SemiOT: Mourning for Classic Computing

From: Douglas Quebbeman <dhquebbeman_at_theestopinalgroup.com>
Date: Wed Aug 22 17:51:27 2001

> > On Fri, 17 Aug 2001, Tony Duell wrote:
>
> No, I disagree. Leanring programming is not the same as learning a
> programming language (the latter is much easier, even for a beginner).
> You should learn to think about the problem long before you ever write a
> single line of code.

I'll take this even one step further... learning programming
isn't learning how to construct applications. They didn't teach
how to construct applications when I was in school; and now,
with RAD/IDE and class libraries/frameworks, most people never
learn.

Since constructing applications is (generally) platform-dependent,
it might never have been/be appropriate to cover in a college course.

Fortunately, my career path put me in the position of maintaining
systems constructed (or *not* constructed) by others. I found that
I learned how to conceive a large system and implement it by factoring
by immersing myself in a previous system that someone else wrote,
and while immersing myself, watching out for bad habits to be
avoided.

Regards,
-dq
Received on Wed Aug 22 2001 - 17:51:27 BST