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How do I think like a programmer?

8 points by chpp ↗ HN
I'm a network engineer who has dabbled in Python for some automation, PHP for random fixes on the many php sites I throw on my LAMP, bash for, well, various systems stuffs.

I recently got into Corona SDK and Lua and am just trying to release a project. My biggest frustration comes from not the syntax or IDE, but figuring out how and where to write and call functions. I feel like my brain doesnt think like a programmer, so I am constantly hitting a wall and starting over.

Any advice?

14 comments

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juliangoldsmith
You can only really think like a programmer by programming. Just keep at it, and you'll get better at it.

I have heard that going through SICP can help you better wrap your head around functional decomposition and that sort of thing, but I haven't gone through yet it myself.

chpp
Thanks for the SICP recommendation! Great bed time reading.

I am slowly chiseling away at my 10k hours :)

kazinator
If you're trying to change someone else's code, this requires special skills in addition to thinking like a programmer. You have to be able to think like the other programmers who wrote the code, which is often different from the way that you think. Plus, you are unfamiliar with the code. These are additional difficulties, which is why the way programming is taught in schools, tutorials and books takes the point of view that you're always making something new from scratch, even though everyone knows that much real work isn't like that. The underlying hypothesis is that if you develop enough experience cranking out complete programs from scratch, you have a good base for jumping into other programs, which is plausible.

Knowing what function to call and where in a big, unfamiliar program, requires cunning: more so than in your own program where you know everything.

Find out if the program has a regression test suite, and learn how to run it. Then when you make changes, execute the suite. If anything breaks because of your change, find out why; by answering the question "I cannot do it this way because ..." you will quickly get some fairly deep insights into the program.

chpp
Thank you for the advice!
runjake
As others state, the best way to think like a programmer is to program, but also seeking a senior programmer as a mentor helps. Also, browsing code on sites like StackOverflow and Github but you kind of need to develop a quick sense of good vs bad code. There is a lot of both on those sites.
organsnyder
+1 on the mentorship part—that's huge. I learned much more from my mentor at my internship than I did from my CS classes.
Ramp_
+1 A mentor is always a great thing to have and can really speed up the rate at which you improve. However, better than just any mentor is one who thinks, or sees things the same way you do. Working together on problems will result in dramatic improvements if the mentee has the right attitude.
chpp
I have this issue with learning guitar right now. Finding a competent mentor, on recommendation, is surprisingly difficult.

I spend a lot of time on git reading code, shamelessly stealing function and seeing how they work in my code. I am glad that there is benefit to what I am doing. Thank you for the advice!

lorenzobr
The best advice in my own experience is don't buy books and learn by doing. Grab some open source piece of software from GitHub or anywhere else, have a poke around, get inspired and then try to build your own project from scratch. But above all...break things! The best way to learn programming is trying to do things, break them, understand why they don't work and go on.

Besides that, programming can be just like painting. Each of us has its own style and, even if there are some common patterns e.g.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model%E2%80%93view%E2%80%93cont..., generally there aren't really written rules on how and where to write and call functions. Just try, eventually learn some patterns and then just do what you feel is better for your own project following your own style.

Once you've done this everything will be easier and doing things will be awesome. In the end, you will be even capable of jumping from a language to another on the fly. Don't be frustrated, keep trying and have fun! ;)

chpp
Thank you for the advice
thegenius
I've often wondered what made Steve Jobs say that "Programming teachers you how to think" and here's what I've come up with. Programmers think in terms of orders of magnitude and have a strong ability to branch out.

Here's a good example:

My friend has a business selling essential oils (Eucalyptus, Lavender, Sandalwood) on Amazon. This turns out to be a pretty decent business for one simple freakonomics'ish reason I believe. Let me illustrate:

You can sell 10ML of oil:

http://www.amazon.com/Lavender-100%25-Therapeutic-Grade-Esse...

For nearly the same price as you can sell 3 times the amount:

http://www.amazon.com/Woolzies-Lavender-100%25-Pure-Essentia...

I think the reason for this discrepancy is people can't do conversions between milliliters and ounces in their head, and since they can't hold the oils in their hands and only have a picture for reference, they use the price itself to determine the value of what they're getting.

Now back to thinking like a programmer: Upon hearing this, a programmer's first instinct wouldn't be to start a competing line of business but rather would be to come up with a systematic way of scouring Amazon's entire inventory for a multitude of such arbitrage opportunities. He'd branch out to using weight in addition to volume.

In addition to exploring the details, programming gives you practice in seeing the big picture and branching out at all levels of the system.

chpp
Thank you for the interesting insight :)