On Becoming a Software Developer

[rousseau]

The extraversion spectrum is just that, a spectrum, you fall where you fall. It's not a binary where you're either or, or some of both, a lot of people (probably most) aren't really classic extroverts or introverts, but rather fall close to the middle. And actually, from what I can tell it's usually these people in the middle who turn out the most successful in most fields, including programming.

But what we can say is that strong introverts are far more likely to be programmers than strong extroverts, and that'd be akin to a law of physics. Extraversion by definition measures your optimal level of stimulation to feel content, and so we should expect people who have a low stimulation threshold to be attracted to a desk job, more often than not.

[rousseau]

I think that is how we end up with a lot of black hat hackers. They can't make it in a team setting, and they can't get people to buy their independent programs, so they turn to hacking for fun and profit. Those hackers get a lot of press, so some may think that all programmers fit the mold of those introverted personalities, but I think the vast majority of programmers are at least somewhat extroverted.

That's an interesting point.

I definitely know a good chunk of what I'd call 'unbalanced' programmers (people who live and breathe code and have few other skills), with a bit of an ego, and a lot of motivation to flex their muscle with tech. Actually, I'm reasonably sure I was hacked by someone like that when I was in college studying programming.

[Loren Pechtel]

But once one has learned one programming language, it is usually fairly easy to learn another. Once one understands variables or if-then-else constructs or loops or functions, it is usually fairly easy to transfer what one has learned.

Definitely. Calling them different programming languages is a misnomer to me. They're a bunch of different dialects of one underlying language.

[Gun Nut]

It's about passion... If you are passionate about something, you can sit in front of it for extended periods of time. Like all skills, time = expertise.
That's it.
One advantage of programming is that unlike any other computer-related skill, it never really changes much. Sure, there are thousands of iterations of programming languages and techniques at various levels... but they all use the same skill... about starting with a new language for a veteran programmer, its just vocabulary... the grammar is all pretty much the same.
By the way, modular programming is nothing by goto's... calling a function? you are "going to" a section of code and then "return"ing. responding to a triggered event? that's a goto... the higher level, object oriented, languages obfuscate it, but that is what is happening.

[Loren Pechtel]

It's about passion... If you are passionate about something, you can sit in front of it for extended periods of time. Like all skills, time = expertise.
That's it.
One advantage of programming is that unlike any other computer-related skill, it never really changes much. Sure, there are thousands of iterations of programming languages and techniques at various levels... but they all use the same skill... about starting with a new language for a veteran programmer, its just vocabulary... the grammar is all pretty much the same.
By the way, modular programming is nothing by goto's... calling a function? you are "going to" a section of code and then "return"ing. responding to a triggered event? that's a goto... the higher level, object oriented, languages obfuscate it, but that is what is happening.

The biggest part of learning a new language is learning it's library.

[rousseau]

It's about passion... If you are passionate about something, you can sit in front of it for extended periods of time. Like all skills, time = expertise.
That's it.
One advantage of programming is that unlike any other computer-related skill, it never really changes much. Sure, there are thousands of iterations of programming languages and techniques at various levels... but they all use the same skill... about starting with a new language for a veteran programmer, its just vocabulary... the grammar is all pretty much the same.
By the way, modular programming is nothing by goto's... calling a function? you are "going to" a section of code and then "return"ing. responding to a triggered event? that's a goto... the higher level, object oriented, languages obfuscate it, but that is what is happening.

The biggest part of learning a new language is learning it's library.

These days it seems like a developer's biggest challenge is learning the idiosyncrasies of the framework they're working in.

If you're moving from .NET to Java for instance, actually coding small problems and features would be easy enough, but Java comes with a different set of tooling that would have a bit of a learning curve.

Or if you're getting into JS land with stuff like React and Angular the problem is that the frameworks are completely unintuitive until you actually read the documentation. One can't know vanilla JS and then automatically write React.

And some c-based languages like Ruby in the Rails framework aren't actually as intuitive when moving from something like Java or .NET.

Any competent programmer can write a generic algorithm to solve basic problems, but a good brunt of a programming job is doing things that need to be told or found, not figured out.

[Gun Nut]

It's about passion... If you are passionate about something, you can sit in front of it for extended periods of time. Like all skills, time = expertise.
That's it.
One advantage of programming is that unlike any other computer-related skill, it never really changes much. Sure, there are thousands of iterations of programming languages and techniques at various levels... but they all use the same skill... about starting with a new language for a veteran programmer, its just vocabulary... the grammar is all pretty much the same.
By the way, modular programming is nothing by goto's... calling a function? you are "going to" a section of code and then "return"ing. responding to a triggered event? that's a goto... the higher level, object oriented, languages obfuscate it, but that is what is happening.

The biggest part of learning a new language is learning it's library.

These days it seems like a developer's biggest challenge is learning the idiosyncrasies of the framework they're working in.

If you're moving from .NET to Java for instance, actually coding small problems and features would be easy enough, but Java comes with a different set of tooling that would have a bit of a learning curve.

Or if you're getting into JS land with stuff like React and Angular the problem is that the frameworks are completely unintuitive until you actually read the documentation. One can't know vanilla JS and then automatically write React.

And some c-based languages like Ruby in the Rails framework aren't actually as intuitive when moving from something like Java or .NET.

Any competent programmer can write a generic algorithm to solve basic problems, but a good brunt of a programming job is doing things that need to be told or found, not figured out.

ya.. that is true... most programming is copy and paste from a google search. Why re-invent the wheel, especially if you are new to the language.

[bigfield]

ya.. that is true... most programming is copy and paste from a google search. Why re-invent the wheel, especially if you are new to the language.

Perhaps that's true if your experience in programming is limited to copy-pasting macros, shell scripts and config files.

[rousseau]

Gun Nut

Join Date - Oct 2018

[fromderinside]

Back in the day, which I encountered in the late '70s, there were two movements as result of IBM's System 370 catastrophe. They were disciplined standardized structured code formally commented and reusable code libraries. Both movements arose mainly to constrain those who considered software an open ended endlessly modifiable art rather than a measurable discipline.

At the end of my career, end of the nineties, I was still fighting the good fight to produce continuous process improvement (TQM) via strong control over both coding and manufacturing processes using continuous measurement and test metrics of product quality in process control.

Visual methods shouldn't change those objectives.