I’ve been a bit of a language junkie over the last five years. I was looking for the language that would do it better, faster, and easier than the next one. The silver lining is that I’ve managed to pick up several programming languages and their associated problem solving styles along the way. When you are working your way through the painful examples of ‘toy code’ in the beginning book and wondering how it’s gonna help you in your career as a super programmer- focus on what they are teaching you. Each example - at least in a good book- is demonstrating some algorithms that you’ll use to solve a problem later. Become familiar with those solutions. That way you inadvertently warehouse techniques that you have no idea that you did until they are needed. A lot of what high level developers dismiss as “toy code” is actually vital foundation code-it introduces you to solutions to problems that you will come across.
Most of the introductory books that I came across demonstrated fundamentals that I needed to get through my daily work. These fundamentals existed across languages and once I recognized them I was able to refine them and use them to my advantage in multiple languages.
When you are doing those painful examples in a new language ask yourself ‘what the hell am I supposed to learn form this one’ . If you are learning about scope, sit up and realize that Collin’s page 301 might be the reason that you get to go to sleep at a reasonable time. I’ve lost hours off my life because I used ‘as’ instead of Casting the variable.
When I was learning Python I grew frustrated with Hetland’s examples until I was in a situation where what I perceived to be a stupid example was exactly what I needed.
Type in the code so that you can be frustrated about the missed semicolons and you’ll get 5 times more out of it. OK I made that number up. But a lot of your skill develops from typing not come from reading a book. It’s not about skimming the concept and recognizing it but about the hands on, the bugs and the immersion.
M
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