Re: Lua, Robotics, and a 13 year old...

[David Kastrup <dak@...>]

Nathaniel Lewis <linux.robotdude@gmail.com> writes:

> What would you have me learn then?  I know how to use a computer and
> how to program. I like working with them and I consider robotics a
> decent head start in computers for college.  I never have considered
> age an excuse for thinking someone is incompetent in a subject.

The problem with young programmers is often not that they are
incompetent but overconfident.  When a senior tells them "I don't
understand what your code does, even though it appears to work", they
consider this a problem of the senior rather than the code.

Often they don't even consider it a problem if they don't understand
what their code does themselves.

I have encountered lots of unstable "optimized" code in high level
language on which I have given up, rewriting it from scratch eventually.
And usually making it much faster and more maintainable (let alone
reliable and predictable) at the same time.  Like learning a new
language without accent, I have not been overimpressed with code written
by people who came in contact with the thought processes of computers
late in life, never mind whether they got a PhD in it or similar.

But that's only part of the story.  People learn their mother tongue
early after all, but few will be able to write non-trivial poetry.

I remember disassembling one program in (obviously) handwritten assembly
language, a Reversi game.  It was an implementation of alpha-beta
pruning with context-dependent scoring tables, straightforward,
efficient, recursive programming.  Hats off to the (unknown) author: I
rarely saw any code as straightforward and well-designed like that.  I
don't consider it likely that it has been written by somebody with a
degree in computer science.  But it also was not the work of a mere
computer-savvy kid.

-- 
David Kastrup