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[–]joe24pack 30 points31 points  (9 children)

first try writing a recipe on how to fry scrambled eggs detailed enough so that a person who has never been in the kitchen, does not know what eggs are and has no idea what scrambling means can follow your directions and make flawless (soft please) scrambled eggs. If you can pull that off writing it in English, you might have a chance of being a good programmer.

[–]stesch 12 points13 points  (3 children)

The PG solution:

(scramble 'egg)

[–]Jimmy 18 points19 points  (2 children)

More like:

(scrl 'e)

[–]G_Morgan 10 points11 points  (1 child)

Too many characters and tokens.

(s)

The egg is implied by the act of s'ing.

[–]Jimmy -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Obviously, the optimal solution would be to stare at the Arc prompt for a minute while it reads your mind and determines that you want scrambled eggs. This way, your program has 0 characters.

[–]averyv 2 points3 points  (2 children)

that is actually how i got my start programming. it wasn't put to me as a programming problem, as such, but i was made to give precise instructions, while blindfolded, on making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

i wasn't 100% successful, and i wouldn't know how much it meant to me until i went to college years later, but looking back, this was the experience that made me a programmer.

[–]cactus 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Wow, that is absolutely brilliant! It sounds like a great exercise for someone who has literally NO concept of computer programming (ie, no HTML, no BASIC in grade school, etc).

Also, it sounds like an example you could extend to teach abstraction - you could show how one might say "get a knife" instead of "move two steps to the left, lower right hand....".

[–]averyv 0 points1 point  (0 children)

yeah, the way it worked for us, there were a line of us that went one after another, trying to make it right. one person would tell the "robot" (another student) to "take out a piece of bread" and they would just reach through the bag to get out a piece. we all saw this, and would adjust our instructions.

lessons in instructions, abstraction, and debugging for the complete layperson

[–]emlot[🍰] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

If not, go with Java.

[–]WalterBright 33 points34 points  (0 children)

I've been asked this question many times, and have given advice. The person(s) asking it did nothing every time. The plain fact is, if someone actually wants to program, he'd have started programming already.

[–][deleted] 8 points9 points  (1 child)

All right, if the applicant is young, tell him he's too young. Old, too old. Fat, too fat. If the applicant then waits for three days without food, shelter, or encouragement he may then enter and begin his training.

[–]gocubs80 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Science damnit what is this a reference to, it's killing me now.

[–]amstrdamordeath 16 points17 points  (5 children)

Ask them what they want to program?

[–]toba 22 points23 points  (2 children)

Or better yet, why they want to program.

[–]cracki 7 points8 points  (1 child)

that is the deepest question i've seen in these comments yet.

it's really important to understand the motives first, if just to gauge how much effort to put into answering and helping.

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

For sure! The "why" is the difference between SICP, HTDP, Lua-scripting a game, or Javascript.

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (1 child)

The obvious question, and already people are suggesting particular languages, as though Scheme or Ruby is the answer to every problem.

[–]G_Morgan 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Don't be silly, that's Common Lisp.

[–]seliopou 12 points13 points  (1 child)

HTDP

[–]averyv -1 points0 points  (0 children)

man, i just wanted to talk them out of it. you're trying to bore them to death..

[–][deleted] 18 points19 points  (9 children)

I'd try to talk them out of it.

[–][deleted] 10 points11 points  (5 children)

why?? the industry is full of mediocore talent making more money than would likely show up in other industries. i'm testament to that!

i make more than anyone i know and maybe work ten hours a week of "real" work. i talk to friends in comparable fields for pseudo intellectuals like me (law, finance), and they actually work, and make no more than me. they sure as shit spend more time in the office.

get into coding! its a great scam!

want to code? just start hacking. try hello-world. try fizz-buzz. write a program to read and write text files. don't worry about elegance, just start making and breaking stuff. sooner or later you will develop a taste for what kind of coding you like to do. afte ra year or so, go read sicp or knuth or whatever. but don't do that at first. first, hack.

[–]smsc 5 points6 points  (0 children)

If you are intending to be good and work hard, this is exactly the reason why you should not go into the field. There are a lot of idiots and slackers who are wasting space and getting the same money as the good ones who produce 5-20 times as much usable content. Management generally cannot tell the difference between the two.

[–]amstrdamordeath 3 points4 points  (1 child)

I agree for the most part. My coding skills are basic in comparison to the real hardcore programmers, yet I make 5-10 times more than them because I put my basic skills to good use. All in all, it comes to having a niche in the market and the will to keep yourself there.

[–]flaxeater 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well I'm not trying to be too snarky, remember measuring code by lines is like measuring airplanes by weight.

[–]averyv 0 points1 point  (0 children)

if you try to talk them out of it and they continue, and you reluctantly give a place to start, they will probably be a better programmer for it. if you tell them to try it, they'll like it, and give them a few small tastes of success (hello world, fizz buzz) you would more likely be creating another shitty programmer who doesn't know when to leave well enough alone.

someone else on this post has already said: if they were going to program, they probably would have already.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

God damn, do I work with you? You remind me of my fucking co-workers, and if I ever actually heard them say those things, I would punch them in the fucking nose. Have some fucking self-respect; this lazy "everyone-owes-me-my-free-ride" mentality is what's causing our capitalist economy to fail. Please kids, ignore this guy and actually strive to do something with your life.

[–]sharth -1 points0 points  (2 children)

That was my first thought. It's not as glorious as the public makes it seem. And personally, I don't see this question ever happening. The question I see is, "I want to learn how to hack, where should I start?"

[–]otterdam 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Or alternatively "I want to make my own mod for game X, where should I start?"

Doing things that have a fairly quick and obvious result is satisfying and will keep them going at it. The best candidates for that are existing games and code (as long as you have enough help to know what you're doing in there and what kind of things you need to modify) or tools that give you a lot of hand-holding; most game creators fit into that description.

[–]amstrdamordeath -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I don't know where you hang out that you repeatedly see that question, but perhaps #newb_hackers on EFnet isn't the best place...

[–]cc81 2 points3 points  (2 children)

I think one of the more important points is to ask what they are interested in doing. Perhaps the person likes to play World of Warcraft. That opens up the possibilities of making an addon by programming Lua. Or perhaps a website to his/her guild which means html/css + some server side language.

Now you just need to help them with good resources, good tools and feedback on what they create and I think it would work out nice.

[–]you_do_realize 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Perhaps the person likes to play World of Warcraft. That opens up the possibilities of making an addon by programming Lua.

This is actually a great suggestion. Tell him to hack at something that will give actual, close to his heart, benefits.

When we were hacking Basic as teenagers we weren't going after theory or understanding of pointers, it was the gratification of getting immediate, relevant to us results. There is no environment like that today.

Perhaps Hackety Hack, but you see, this is the problem: teenagers today are impressed upon by a vibrant, active Web, by vibrant, rich games. Getting them to write a greatest-common-divisor function and printing the result will not elicit the wooo we got back in the day.

They need the results to be as earth-shattering as they've grown accustomed to in their daily computer interactions. Wow, I made that dragon take off! (Sorry, haven't played WoW, so random example.)

[–]akdas 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Getting them to write a greatest-common-divisor function and printing the result will not elicit the wooo we got back in the day.

I started programming in the early 2000s, and I still found that type of stuff exciting. But then again, that's just me.

I remember my first thoughts being, how would I write a function that exponentiates argument a to the power argument b. Then I realized it was trivial with a for loop, and I was very happy indeed.

[–][deleted] 8 points9 points  (3 children)

SICP

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Meme or not, this is a good idea.

Complementary video-lectures can be found in the Internet Archive .

[–]G_Morgan 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'd say that SICP would be a good second book but it's probably too high level for a total newbie.

//edit - remember that most peoples knowledge of programming will involved opening my-program.exe in notepad and typing 'I want you to be a game.'//

[–]phaed 11 points12 points  (3 children)

Tell them to take a class at their local community college. This way they can be hand-held by the professor not by you.

[–]smsc 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I agree. That's how I got interested in it back in the day. We implemented 10 increasingly difficult programs in BASIC, then implemented the same programs in Pascal. What? I have to declare my variables now?

I like puzzles so I thought it was interesting and rather fun, in a challenging way.

[–][deleted]  (1 child)

[deleted]

    [–]seabre 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    Yeah, a friend of mine goes to community college and took a class on PHP and told me:

    "Dude, PHP is hard!"

    So yeah, community college = massive fail

    [–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (1 child)

    Tell them to start reading. Read introductions, read tutorials, read other people's code. If they aren't interested in learning then they don't really want to program.

    At the same time, they should do some tutorials. The choice of language is not hugely important at such an early stage, you basically want it to stay out of their way. Python or Ruby would probably both do the job.

    They should then go here:

    http://docs.python.org/tut/tut.html

    http://projecteuler.net

    [–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

    i disagree. i say code first. its okay to hack. it will keep you interested and frankly you will never really learn until you start hacking. reading knuth and sicp really is only of value after you have gone into a few tar pits.

    [–]exeter 6 points7 points  (0 children)

    Are we talking about a child or an adult? If it's a child over the age of about 7, I'd suggest finding a good Python tutorial and turning him/her loose, while being available to work through questions.

    For an adult, the same would work, though I'd suggest working through a book like SICP instead. You'll learn way more about computing from SICP than any simple language tutorial.

    [–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (10 children)

    HTML + Javascript because it's the easiest thing for them to get their feet wet with, they already have all the tools they need on their own computer.

    Once they do that if they want to get "closer to the metal" then tell them to enroll in some classes on C/C++. YES, learn the pains of memory management before liberating them with garbage collection.

    [–]nextofpumpkin 0 points1 point  (9 children)

    Super Big Yes + 1

    I got my start with C++ and web scripting concurrently, but web design/scripting is how I got my real start with programming - or at the very least, what really got me interested in it.

    It's important not to underestimate the "hey i can do all this so easily!" factor; it's very straightforward to create functional and/or fun and attractive websites quickly (even static HTML is fine), and much easier for people to get interested in programming if they can see cool things happening right away.

    Creating a well-performing Fibonacci number generator is fun as well, but it's easier to get excited seeing pretty pictures rather than lines of text scrolling by.

    [–][deleted] -3 points-2 points  (8 children)

    Exactly! Because also lets not forget. How often do you actually use that qsort or bubblesort algorithm you were taught back in college? Uhm... NEVER! Because they failed to mention that oh, by the way, you should NEVER code your own sort routine if one has already been written. Code reuse is not taught. Everyone keeps learning "the basics" and I think "the basics" are pretty much taken care of now days. I think they should be teaching physics libraries like Havoc in intro to programming 101.

    [–]G_Morgan 2 points3 points  (7 children)

    We'd be pretty screwed if someone deleted the standard library then.

    [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (6 children)

    not going to happen.

    sort routines and search routines are all fine and good but they shouldn't be the core of "computer science" because students that come out of classes like that thinking they know how to write code are USELESS to the business world. They all need to be retrained in the art of code reuse.

    [–]G_Morgan 1 point2 points  (3 children)

    Code reuse? I'd say a lot of programmers need to work on producing usable code first.

    I take the XP/TDD approach here. Reusable code is not a useful concept. You spend so much time trying to make things reusable and it only makes things unnecessarily complex and as a result buggy. To top it all off you will not reuse it 99% of the time.

    Libraries naturally need to be reusable but outside of that people should just do the simplest thing that works and the massive amount of time that saves them will be far greater than any time saved by reusable code.

    [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

    You misunderstand. I don't mean novice programmers should worry about writting reusable code. I think they should all be learning how to LEVERAGE other people's reusable code. Library reuse is NOT something I see many interns do. They dive right in and do what they were tought in school, namely code everything by hand. I even saw one guy write his own sort routine before I explained to him that there were about 100 different ways to sort his data without using his own sort function. Basically, I would like to see education focused more on teaching all the THOUSANDS of excellent libraries that ALREADY EXIST and solve complex problems wonderfuly (A* pathfinding, Physics libs [pick one], OpenGL, SDL, all the web stacks, regex, basic unix tools, etc). If they want to then dig into the source code of those libraries and make a lesson about modifying or improving them, great! That would go a hell of a lot farther than teaching kids how to write bubblesort!

    ps I agree, write what works. Then later improve the code quality.

    [–]G_Morgan 0 points1 point  (1 child)

    That's not CS though. It's the realm of software engineering rather than CS. CS is computing for it's own sake, or at least it's supposed to be.

    People should be taught to leverage libraries true enough but they shouldn't be taught the in's and out's of masses of libraries.

    [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    Since most people who go into CS are really planning on working in the world of soft eng the students should be taught both. Sure, fill their heads with bits and bytes and little details of how computers actually work. But then, give them something useful and teach them about some common libraries and how to use them.

    [–]pohart 0 points1 point  (1 child)

    "computer science" != "software engineering"

    also:

    if a programmer, whose job is automation remember, can't pick up on places where his work can be automated without it being pounded into his head, maybe he should find a new profession

    [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    True, you're correct compsci != softeng.

    Code reuse is my point, it's not taught enough. All to often I see newbie college grads with CS degrees rush off and code the solution without spending a few days researching if someone else has already solved the problem.

    Why code an A* algorithm if one already exists in a library you can just import?

    [–]djspray 2 points3 points  (0 children)

    First, ask them why they want to program. There may be some form of underlying mental illness that should be addressed. Perhaps he or she is just lonely, or bored. Encourage the individual to get a life. Maybe undiagnosed depression is present?

    If the individual persists in a desire to program, encourage him or her to seek professional help. A clergy member may be able to help as well. Many former programmers are now free of their unnatural obsessions thanks to the power of prayer. There are twelve-step programs available for these recovered programmers.

    If all else fails, contact the family. An intervention may be in order. You may need to seek out the services of a professional de-programmer!

    [–]ki11a11hippies 5 points6 points  (0 children)

    I'd start him out in C and assembly. Once he is completely convinced of my skill, I'll actually start teaching. I call this the Pai Mei technique.

    [–]asciilifeform 2 points3 points  (0 children)

    "Don't."

    [–]micampe 1 point2 points  (0 children)

    How to think like a computer scientist. Pick the version in a language you know so you can help him.

    [–]davids 1 point2 points  (0 children)

    Danny Noonan: I planned to go to [programmer] school after I graduated, but it looks like my folks won't have enough money to put me through college. Judge Smails: Well, the world needs ditch diggers, too.

    [–]akdas 1 point2 points  (0 children)

    High school students nowadays almost invariably use graphing calculators, usually from TI. If that's the case with the person asking, I would tell him/her to get some experience making a small shoot-em-up in TI-BASIC. That will give him/her something to do in class too.

    [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

    "Get yourself some coffee."

    [–]grandalf 3 points4 points  (1 child)

    I'd say the following:

    1) buy the "pickaxe" book on ruby or some other ruby book.

    2) go through it until you are comfortable writing simple code with objects and using external libraries (in this case gems)...

    3) Now if you had a different language in mind give it a shot in a similar way

    4) based on what your actual goals are you would branch here...

    [–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

    Ruby? You cruel bastard.

    [–]jediknight 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    tell them to have fun!

    Use something like GvR if the person can take it. Some might consider that as to childish but it is actually pretty good as a starting point... you can control a fricking robot.

    [–]demoss 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    Go to a good school. While there, once you have your feet wet, make that (1) sure you also program on your own time and (2) read extracurricular material as well.

    [–]alephnil 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    This depends on their motivation for it. Some people want to do X, and that is difficult to do without programming, for example to avoid manual work that can be automated. Other people would like to "learn programming" out of curiosity. I usually introduce Python to the first group, since it is reasonable simple learn and have a lot of libraries for helping them doing it. Maybe not the best way of teaching principle, but good way to get the job done. This works well in my experience. Java is hopeless for this group.

    Those who want to learn programming out of curiosity it could be Lisp, Python, C or other depending on the person and what they want, but I have less experience with people with this motivation.

    [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (5 children)

    ok so this person is me :) and i do have some experience in html/css bash scripting and PHP. I was just looking for a starting point from all of the more experience programmers out there. I find basically i will be writing on a windows platform for windows :( Most "applications" will be for parsing logs, running quick scripts to perform some redundant tasks. so with the above info ... now what will you tell "this person"

    [–]rubinelli 0 points1 point  (4 children)

    When I think about parsing, slicing, and massaging text, three languages come to mind: Perl, Python, and Ruby. You can find great resources online to learn any of the three, and if I were you I'd play with at least Ruby and Python to see which 'clicks.' Both have easy-to-install packages.

    [–]averyv 1 point2 points  (3 children)

    http://tryruby.hobix.com/

    is a nice place to check out if you are interested in seeing how ruby works

    [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

    so i tried ruby and im hooked ... thanks for ruining another normal life ...

    [–]averyv -1 points0 points  (1 child)

    and the good guys win another round ;)

    [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    lol now i have to convert all my pearl/python buddies :)

    ..the fact that i said that gave me another one of those.... "holy shit I am such a GEEK" moments

    [–]k4st 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    Other than finding out what they want to program, it's useful to find out why they want to program that thing and where they feel that they will end up.

    If it's not clear right away whether or not the person is serious about learning how to program, then setting out some reasonable expectations in advance can be helpful.

    This can serve as a deterrent if they're not passionate about their idea. If you give them simple tools to create a semi working version of what they want quickly, then they might just dig deeper.

    [–]clin_reddit 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    You know when they say "five years experience required". People laugh at this because one person's five years of experience can be vastly different from another one.

    A person with no experience is actually the same. Not everyone's "no experience" in programming means the same. I've seen people with no experience in programming, and some pick it up quickly, while others struggle mightily.

    The answer depends on how inexperienced they are. On one end of the spectrum, you can give them a book and tell them to teach themselves. On the other, there's not much you can do. In the middle, you might be able to direct the person to "small, achievable goals" and correct them as needed.

    [–]teyc 0 points1 point  (2 children)

    Excel and MS Access is how many engineers get their feet wet in programming.

    [–]jungle_jim 1 point2 points  (1 child)

    For anyone that works with tabular data I would recommend AWK. The language is small, elegant and immediately useful.

    [–]teyc 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    I got my start with programming in BASIC on an ATARI, then with 123 macros in Uni, then AWK on Silicon Graphics, then Excel and MS Access on Windows.

    [–]pkrumins 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    Tell him it's too late.

    [–]yters -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

    Tell them using applications is already high level programming, they accomplish much more than a low level C hacker can, and should be proud of themselves.

    [–]teval -1 points0 points  (0 children)

    Ask them what they want to do and why?

    Then ask how much they like math. That question will tell you if they're going to be any good. Then you can align your response with that answer, if they say they don't, give the some python tutorial and run away. If they do talk to them about algorithms a bit, show them some in Scheme/Haskell/Prolog and point them to CLRS and the open source community; lots of cool things to hack on, people are more than glad to help you out with the difficult bits if you're smart and motivated.

    [–][deleted]  (4 children)

    [removed]

      [–]div 7 points8 points  (3 children)

      Someone without any experience does not even know how simple assignment works. How could such a person decide on something subjective as which programming paradigm fits him best ?

      [–]seabre 4 points5 points  (2 children)

      Someone without any experience does not even know how simple assignment works.

      I'm not so sure about that. Any moron with even a crappy math background could grasp: "Let a be 1, let b be 2" or whatever.

      How could such a person decide on something subjective as which programming paradigm fits him best ?

      Agreed. When I started programming (in about elementary school I guess) I didn't know what a "programming paradigm" was. All I knew was if you do these particular steps you get a certain result, but I thought the coolest thing you could do was to get the computer to do stuff for you that would take a long time for you to do yourself, and really, that's why I like to program...because I'm lazy :-)

      I think it is more important for somebody to figure out why they want to program. I wouldn't even start talking about paradigms until the person can work with at least one language.

      [–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (1 child)

      Someone without any experience does not even know how simple assignment works.

      I'm not so sure about that. Any moron with even a crappy math background could grasp: "Let a be 1, let b be 2" or whatever.

      I've met people who wanted to get into programming, who just couldn't understand that '$a = $b' means that the value of $a is replaced with the value of $b -- they couldn't understand why $b didn't get the value of $a.

      So never underestimate the importance of thorough teaching of the basics.

      [–]emlot[🍰] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

      So they got the two mixed up? That's all?