Compilation of Awkward Syntax

[Jorgen Grahn]

Joe Snodgrass skrev 2013-05-01 23:54:

Twenty years, so far. I'll tell you when I'm done.

The fun part is that when asked the classic question

"On a scale from 1-10, where Bjarne Stroustrup is a 10, how well do you
know C++?",

the answer is often 9 after 3 months, 8 after a year, and 7 after 5
years. I'm now probably down to 5 or 6.

But I suppose after 3 months, a year, 5 years, you worry less and less
about it.

Personally I feel the subset of C++ (or C++98) I know is enough, in
the sense that I can read all code I need to read, and I can express
the things I need to express efficiently in my own code. (Or at least,
that the things I cannot express elegantly couldn't be fixed using the
parts of the language I /don't/ know well.)

/Jorgen

 

[Balog Pal]

Then you're wrong, because I regularly see competent programmers
learn it in about six months. Not well enough to write
a compiler for it, but well enough to be efficiently productive
in our application code.

But I guess they had live access to a good C++ mentor during the
learning process and an environment doing C++ code and regular reviews.

That's hardly a condition trivial to meet.

 

[Jorgen Grahn]

That "in our application code" is important -- it gets much easier if
the architecture is already there, and the subset of the language is
fixed.

But I guess they had live access to a good C++ mentor during the
learning process and an environment doing C++ code and regular reviews.

That's hardly a condition trivial to meet.

Not /trivial/, but surely not unusual either? Anyone joining a team
working with C++ would meet it. (Unless the team don't know C++, or
are openly hostile to newcomers.)

Learning as an isolated hobby user is much harder. But that goes for
any language.

/Jorgen

 

[Tony]

Then you're wrong, because I regularly see competent programmers
learn it in about six months. Not well enough to write
a compiler for it, but well enough to be efficiently productive
in our application code.

I'm not saying you are worthless or what you have done is worthless, I'm just
trying to keep you away from youth. I didn't mean that. I mean, if anyone is
going to actually FOLLOW you, c'mon, wouldn't I be the one to punch you in the
face for that?

I don't want to fight you. That's what you do though? Who are you? Who must bow
to you? How much money do you want? What went wrong? What's your price to make
you happy? (rhetorical)

 

[Tony]

I've been asked to rate myself on a scale of 1-5, and said 5. I'm quite
happy to put myself in the top 20%.

The top 20% of what?

I'm also aware that there are a number of people - several in this very
group - who are a lot better than I am.

Better at what?

I look on the skills as being
something like a poisson distribution
poison?

- there are a small number of very
highly skilled people.

Ya think? Were you suggesting "skilled in your shit"? Hmm?

 

[Stuart]

Learning [C++ (added by Stuart)] as an isolated hobby user is much harder. But that goes for
any language.

+1

I once met a guy that got a student's jobs at the Fraunhofer Institute
and got _paid_ half a year's wages just to learn how to program C++. I
was a bit jealous because when I got a students job at the same
department I had to program C++ right away, even though I had never used
it before either. But as a major in CS, I was supposed to know C++ (as
if studying CS meant that one would learn all the programming languages
in the world), while this guy majored in mathematics.

But the important point is: Learning C++ as an isolated hobby user is
IMHO also futile. There is so much of it to learn that one has to spend
a life-time and a half in order to learn it all.

I have seen a lot of people in newsgroups who think that learning every
aspect of C++ will score them a good job. I think they're wrong. The
same guy that got paid for learning C++ at Fraunhofer Institute once
told me what studying mathematics is actually about: Showing that you
can conquer any problem - no matter how boring, no matter how
complicated - that is thrown at you. That are the skills that are most
important for good programmers: analytical thinking and the ability to
abstract things.

Regards,
Stuart