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Ravi Bhavnani10-Sep-15 4:57

Ravi Bhavnani

10-Sep-15 4:57

Avijnata wrote:
IMHO, a developer should ultimately* become 'language independent', within reasonable limits**.

/ravi

My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536
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Sander Rossel10-Sep-15 20:26

10-Sep-15 20:26

Avijnata wrote:
* over a period of ten years, say.

Taking your sweet time WTF | :WTF:

Visit my blog at Sander's bits - Writing the code you need.
Or read my articles at my CodeProject profile.

Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability.
— Edsger W. Dijkstra

Regards,
Sander

Amarnath S10-Sep-15 21:29

10-Sep-15 21:29

Why ten years?[^]

Sander Rossel10-Sep-15 22:26

10-Sep-15 22:26

Experience != Skill

Knowing the foundations of OOP, SQL and some FP I can pretty much write any (major) language with relative ease.
Add to that knowledge of basic structures such as arrays, lists, hashtables, graphs, etc. and some knowledge of common algorithms and you're pretty good to go.
Get familiar with some desktop and some web development too.
Took me about five years.

I'm not saying I know everything (no one ever will) or that I'm some superstar programmer, but I'm sure as hell better than a lot of 10+ years experience seniors I've met (when it comes to programming anyway) Smile | :)

Visit my blog at Sander's bits - Writing the code you need.
Or read my articles at my CodeProject profile.

Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability.
— Edsger W. Dijkstra

Regards,
Sander

Amarnath S11-Sep-15 5:49

11-Sep-15 5:49

Sander Rossel wrote:
five years

Some of us, like me, who have no basic degree in CS, need more time than that. (My basic degree is in Mech Engg).

To give a concrete example, at the beginning of my software career, I did not know how a file was stored in the machine; let alone the difference between 'ascii files' and 'binary files'. Any the worst horror was - my first project was to implement JPEG image compression. Everything was new - image file formats, DCT, Huffman coding, pointers and Visual Studio 1.5 Smile | :)

A CS guy would have known most of these by his basic education. Was a real real struggle. And the 'Google' those days were Altavista/Lycos; and the Internet was quite small.

Why I had to join such a job is another question Smile | :)

for which the short answer is that my family circumstances did not allow me to go out of Bangalore, and this was the most attractive ($$) job available.

Sander Rossel11-Sep-15 12:56

11-Sep-15 12:56

Avijnata wrote:
Some of us, like me, who have no basic degree in CS, need more time than that. (My basic degree is in Mech Engg).

My basic degree is art, culture and media! Laugh | :laugh:

My bachelor degree is Common Art and Cultural Sciences and my masters degree is Media and Journalism.

I only started a part time IT study at the Open University three years ago.
Still haven't finished my 'first year', it's not going very fast...
Doing a lot of hobbying and writing did me lots of good though Smile | :)

Visit my blog at Sander's bits - Writing the code you need.
Or read my articles at my CodeProject profile.

Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability.
— Edsger W. Dijkstra

Regards,
Sander

Amarnath S11-Sep-15 16:23

11-Sep-15 16:23

Genius! Also, shows your passion towards CS topics!

Member 1070767711-Sep-15 1:05

Member 10707677

11-Sep-15 1:05

Not bragging, but one does tend to accumulate a volume of languages over the decades. I'm not entirely certain, but the count was somewhere in the vicinity of 1217, counting all variants and experimental versions. I still have some of the reference manuals from my first projects -- pre-internet.

When I started in the industry, one was required to only know six languages (Basic, COBOL, Fortran, RPG, Assembler and ALGOL/Pascal). All the rest are derivatives of at least one of those six. If you don't believe me, please explain why a large number of language reference manuals contain a syntactic reference section written in Backus-Naur (ALGOL) form.

The difficult may take time, the impossible a little longer.

Amarnath S11-Sep-15 5:35

11-Sep-15 5:35

Member 10707677 wrote:
1217

Wow! Just Wow!

Maybe you should put out all your experiences in a series of articles / tips. Will be really helpful for all the youngsters (and oldsters) out here.

rjmoses12-Sep-15 1:16

rjmoses

12-Sep-15 1:16

Same here--learned dozens of languages over the years, including some arcane languages such as REPO and EDL.

Found that a language is just a language, i.e., a method for taking some Input, doing some Processing to produce some Output. After a while, the language becomes immaterial. One language might be better suited to accomplish a task than another language, but, with few exceptions, the task can usually be completed in any language.

The harder part is getting a clear definition of the task to be completed, i.e., Input-->Processing-->Output. (Remember HIPO?)

Eddy Vluggen10-Sep-15 2:35

Eddy Vluggen

10-Sep-15 2:35

If they actually use Java, then yes. Which does indeed not make sense, if you can use .NET Smile | :)

Bastard Programmer from Hell Suspicious | :suss:

If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]

Ian Shlasko10-Sep-15 2:42

Ian Shlasko

10-Sep-15 2:42

Eh, I know .NET... I like .NET...

But since all of my .NET projects are on hold for various reasons, I was put on a few Java projects... So I re-taught myself Java... And you know what?

I still like .NET.

elephanting type erasure...

Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels)

V.10-Sep-15 2:45

10-Sep-15 2:45

Java in itself doesn´t make sense, so what do you think the combination of the two will be? $Shucks | :-\$

V.

(MQOTD rules and previous solutions)

PIEBALDconsult10-Sep-15 4:29

PIEBALDconsult

10-Sep-15 4:29

I use C# (and have used VB.net Dead | X|

), and wouldn't mind knowing Java for Android, but I really can't be bothered.

(Yes, I've heard of Xamarin, but I don't pay for development tools.)

Ravi Bhavnani10-Sep-15 4:56

Ravi Bhavnani

10-Sep-15 4:56

Abhinav S wrote:
Does is really make sense

It happens to be the case in my company, where we have a .NET app server and a set of clients that include Android.

/ravi

My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536
Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware
ravib(at)ravib(dot)com

Sander Rossel10-Sep-15 20:31

10-Sep-15 20:31

The discussion makes no sense at all. Know what you must and if you need something else learn it.
~~.NET~~ C# and Java aren't all that different, except for the library, and event handling, and properties, and checked Exceptions, and...

Visit my blog at Sander's bits - Writing the code you need.
Or read my articles at my CodeProject profile.

Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability.
— Edsger W. Dijkstra

Regards,
Sander

Member 1103480611-Sep-15 2:13

Member 11034806

11-Sep-15 2:13

Both are just tools of the trade. Does it make a difference if you use a left-handed screwdriver instead of a right-handed one?

Arguing over tools is akin to angels on a pin, good way to waste time but ultimately unproductive. If you know how to use programming tools you can work with just about anything, and if you don't know...well, there's always cowboy coding for some tiny startup that doesn't care what it turns out as long as there's an IPO in there somewhere.