pcote

Coming off conceited doesn't make him wrong regarding CS curriculum. He believes that people should have strong underpinnings in functional programming principles before learning oop. I think fp plays off required math classes pretty well.

Consider function composition which is commonly taught in required pre-calc courses.

f(x) = ......

f(g(x)) = ......

I will submit that first-class functions map more directly to function composition than polymorphism does. In turn, this background helps new developers have a stronger understanding of polymorphism and when to use it.

Whether or not fp principles were ever "proven to produce good software, or any software at all" is besides the point. What's more important is whether or not fp ideas make for better DEVELOPERS. Maybe they do.

Someone didn't like my comment. Fair enough. I'll put it another way.

Are children, left to their own devices, naturally deficient when it comes to critical thinking?

A lot of the discussion here focuses on critical thinking development which is an interesting topic. Does compulsory testing or even compulsory education in general do children any service in that regard? Are critical thinking skills better developed when a kid's education is self-directed? I think these are all fair questions.

Personally, I'm a fan of self-directed learning but that doesn't mean I'm right. Still, it strikes me that teaching people to think critically is like teaching them to be happy or to love. It seems kind of difficult to quantify.

In order for the auto industry analogy to hold, horse breeders would have had to have been actively interfering with early automotive innovation. Did that actually happen? (honest question)

A quick clarification in response to the downvoting. I have no disrespect for Jeff or anyone else's choice to have kids. I have brothers and sisters who went down that road and I'm happy for them.

But Jeff threw around condescending terms like "roughly mapped" and "tentative cartography" to describe the worldview of people who don't have kids. That's where I begged to differ.

All I'm saying is live your life and love it regardless of the path you go down. But please don't talk down to people who choose not to follow you there.

"As an adult, you may think you've roughly mapped the continent of love and relationships. You've loved your parents, a few of your friends, eventually a significant other. You have some tentative cartography to work with from your explorations. You form ideas about what love is, its borders and boundaries. Then you have a child, look up to the sky, and suddenly understand that those bright dots in the sky are whole other galaxies."

So Jeff is implying that those who choose to never have children will never experience love, life, and the universe with the intensity and awe that parents do. Somehow I'm "missing out". Sorry, but no.

Spend time reading interesting source code. Follow a forum. Pour over APIs. Read, read, read.

After awhile, you'll grow impatient and want to stop reading and actually do something based on some ideas you got from what you read. Give in to that urge. Start off with something simple and small. Don't be ashamed to share it with others and ask what they think of it.

Above all, have fun and be humble. Personally, I can tell you I got a lot further faster when I started taking myself less seriously. Besides that, it'll make the surprise all the sweeter when someone offers you those first open source commit rights or offers you a sweet job.

Failing fast doesn't mean much if you don't have a definition of failure to work off of so you can iterate. How exactly does one define these kinds of failures?

Okay, I made the changes you suggested.

As for the matter of picking "junior" or "mid", I was hedging my bets by including both. I have no point of reference as to how good I am or if I'm good at all. I haven't worked around other developers for 2 years now. It's all been solo "side project" stuff. Feel free to shoot my an email if you want to continue this discussion. I do appreciate your critique.

like this?

http://www.blenderaddons.com/aboutme.php

I wish a web presence worked. I have a web site, youtube channel, github, blog, linkedin, and twitter account. They all shows a track record of open source work I've shared.

I have no regrets on sharing my work online like this. However, the idea that it's likely to help land a job is just survivorship bias.

I'm not sure. You can have a lot of knowledge of a domain without knowing how to program. You can have a lot of programming skill and not know anything about a domain. The two ideas aren't necessarily going to be joined at the hip.

That being said, I agree with your broader point. Having both domain knowledge and programming skills are key to being effective on a project.

I'm liking this trend you speak of but it hasn't reached everywhere yet. I live in the middle of Connecticut and there are 2 companies total that post anything on the Stack Overflow boards. So, the reality of the situation would seem to leave 3 options for people in my neighborhood.

1. Play by the rules of the local recruiters. 2. Telecommute. 3. Move.

Not in my experience. Most job boards are dominated by technical recruiters so, to get in through them, you play by their rules.

In their world, web presence of projects almost never counts. The rationale is that "anyone can point to my work and claim they did it." The preference for assessment is still resume keywords, good references, and multiple choice tests.