands that you don't optimize the thing that takes 2 ms (application code) while there are things taking 200 ms (database roundtrip) or 700 ms (page rendering), he is probably better at optimization than half of the professional engineers I know. God save me from one more code review where somebody made a for loop over months in the freaking year an obtuse nightmare because they had (mostly wrong!) ideas about how they could shave off a few processor cycles twelve whole times. (Inline functions for extra speedup! Forget standard math operators, lets twittle bits! Business objects are for wimps, we'll stick everything in one String -> String hash table and compose the keys with inlined uncommented StringBuilder monstrosities!)
- J_McQuade 17y agoWhen I was 11 years old, my dad taught me to be a goalkeeper. I've now not touched a football since I was 15.
- mahmud 17y agoOT: When I was 11, my father fled overseas and I carried a pseudonym, and a rifle almost as tall as me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAR-80 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAR-80 (any other civil war children on HN?)
- aristus 17y agoAt that age my dad was teaching me and my siblings circuit debugging and my mom was teaching us programming on CP/M. Valuable stuff. If anyone thinks this is "too advanced", I respectfully suggest that this stuff is just too new to be mainlined into the traditional curriculum. Process analysis is as powerful, simple and vital as any chemistry or maths.
- biotech 17y agoIt's interesting to hear about what people's dad's taught them when they were 11 years old. So far, I've got: robg's son - Code optimization (result pending) aristus - Circuit debugging (turned out to be very useful) J_McQuade - How to tend goal (skill no longer applicable) biotech - World geography and history (good to know in social situations; I work with, and live near, people from all over the world) Anyone else?
- pbhjpbhj 17y agoMy dad taught me he wasn't afraid to kick me in the ass (actually) if I stepped out of line (figuratively). It was actually a useful lesson and helped me to reconsider my attitude to others and stop being a dick.
- geeko 17y agoLooking forward to teaching my kid this kind of stuff as well. But it will take about another 15 years until he turns 11.