Re: Why, not How

[Elgon]

Wow! Heavy thoughs and thought provoking indeed.

I am a beginnner at Perl and in some ways, at programming too, in that I re-took it up about 6 months ago after a leave-of-absence for 7 years or so. What excites me about programming is that is something which is mentally stimulating, requires problem solving abilites and abstract thought. I will never be a truly kickass programmer: why I know this I cannot say but I feel it when I got to church, when I... mental note to self: give the matrix a rest for a while

Back to seriousness. I feel that in many ways the whole problem is one of a general education in maths and logic. I see this regularly at University (Chemistry major, French minor): People who get astounding marks in exams but can't understand the reasoning behind what they regurgitate, others who think that we study at University to get a degree or learn about a given subject. These people are not stupid, they merely lack experience: I do too in the programming field. Can this be part of the problem? Do many of these coders who are churned out have the vision to take their knowlege and extend it through reasoning and logic (and when all else fails, by trial-and-error) to cover methods and areas their course hasn't covered in detail?

The key to programming is not merely having an encyclopaedic knowlege of a given language, nor is it even understanding all aspects of a language, I think that being able to follow the consequences of your actions deeply and logically is the most important aspect. That is: be able to mentally map out the various probable paths of your program when the variables have the correct values, when they don't have the correct values and then to notice the boundary conditions and udjust accordingly. looking back at that sentence, I'm not sure if it is very deep or just crap

Experience is the key, combined with the ability to wing it when really necessary!

By reading this post you have agreed to abide by the following license conditions: 1. No flaming Elgon 'cause you think he's full of sh*t. 2. Waiving all rights to legal redress after self-inflicted injury through apoplectic rage. Elgon