Comments on: Reading Comprehension Will Make You A Better Programmer http://www.jakevoytko.com/blog/2007/12/22/reading-comprehension-will-make-you-a-better-programmer/ Ye Olde Computer Science Blogge Fri, 18 Jun 2010 17:23:52 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: Greg Molyneux http://www.jakevoytko.com/blog/2007/12/22/reading-comprehension-will-make-you-a-better-programmer/comment-page-1/#comment-1835 Greg Molyneux Sun, 23 Dec 2007 16:13:51 +0000 http://www.jakevoytko.com/blog/2007/12/22/reading-comprehension-will-make-you-a-better-programmer/#comment-1835 Fair point Andy. However, having three more novels under your belt is a little bit more than a casual experience increase. Fair point Andy. However, having three more novels under your belt is a little bit more than a casual experience increase.

]]> By: Andy http://www.jakevoytko.com/blog/2007/12/22/reading-comprehension-will-make-you-a-better-programmer/comment-page-1/#comment-1826 Andy Sun, 23 Dec 2007 02:18:19 +0000 http://www.jakevoytko.com/blog/2007/12/22/reading-comprehension-will-make-you-a-better-programmer/#comment-1826 "It takes a seasoned literature veteran to extract the detail work from novels that were written by seasoned veterans. To the rest of us, “Moby Dick” may as well be “Snow Crash”." This is an odd metric for "seasoned veteran". According to wikipedia, Moby Dick was Melville's sixth novel, where as Snow Crash was Stephenson's third. What makes Melville a seasoned veteran at the point he wrote Moby Dick? Neither were freshman attempts. “It takes a seasoned literature veteran to extract the detail work from novels that were written by seasoned veterans. To the rest of us, “Moby Dick” may as well be “Snow Crash”.”

This is an odd metric for “seasoned veteran”. According to wikipedia, Moby Dick was Melville’s sixth novel, where as Snow Crash was Stephenson’s third. What makes Melville a seasoned veteran at the point he wrote Moby Dick? Neither were freshman attempts.

]]> By: Joseph Montanez http://www.jakevoytko.com/blog/2007/12/22/reading-comprehension-will-make-you-a-better-programmer/comment-page-1/#comment-1825 Joseph Montanez Sun, 23 Dec 2007 02:00:14 +0000 http://www.jakevoytko.com/blog/2007/12/22/reading-comprehension-will-make-you-a-better-programmer/#comment-1825 Interesting read, one of the main reasons I code is for the challenge even if its repetative boring work I push myself to write better code. But when it comes to reading code, I latch to the basic syntatical understandings and ingest large segments of code at a time. This allows me to jump into a new language and just develop what ever the client needs done. After all a variable is a variable, push, add, pop, shift, concatination, etc is all the same as finding the pretense, past tense, verds, subject and predicate in a new language to produce a sentence/paragraph/story. Yet after all that is said and done with projects/code, I couldn't write to save my life and my reading comprehension as well, because I cant write, I can not protray what I have taken in from the story unless I can draw a picture, not words. Just the irony that english is not longer my primate language, as it once was. p.s Happy Holidays! Interesting read, one of the main reasons I code is for the challenge even if its repetative boring work I push myself to write better code. But when it comes to reading code, I latch to the basic syntatical understandings and ingest large segments of code at a time. This allows me to jump into a new language and just develop what ever the client needs done. After all a variable is a variable, push, add, pop, shift, concatination, etc is all the same as finding the pretense, past tense, verds, subject and predicate in a new language to produce a sentence/paragraph/story.

Yet after all that is said and done with projects/code, I couldn’t write to save my life and my reading comprehension as well, because I cant write, I can not protray what I have taken in from the story unless I can draw a picture, not words. Just the irony that english is not longer my primate language, as it once was.

p.s Happy Holidays!

]]> By: Siddharth Mitra http://www.jakevoytko.com/blog/2007/12/22/reading-comprehension-will-make-you-a-better-programmer/comment-page-1/#comment-1822 Siddharth Mitra Sat, 22 Dec 2007 17:33:04 +0000 http://www.jakevoytko.com/blog/2007/12/22/reading-comprehension-will-make-you-a-better-programmer/#comment-1822 @Jeremiah "When I read well-factored, or well-modularized ....code.." Sometimes I learn more by just reading http://thedailywtf.com @Jeremiah

“When I read well-factored, or well-modularized ….code..”

Sometimes I learn more by just reading
http://thedailywtf.com

]]> By: Siddharth Mitra http://www.jakevoytko.com/blog/2007/12/22/reading-comprehension-will-make-you-a-better-programmer/comment-page-1/#comment-1821 Siddharth Mitra Sat, 22 Dec 2007 17:28:35 +0000 http://www.jakevoytko.com/blog/2007/12/22/reading-comprehension-will-make-you-a-better-programmer/#comment-1821 nice article... "Level Zero: .....(reserved for advanced Internet users and high school dropouts)." lol :-D nice article…

“Level Zero: …..(reserved for advanced Internet users and high school dropouts).”

lol :-D

]]> By: Jeremiah http://www.jakevoytko.com/blog/2007/12/22/reading-comprehension-will-make-you-a-better-programmer/comment-page-1/#comment-1819 Jeremiah Sat, 22 Dec 2007 17:09:14 +0000 http://www.jakevoytko.com/blog/2007/12/22/reading-comprehension-will-make-you-a-better-programmer/#comment-1819 I've noticed that in my (relatively short) time doing freelancing work that deals with other people's codebases, I've become a much better code-reader - and that the skills I've gained in that area have translated over into code-writing as well. When I read (literally) bad code written by other people, it stretches my purely analytical capability - I have to really work to figure out what's going on. When I read well-factored, or well-modularized (practically the same thing, depending on language) code written by other people, I pick up on new techniques, language features I wasn't aware of, new loose patterns for solving classes of problems, etc. Before I got around to doing this on a regular basis, I probably would have thought that all code-bases sucked. I have come to have the opinion that one can not really further themselves as a useful developer past a certain point without reading other people's code - you get stuck in your own stupidity, and your stupid code works because the language you're using is turing-complete. Anyhow, nice read. I’ve noticed that in my (relatively short) time doing freelancing work that deals with other people’s codebases, I’ve become a much better code-reader – and that the skills I’ve gained in that area have translated over into code-writing as well.

When I read (literally) bad code written by other people, it stretches my purely analytical capability – I have to really work to figure out what’s going on.

When I read well-factored, or well-modularized (practically the same thing, depending on language) code written by other people, I pick up on new techniques, language features I wasn’t aware of, new loose patterns for solving classes of problems, etc.

Before I got around to doing this on a regular basis, I probably would have thought that all code-bases sucked.

I have come to have the opinion that one can not really further themselves as a useful developer past a certain point without reading other people’s code – you get stuck in your own stupidity, and your stupid code works because the language you’re using is turing-complete.

Anyhow, nice read.

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