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The only important trait I see that matters for either of these groups is a willingness to try things, push buttons, see what happens. A beginner worries about

The only important trait I see that matters for either of these groups is a willingness to try things, push buttons, see what happens. A beginner worries about breaking the computer and doesn't yet understand that any question they have can be typed into a search engine verbatim and will probably be answered with 20 SO posts and 50 blogs posts. And early programmer is stumbling down this road. I don't know that this ethos can be communicated with a book. I would also recommend that beginners/early programmers learn 1 programming language really well, and ignore the din of people on the internet who claim to effortlessly, expertly jump among 10 languages as part of their day-to-day.

natural219 11y ago
I disagree with this entirely. You can "push buttons and see what happens" for decades without guidance on what buttons you're pushing and why. In addition, newcomers absolutely cannot just "type [their question] into a search engine verbatim" -- this is actually a highly advanced skill that you get after years of learning the correct patterns, abstractions, and jargon you need to get an effective answer for what you're looking for. For example, a beginner might phrase queries like "jquery how do I make text appear on screen", whereas a more experienced person might query something like "jquery element insert value".
- jordanpg 11y ago
  I wasn't suggesting that beginners not use books (or other "guidance"). Only that there are personality traits that are more useful to a beginner than detailed explication in any piece of writing.
dkersten 11y ago
and ignore the din of people on the internet who claim to effortlessly, expertly jump among 10 languages as part of their day-to-day. The problem with this isn't whether or not that claim is true, but rather that (as you say) its not the right thing for a beginner. Its perfectly fine (desirable, even, IMHO) for an intermediate-to-expert programmer to know many (different) languages and use a few of them regularly (although perhaps outside of JS and whatever you use on the backend, probably daily is a bit much maybe), but this is all distraction for a beginner. Beginners should focus on learning programming concepts, not on learning programming languages (but one language is a requirement, otherwise you can't learn by doing!) Although, Zeds point about learning the basics of four languages still holds - you can do that and then focus on one.
- jordanpg 11y ago
  I don't disagree with any of this. My point is more about the sorts of stories and claims that a beginner will encounter while poking around the usual sites. One could be forgiven for wondering if most HN commentators are 60 year-old polyglots with a security clearance and two failed startups under their belt. It can seem daunting in the right context.
loup-vaillant 11y ago
> I would also recommend that beginners/early programmers learn 1 programming language really well That's a dangerous approach. The first language is very hard to learn, because, well, it's your first. And when you stick to one language, you easily conflate the syntax and the semantics. So when you learn a second language, you have to unlearn the syntax of the first, in addition to learn the genuinely different concepts. Distinguishing the similar stuff in new clothes from the actual new stuff is hard. Simply put, learning the second languages will be very hard as well. Now your programmer has two data point, and knows with their gut that learning a new programming language is hard. This sets expectation, an will make it harder to learn additional languages. It will take some time to realise learning a new language, besides a few insane exceptions like C++, is not that hard. > ignore the din of people on the internet who claim to effortlessly, expertly jump among 10 languages as part of their day-to-day. Jumping from language to language may not be that easy. But one can certainly be an expert at 20 programming languages. Once you see the commonalities, there isn't much to learn. Really, a good course in programming languages is enough to get you started. The hard part is memorising 20 big programming frameworks, with all their warts, special cases and so on. Still, if you know the concepts, learning the vocabulary takes little time.
- jordanpg 11y ago
  I just don't see it. No one would ever recommend learning Spanish and Mandarin at the same time, for any reason. All of the things you said are true, and yet the beginner has only so much time, so much patience, so much learning to do in one day. Given this, I see larger advantages to spending all of that time and energy in one ecosystem. There are many perspectives on, say, Java coding styles, patterns, and idioms. One need not go outside a language to do that. And I would further argue that you simply cannot (usefully) see the global commonalities and idioms among languages until you've been doing this for a while. Years. As for experienced programmers, I've not known any "experts" at 20 languages, ever. My point was really that this idea is simply the result of run-of-the-mill internet hyperbole.
  - macNchz 11y ago
    Learning two programming languages at the same time is definitely not comparable to learning Spanish and Mandarin at the same time...those two languages are so different that you won't gain anything from it. Learning, say, Spanish and Italian at the same time might be a better analogy, since you'll start to see word roots and constructions that are shared among romance languages. I think learning more than one programming language at the same time is a great way to help you tease out basic programming concepts from the vagaries in the syntax of an individual language. How to types work? Scopes? Functions? Loops? Arrays? Hash tables? Those are all things that, once you really grok as separate from, say, whitespace problems in Python or curly brace issues in C, allow you to much more easily read and eventually pick up other languages.
mcgrootz 11y ago
Have you read Zed's books? I think this "ethos" is captured pretty nicely in them. Most chapters end asking the reader to solve a few challenges, some of these are difficult for a beginner, and it is recommended that you spend some time researching the answer.
nekopa 11y ago
Just a side note to your "will probably be answered with 20 SO posts": I am currently going through Learn Python the Hard Way and at the end of one exercise I was doing the extra credit stuff (research online all python formatting characters) and typed in the question verbatim, one of the top answers was from SO, went there to check it out and one of the first answers was: "So you are going through Learn python the Hard Way and are to lazy to find the answer" I mean, I understand some of what that person was trying to say, there is some basic etiquette you should follow when asking questions online, but I am very sure a beginner would not know it. And the question wasn't even "Tell me all the python formatting characters" it was asking where to find a list of them. Another answer did point them to the python docs, but I felt that whoever asked the question would be hesitant about using SO again when they have another problem, which is a shame.

natural219 11y ago

I disagree with this entirely. You can "push buttons and see what happens" for decades without guidance on what buttons you're pushing and why. In addition, newcomers absolutely cannot just "type [their question] into a search engine verbatim" -- this is actually a highly advanced skill that you get after years of learning the correct patterns, abstractions, and jargon you need to get an effective answer for what you're looking for. For example, a beginner might phrase queries like "jquery how do I make text appear on screen", whereas a more experienced person might query something like "jquery element insert value".

jordanpg 11y ago
I wasn't suggesting that beginners not use books (or other "guidance"). Only that there are personality traits that are more useful to a beginner than detailed explication in any piece of writing.

dkersten 11y ago

and ignore the din of people on the internet who claim to effortlessly, expertly jump among 10 languages as part of their day-to-day. The problem with this isn't whether or not that claim is true, but rather that (as you say) its not the right thing for a beginner. Its perfectly fine (desirable, even, IMHO) for an intermediate-to-expert programmer to know many (different) languages and use a few of them regularly (although perhaps outside of JS and whatever you use on the backend, probably daily is a bit much maybe), but this is all distraction for a beginner. Beginners should focus on learning programming concepts, not on learning programming languages (but one language is a requirement, otherwise you can't learn by doing!) Although, Zeds point about learning the basics of four languages still holds - you can do that and then focus on one.

jordanpg 11y ago
I don't disagree with any of this. My point is more about the sorts of stories and claims that a beginner will encounter while poking around the usual sites. One could be forgiven for wondering if most HN commentators are 60 year-old polyglots with a security clearance and two failed startups under their belt. It can seem daunting in the right context.

loup-vaillant 11y ago

> I would also recommend that beginners/early programmers learn 1 programming language really well That's a dangerous approach. The first language is very hard to learn, because, well, it's your first. And when you stick to one language, you easily conflate the syntax and the semantics. So when you learn a second language, you have to unlearn the syntax of the first, in addition to learn the genuinely different concepts. Distinguishing the similar stuff in new clothes from the actual new stuff is hard. Simply put, learning the second languages will be very hard as well. Now your programmer has two data point, and knows with their gut that learning a new programming language is hard. This sets expectation, an will make it harder to learn additional languages. It will take some time to realise learning a new language, besides a few insane exceptions like C++, is not that hard. > ignore the din of people on the internet who claim to effortlessly, expertly jump among 10 languages as part of their day-to-day. Jumping from language to language may not be that easy. But one can certainly be an expert at 20 programming languages. Once you see the commonalities, there isn't much to learn. Really, a good course in programming languages is enough to get you started. The hard part is memorising 20 big programming frameworks, with all their warts, special cases and so on. Still, if you know the concepts, learning the vocabulary takes little time.

jordanpg 11y ago
I just don't see it. No one would ever recommend learning Spanish and Mandarin at the same time, for any reason. All of the things you said are true, and yet the beginner has only so much time, so much patience, so much learning to do in one day. Given this, I see larger advantages to spending all of that time and energy in one ecosystem. There are many perspectives on, say, Java coding styles, patterns, and idioms. One need not go outside a language to do that. And I would further argue that you simply cannot (usefully) see the global commonalities and idioms among languages until you've been doing this for a while. Years. As for experienced programmers, I've not known any "experts" at 20 languages, ever. My point was really that this idea is simply the result of run-of-the-mill internet hyperbole.
- macNchz 11y ago
  Learning two programming languages at the same time is definitely not comparable to learning Spanish and Mandarin at the same time...those two languages are so different that you won't gain anything from it. Learning, say, Spanish and Italian at the same time might be a better analogy, since you'll start to see word roots and constructions that are shared among romance languages. I think learning more than one programming language at the same time is a great way to help you tease out basic programming concepts from the vagaries in the syntax of an individual language. How to types work? Scopes? Functions? Loops? Arrays? Hash tables? Those are all things that, once you really grok as separate from, say, whitespace problems in Python or curly brace issues in C, allow you to much more easily read and eventually pick up other languages.

mcgrootz 11y ago

Have you read Zed's books? I think this "ethos" is captured pretty nicely in them. Most chapters end asking the reader to solve a few challenges, some of these are difficult for a beginner, and it is recommended that you spend some time researching the answer.

nekopa 11y ago

Just a side note to your "will probably be answered with 20 SO posts": I am currently going through Learn Python the Hard Way and at the end of one exercise I was doing the extra credit stuff (research online all python formatting characters) and typed in the question verbatim, one of the top answers was from SO, went there to check it out and one of the first answers was: "So you are going through Learn python the Hard Way and are to lazy to find the answer" I mean, I understand some of what that person was trying to say, there is some basic etiquette you should follow when asking questions online, but I am very sure a beginner would not know it. And the question wasn't even "Tell me all the python formatting characters" it was asking where to find a list of them. Another answer did point them to the python docs, but I felt that whoever asked the question would be hesitant about using SO again when they have another problem, which is a shame.