[thelist] OT - do programmers/designers know *everything*?

[Chris Blessing]

I'll be 21 in august! :D
(and heavily inebriated)

I'd also like to add that you (Roger) shouldn't get down on yourself for
having to look things up.  I don't know a single programmer/developer who
doesn't have at least 10-15 language-specific books on hand at all times.  I
work full-time (landed a nice deal during the dot-com rage) but I also
freelance on the side whenever possible, so I'm paying the bills both ways.

I agree with Ken too, in that I think it's best to do some intense work in a
particular area if you really want to get good at it.  Roll through the
innumerable Java tutorials on the web if you want to learn Java; go through
all the examples in the JavaScript faq's at irt.org; study code examples
from aspin.com and read all the articles on 4guysfromrolla.com.  The web is
your friend, I use it (google, I should say) more than my books.  Everything
you need to know is out there, you just have to be willing to sit down and
do the examples and make an honest effort to learn the concepts, not just
the langauge syntax.

Your head will handle the rest!  Good luck!

Chris Blessing
webguy at mail.rit.edu
http://www.330i.net


> Ditto. How many 21 year old web-developers are there on this list? :)
>
> I'm doing freelance work to offset some of the bigass college tuition bill
> that shows up twice a year. I'm a double major in Comp Sci and Comp Info
> Sys, so I'll end up with some kind of computer job next summer after
> graduation...
>
> Like most everyone else, I'm self-taught and have an extensive
> code library
> that I refer to constantly. I've been doing (X/D)HTML for almost
> 8 years now
> and have been online for more than half my lifetime...
>
> The smartest folks in this biz know what they don't know. It's not about
> keeping all the information in your head. Space is limited there (speaking
> for myself, of course), and so you want to keep the resources in
> your head,
> not the code. It's easier to remember "this site has tons of CSS info"
> rather than trying to remember the funny-looking CSS2 selectors.
> Of course,
> if you spend a week working on nothing but CSS2, you might find yourself
> referring to that site less and less...
>
> Hang in there, Roger!
>
> --ken