[thelist] programming info

Brooking, John John.Brooking at sappi.com
Thu Apr 20 09:29:52 CDT 2006


> In my limited experience, I've found that the books and tutorials 
> I've read utilize one of two approaches: assuming the reader is 
> brain dead and providing too much or all of the raw code they 
> need to accomplish a task, or initiating a brain freeze by 
> assuming the reader has learned too much and providing little or 
> no guidance.  I need to find a happy medium somewhere, and to 
> keep working.

One of my biggest gripes about many books and classes is that they don't
give you any idea of "best practices". For example, they name variables
"a", "b", and "c", or they give you code to do a very standard thing
such as validation, but don't bother making it a function so that it is
easier to reuse. They too often give isolated examples with no context.
No wonder so many beginners have the same kind of trouble you are
describing in moving beyond the basics when these "teachers" don't take
the trouble to introduce best practices into their curriculum!

Your comments about having multiple projects going on at once but not
always finishing them also sounds a little like me, and I don't think
the root problem there is technical, unfortunately! :-)

- John

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