3 ms·

I think the implied criticism is valid. This book is the "Reader's Digest" version of learning seven languages and four programming paradigms. You won't learn a

I think the implied criticism is valid. This book is the "Reader's Digest" version of learning seven languages and four programming paradigms. You won't learn a new programming paradigm in a week.

pfedor 17y ago
But you may learn what's out there. Not all learning has to be in-depth learning. Getting an overview of a field is important too. Reading Hacker News won't teach you anything in-depth either but you choose to do it for the same reason.
- aaronblohowiak 17y ago
  i concur. there is room on the shelf for a "survey course" of paradigms
DannoHung 17y ago
I sincerely disagree. I had a class on programming languages in college. It was one semester and went into very little depth of each language and paradigm covered. That said, I didn't know that half of the stuff that we were taught about existed before that class, and it spurred me to learn more and to learn at a greater depth. I doubt that there's going to be any illusion about what this book is. Surveys are vital for new learners to help them build the cognitive maps of the knowledge space they need to be able to understand what they don't know. Maybe you don't talk to a lot of working programmers, but there are a frighteningly large number of people who just don't know anything about programming language syntax and paradigms not descended from Algol-68
davidmathers 17y ago
You won't learn a new programming paradigm in a week. If Donald Rumsfeld were here he would say to you: There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know. The point of this book, obviously, is to turn people's unknown unknowns into known unknowns. Not for them to become competent programmers of 7 languages in 7 weeks.
chollida1 17y ago
Agreed, but there is a reason why every masters program out there has a survey course were students each spend a class teaching a topic to other students. There is a lot of value in knowing what is going on in your field.

I think the implied criticism is valid. This book is the "Reader's Digest" version of learning seven languages and four programming paradigms. You won't learn a new programming paradigm in a week.

pfedor 17y ago

But you may learn what's out there. Not all learning has to be in-depth learning. Getting an overview of a field is important too. Reading Hacker News won't teach you anything in-depth either but you choose to do it for the same reason.

aaronblohowiak 17y ago
i concur. there is room on the shelf for a "survey course" of paradigms

DannoHung 17y ago

I sincerely disagree. I had a class on programming languages in college. It was one semester and went into very little depth of each language and paradigm covered. That said, I didn't know that half of the stuff that we were taught about existed before that class, and it spurred me to learn more and to learn at a greater depth. I doubt that there's going to be any illusion about what this book is. Surveys are vital for new learners to help them build the cognitive maps of the knowledge space they need to be able to understand what they don't know. Maybe you don't talk to a lot of working programmers, but there are a frighteningly large number of people who just don't know anything about programming language syntax and paradigms not descended from Algol-68

davidmathers 17y ago

You won't learn a new programming paradigm in a week. If Donald Rumsfeld were here he would say to you: There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know. The point of this book, obviously, is to turn people's unknown unknowns into known unknowns. Not for them to become competent programmers of 7 languages in 7 weeks.

chollida1 17y ago

Agreed, but there is a reason why every masters program out there has a survey course were students each spend a class teaching a topic to other students. There is a lot of value in knowing what is going on in your field.