Hacker News Reader

Dear new developer, learn how your language actually works. So you’ll learn how compilers work, how OS’es work, how computers work.

View on HN

Is it really necessary to go that deep in order to be effective? I mean, some stacks consist of scripts running on interpreters in a VM somewhere.

You are right, it is not necessary to be effective. I just feel like having ability to reason about tools you use is more important than any language you learn. New developers should care less about languages, care more about fundamental things(could be anything depending on their work, not necessarily ‘deep’ stuff but its not a programming language imho)

Hmmm. I like the insight, but I feel like there are multiple ways to reason about the tools. I think that learning another programming language is a relatively straightforward way to learn about one of the major tools developers have.

But yes, learning about memory, how databases do indexing, how networks work (https://letterstoanewdeveloper.com/2019/10/11/learn-a-little... covers a bit of this), how assembly works (even at a high level)--these will all be helpful at understanding how systems work together and can break.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com