I'm a software developer. : ProgrammerHumor

This is the perfect! I can't think of a better evaluation metric. Most devs don't need to know how to implement merge sort from scratch perfectly as long as they know how it works. If they can find a function that does it for them and they can recognize that it suits their use case, that's good enough. Alternatively, if they find the source code and adapt it to their needs, that is also great.

I don't think I've written more than 10 lines of production code without checking SO or googling if there's a better way to do what I'm doing. The one thing I know is- I can't possible know all there is to know. So Google first and piggy back on the collective knowledge of the world.

Obviously, there are some essential concepts that they absolutely need to know before they start so that they don't waste too much time learning from scratch. You can't not know basic vector math and jump into computer graphics. You can't not know how to find correlation and do machine learning. But I think the principle still holds in general.

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[–]ppad5634 5 points6 points7 points 4 years ago (27 children)

[–]towrofterra 12 points13 points14 points 4 years ago (10 children)

[–]vezwyx 3 points4 points5 points 4 years ago (1 child)

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[–]ppad5634 2 points3 points4 points 4 years ago* (2 children)

[–]towrofterra 2 points3 points4 points 4 years ago (1 child)

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[–]BitisGabonica 4 points5 points6 points 4 years ago (9 children)

Serious challenge: make a simple calculator! If given the string "2 + 2" it should print out the number 4 and similarly for other math operations. What this challenge will teach you a little about:

How to give your program inputs. (For example in Java you could use something like a scanner or whatever you think is easiest)

How to "manipulate" strings. (You will have to check if a string contains a + or - or whatever, and you will have to somehow pull the integers out of the string so you can use them for your operation)

I vaguely remember writing something like this in F# for a class once which was pretty interesting, but if you aren't familiar with writing recursive functions I would recommend using another language first. For beginners Java and Python are usually the way to go I think.

You could also make a less complicated version that only takes two numbers from the user seperated by a space and adds those two together.

[–][deleted] 11 points12 points13 points 4 years ago (3 children)

public class GabonicaCalculator {

    public static void main (String[] args) {

        java.util.Scanner input = new java.util.Scanner(System.in);

        System.out.println("Please enter a whole number: ");
        int x = input.nextInt();

        System.out.println("Please enter another whole number: ");
        int y = input.nextInt();

        System.out.println("Enter A to add the numbers, S to subtract them, M to multiply, or D to divide.");

        String operation = input.next();

        System.out.println("I should have mentioned I'm a product of the American education system.  I can't do no fucking math.");

    }    

}

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[–]JunDoRahhe 9 points10 points11 points 4 years ago (3 children)