Jim White wrote:
Wow. I guess I see your point. I feel like I am trying to become an
artist but had trouble opening the box of crayons.
Stefan's point of "the ability to solve problems" is key. I know
of no short cuts in the process of becoming an experienced
developer. Experienced developers have expended enormous amounts
of time and effort over the years, and sometimes have difficulty
catering to less experienced developers because of the many things
taken for granted. Programming basics can be taught. However,
great skills cannot be taught in a class; it entails a significant
amount of time and effort invested.
But remember, part this learning involves making mistakes or bad
decisions and learning from them. As we become more skilled in
problem solving, we reduce the errors and mistakes and maximize
productivity or quality of code. Unfortunately, this does not
happen overnight, so you'll need a certain amount of patience.
There is a skill to making mistakes too. There has to be progress
-- failure is a kind of progress too, because then we can change
our methods or plans to suit the situation. If your mistake-making
isn't "productive", it's time to reevaluate your approach to
solving problems.
ESR's "How to become a Hacker" is useful advice and distills most
of what we are trying to explain to you. Hackers have internalized
problem-solving skills that it becomes like a second nature. Also,
at some point, everyone on the list has started from zero before.
We have all written god-awful ugly code and stupendously dumb bugs
before. We might cringe at early code we published publicly. So,
approach the list community in the right way, and many will go the
extra mile to help you. This goes for vibrant developer
communities anywhere.
If you have started on Python and has made progress, please go
ahead with learning it. Once you have honed your problem-solving
skills (which is much more than programming -- it is also about
things like getting and using programs in source code form,
reading specifications or reference texts, troubleshooting, asking
questions productively, etc.) then you can move on to learn or
study other languages. Lua is just one of many languages that a
good developer should get acquainted with, and it takes time and
effort to become skilled at wielding such tools.
Whatever your choice is, I for one hope you will revisit Lua in
the future. In an age of instant gratification, let us remember
that studying and acquiring skills takes time and effort. Pace
yourself, good luck and happy coding. :-)
On Thu, May 8, 2008 at 4:49 PM, Stefan Sandberg
<keffo.sandberg@gmail.com <mailto:keffo.sandberg@gmail.com>> wrote:
I agree.. From reading this thread (tedious as it was, but I'm in a
hotel, so what else am I supposed to do), my only advice to the
initial poster is to brace yourself, because programming isn't
really related to any one specific
language, it's an artform, and at the core of that artform is the
ability to solve problems above all else, and to dig up the needed
information.
[snip snip]
