My thoughts on programming

[abs9986]

I just finished my first year of computer programming (c++) at my highschool.

I really did not enjoy programming that much, probably because I was no good at it. Some people in my class just understood things alot quicker, but I was one of those people who was always leaning over to try to ask for help and copy little bits of various code from my neighbors.

I think programming takes a certain personality, one that I dont have. Does anyone else feel like sharing their views on what they like or dislike about programming in general.

[Grizzly]

I'm not inclined to list what I like or dislike about programming right now (I'm kind of in a hurry - on the way out the door), but I will say this: I think you're right in that it takes a certain personality-type to be a good programmer. I think that combination of personality traits tends to manifest itself in men, more often than in women. Which is why the world of programming is about 90% male (that's a wild guess, but it's gotta be somewhere close to that)

I'm not suggesting you're male or female, it's just a side-note that I find particularly interesting.

[adam_uk]

imo its like marmite

[Tekime]

I think like a lot of things, programming does take a certain kind of personality. It could also have been your approach to learning it. I have had my moments where I thought the exact same thing as you -- this is meant for some other dude.. But over time I've learned to understand the underlying concepts of programming languages, and not get too mixed up in language specifics. Perhaps it hasn't "clicked" with you yet, and if you are still struggling with concepts, it'll be very hard to learn the details. Or, perhaps it just isn't for you! Programming is definitely not a task that many people truly enjoy doing...

[abs9986]

lol, I'm a guy by the way. I agree with what you were saying.

Are there many females on this forum?

[anfpunk]

Programming takes an entire different approach of thinking than what most people are used to. It is definitely just not for some people. But like Tekime said, maybe it wasn't being taught a way you could learn it easily. Who knows, maybe at some point things will click.

[Adisharr]

Originally posted by abs9986
lol, I'm a guy by the way. I agree with what you were saying.

Are there many females on this forum?

They left ever since the mods got rid of the 'Hair and Nails' forum..

[Tekime]

Originally posted by Adisharr


They left ever since the mods got rid of the 'Hair and Nails' forum..

An unfortunate loss at that Some of those hair dryer mods were getting impressive. I guess one girl vmodded her Conair and dried ~1.3 lbs. of hair in under 15 seconds!! And I thought my OC'd TBred was fast!!

[leoku]

Originally posted by abs9986
I just finished my first year of computer programming (c++) at my highschool.

I really did not enjoy programming that much, probably because I was no good at it. Some people in my class just understood things alot quicker, but I was one of those people who was always leaning over to try to ask for help and copy little bits of various code from my neighbors.

I think programming takes a certain personality, one that I dont have. Does anyone else feel like sharing their views on what they like or dislike about programming in general.

I agree that it takes some type of personality to "fall in love" with programming. I do not agree that this personality is the excuse of stopping programming.

It is all about the patterns that you recognize. Once you grab and conceptualize the pattern then you know how to program. It just a matter what you are programming with. If experienced programmers can not handle C/C++ and keeps cranking out buggy codes and software, how do you expect a high school student gets to lik it. To me, it is the school curriculumn that gets horribly buggy and destroyed the joy of programming.

In my opinion, taking C/C++ in high school is overkill and just like teaching calculous in elementary schools. Boring, horrifying and giving no sense of achievement. So you are not interested in programming and now shying away from it.

I would like to recommend other programming languages as a replacements. BASIC as a classic choice since it was designed as a teaching tool. Then newer scripting language such as Perl, Tcl, or better yet Python. There is no edit-compile-link-run-debug cycles with these scripting language. It is just edit-run-debug cycles. Much more friendly and easier to learn. Better yet, they introduce lots of modern programming concept for newbies, including OOP.

Python is a full-fledge OOP scripting language and offers the interactive mode for users to prototype before creating applications. Take a look.

Learning programming is a valuable experience, regardless you are going to pursue programming career or not.

It took me one year to memorize the multiplication table, because I did not like it and the teachers simply threatened to impose punishement.

[Fevriul]

Originally posted by abs9986
I just finished my first year of computer programming (c++) at my highschool.

I really did not enjoy programming that much, probably because I was no good at it. Some people in my class just understood things alot quicker, but I was one of those people who was always leaning over to try to ask for help and copy little bits of various code from my neighbors.

I think programming takes a certain personality, one that I dont have. Does anyone else feel like sharing their views on what they like or dislike about programming in general.

I found that when I started programming I tried to come up with a whole solution at once, some huge program that did everything. Always failed numerous bugs etc. Most important thing I learned when I was in university was this "Break the problem down". Break its down into lots and lots of little pieces, once they have been solved you have the solution for the whole.

The most important trait in that respect is to be able to think methodically.

[Techo]

Originally posted by leoku

I agree that it takes some type of personality to "fall in love" with programming. I do not agree that this personality is the excuse of stopping programming.

Well said.

Originally posted by leoku

In my opinion, taking C/C++ in high school is overkill and just like teaching calculous in elementary schools. Boring, horrifying and giving no sense of achievement. So you are not interested in programming and now shying away from it.

Yes, that's the problem I see with students forced to learn programming by parents and teachers. They are not given a goal that will actually be usefull in real life. Having personally tutored a couple of kids. The student thinks, why am I supposed to make this application when no one is going to use it. So it's best to give a student to create a real life app, of course a not mission critical or complicated applciation. Since building a rather important and complicated application with limited experience is not a good idea, it will really hurt in the future when new bug fixes and features will have to be added.


Also about the male/female chat. As this SharkyExtreme forum has in general may have limited female users registed how many of them do you think are programmers. This forum is not the place to judge the ratio of male to female programmers. Try visiting a forum strictly dedicated to software programming and you'l see a much higher ratio. As smart folks I think you would understand that. And if you'de known some history you will find out females where the first programmers.

[ksuohio]

Trying to tutor students back when I was in college, I could see the difference between those who got it and those that didn't. You have to have a pretty logical mind as well as being analytical. For example, the most influential classes that I took where math logic class. After looking at logic from that point of view, apply a programming language wasn't that difficult. After awhile, you begin to look at languages the same way and expect a certain flow. In my experience, I was taught C++, but have only used it once or twice at work. Rather, I used the theory behind programming to read RPG, Java, VB, and others. Plus you have to remember that understanding the general concepts of programming and system structure will get you far if you can apply it. At work, we have programmer anaylsts that have spent many years focusing on one, maybe to languages. They know their stuff and can solve most solutions that we give. On the other hand, the folks that make the money do not touch the code. They have to adapt to many systems, languages, and business situations and develope the concept.

To the original question, yes programmers march to the beat of a different drummer at times. They have one primary goal and that is to produce working code. That means spending a lot of time in front of a PC working on the same types of things over and over.

[SpringDog]

For me, programming always came somewhat naturally. I think a good 90% of programming (good programming, that is) depends on you being able to visualize what you need to do. As soon as I get an assignment my mind is already plotting out how things will flow and how they'll relate. To me, it's a game of sorts: How can I get from A to B in the best way possible? I am also really interested in how algorithms can be developed and applied, not just to computers, but to EVERY aspect of life. Beleive it or not, most everything can be described with an algorithm. In my opinion, if you can't see those algorithms or don't want to look for them, programming is NOT for you.

[Adisharr]

Originally posted by Techo


Yes, that's the problem I see with students forced to learn programming by parents and teachers. They are not given a goal that will actually be usefull in real life. Having personally tutored a couple of kids. The student thinks, why am I supposed to make this application when no one is going to use it. So it's best to give a student to create a real life app, of course a not mission critical or complicated applciation.

I'm with you 100%. Most of the things I learn are forgotten unless I can eventually use them in an application.

[zackbass]

I just finished my first year of programming at my high school (Java) and I am going into the AP class this year. The teacher is an EE, but mostly a stereotypical female geek (and once was a mainframe sysadmin, if that gives you a better picture ). Her teaching was not quite the best, and she was not really familiar with Java (mostly due to the libraries and minor things, she is an expert with most other languages), but she was very good with computer architecture and general logic.

We jumped right into the object-oriented stuff from the very start. It was obvious after about a week how well each person was going to do. Four or five people got the idea after a couple days, about half the class took a few months, and the rest still don't have a clue what a class is (or that "java" isn't a reserved word ).

I don't subscribe to the theory that a certian personality type is especially suited toward programming. Programming has more to do with how you learn and anaylze problems (more commonly known as being a geek). These attributes are pretty evenly distributed among personality types.

There is a noticeable relationship between student type and how well they did. It pretty much broke down like this: (sorry if this doesn't make much sense to someone, this is from a high school perspective)
Slacker that gets good grades: Good
Works hard and gets excellent grades: Fair - Bad
Slacker with bad grades: Bad - Horrible
There are obviously exceptions to a list like this, but I'm sure that if you tried it on a group it'd be 70-90% accurate.

Programming seems to fit best with the first group because they are able to look at a concept or problem and almost instantly have a good idea of how it should work. These are the people that manage to stay in the top 10-15% of the class with hardly any work. The grading in a programming class is especially suited to these students because the tests mainly consist of writing previously unseen algorithms from scratch and working on projects.

The second group does noticeably worse because programming is very different from "normal" classes in which everything is given to you and you have to memorize the material. It is about logic, concepts, and thinking on your feet. Not something that you can really study for in the taditional sense.

The last group comes in last for obvious reasons. They don't get the concepts and don't try to improve. Typical failure material anyway.

I'm sorry for writing so much, but if you look at it from a high school perspective, this is interesting stuff.

Abs9986, if you are here typing a message (and a coherent one at that), you have the right leraning style for programming. Get yourself a good book on the programming language of your choice and figure it out yourself without the tests or note-taking associated with school.