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  Is programmer really profession for youth only?

-dedicated to the new programmers just into the workplace.

One young Chinese friend asked me: is programmermeant only for less experienced youth? Should I consider transition once if I workon it until 30 years old?

Whilemany professionals hold th...

3,669 0       PROGRAMMER YOUTH PRODUCT PROJECT CAREER ANALYSIS


  "Programmer" is an Overgeneralization

"Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it." - Donald KnuthEarlier today, I came across a post during a google-fu session that claimed that no one should use the C++ standard library function make_heap, because almost nobody uses it correctly. I immediately started mentally ranting about how utterly ridiculous this claim is, because anyone whose gone to a basic algorithm class would know how to properly use make_heap. Then I started thinking about all the programmers who don't know what a heap is, and furthermore probably don't even need to know.Then I reali...

3,701 0       PROGRAMMER OVERLOAD OVERGENERATION


  The Day Programmer vs. The Night Programmer

This post is a slightly edited form of an e-mail that I sent around internally last year. But it was suggested to me recently that I post it up to my blog to see what people think – am I right or wrong?Over the years I’ve come to the belief that there are two kinds of programmer in the world, no matter what technology they work with, lets call them:        1. Day Programmers        2. Night ProgrammersNow – day programmers are the most prevalent in this industry, and you find them mostly in organisations...

4,637 0       PROGRAMMER DAY PROGRAMMER NIGHT PROGRAMMER DIFFERENCE


  What Makes A Great Programmer?

I remember it like it was yesterday. It was the year 2000, Dr. Pargas was standing at the front of our data structures class talking about some data structure-y topic while an SSH session was projected on the wall in front of us. Someone asked a question, and he said something along the lines of "Well, if you want to be a real computer scientist you need to start using vi". I think he was smiling as he said it, and in hindsight his statement wasn't even slightly true, but being young and easily influenced like I was I went back to my dorm room and immediately took up training myself how to use...

2,206 0       PROGRAMMER GREAT PROGRAMMER CHARACTER


  I am a great programmer, but horrible algorithmist

I am a great programmer, but a horrible algorithmist. It is a thought that has been weighing on me heavily recently, and I'd like to gather other developers feelings on the subject as well.I started what can be called my professional development career back in 1999. I was still in middle school, but my father hired me at his software company. My official duty was to make updates to our websites, but I mostly ended up bugging the other developers to help me learn.From there I picked up Perl (somewhat) and then moved to PHP and front end web development where I have stayed comfortably for the l...

3,679 0       PROGRAMMER ALGORITHMIST DIFFFERENCE


  Esmerelda's Imagination

An actress acquaintance of mine—let's call her Esmerelda—once said, "I can't imagine being anything except an actress." To which the retort was given, "You can't be much of an actress then, can you?"I was reminded of this exchange when someone said to me about Go, "I can't imagine programming in a language that doesn't have generics." My retort, unspoken this time, was, "You can't be much of a programmer, then, can you?"This is not an essay about generics (which are a fine thing and may arrive in Go one day, or may not) but about imagination, or at least what passes for imagina...

2,732 0       PROGRAMMER IMAGINATION LACK


  What Level Programmer Are You?

Everybody's talking about how programming is the skill that we all are going to need. [Except those folks who might feel that most programming could be turned into wizard-like tools. Insert long discussion about Strong AI.]But what's a programmer? Is the guy who set up his own Apache Web Server a programmer? How about the guy who created a complex Excel spreadsheet? The guy who made his own RPG level? Minecraft players? When we say "Everybody is going to have to know programming" what, exactly, does that mean?We need a set of programming levels.Level 1, The Read-and-Type: This is the guy who ...

2,843 0       PROGRAMMER SKILL CRITERIA LEVEL


  Let Your Programmers Be Silly

6ShareYou’re in the middle of a crazy startup development sprint. Pressure is sky high as you might have to fire everyone if you don’t generate significant traction over the next 4 months. Make it or #fail situation.The guys (I wish we’d have girls but … wait we have a student, anyway) are killing tickets and you’re pretty much on the target you’ve set with your investors. Not comfortably confident but ok.And you catch your guys debating, for multiple days, whether they should be using “n/a” or a slashed zero to represent a div by ...

2,192 0       PROGRAMMER STYLE WORK MANAGEMENT