Comments on: You don’t know that programming language

By: Dean

Dean — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:21:14 +0000

Hello world! Computer languages, in my view, are only tools to accomplish a task. We should all encourage our employers to begin stressing accomplishments, not languages we can learn in 2 days off the web. Can I get a huu-rah?

By: The most important programming language

The most important programming language — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 13:30:27 +0000

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By: protospike

protospike — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 06:47:41 +0000

Yeah it’s very unsustainable to focus all your energy on learning new languages. Improving problems solving skills, learning skills, communication skills, management skills should be much higher priorities I reckon. After all, Software Engineering and Computer Science aren’t about learning programming languages. Like a screwdriver, a language is just a tool to achieve a purpose. Knowing which tool to use and when, and how to use it properly, is what software engineering and computer science is all about. You don’t generally put a screwdriver up on a pedestal and worship it, and it’s true about programming languages to. They are just tools – and this is especially true for software engineers, who generally, but not always, work at a higher level of abstraction such as object oriented programming and … component based software*.

*Component based software is on a higher level of abstraction than OO. We’re probably moving in that direction now.

By: Tony

Tony — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 07:13:25 +0000

Waterloo’s co-op is such a game system, for both employers and students, that it’s difficult to draw conclusive statistics. Personally I suspect that there are enough generic resumes being submitted into the system, to make any sort of actual effort seem more outstanding.
Though taking it at face value, you’ve got a job offer without initially applying with any languages listed. Good to know. Thank you for sharing the experience. plus-5 insightful.

By: Jarek Piórkowski

Jarek Piórkowski — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 04:45:08 +0000

Results are in…

This is somewhat Waterloo co-op specific, but I think some ideas may be applicable to a wider audience.

I’d estimate I applied to around 30-35 jobs that were purely programming. I had five interviews, two of which were for cover-letter-less applications (which purposefully did not name a single language). Of these interviews, the job with most applicants had 40 (to those who don’t know Waterloo co-op — more desirable jobs frequently go over 100 applications and the top ones easily pass 200).

Two of the interviews were with large companies (one after a cover-letter-less application — which I wasn’t really expecting), the others were with smaller places, around 10, 20, and 100 people respectively. All of the interviews were technical to one degree or another, and not once was I asked a stereotypical soft HR question.

In the end I was given offers by, strangely enough, both of the large companies, and was not ranked by the remaining three. One of the offers was for a job that involves some amount of J2EE, which I quite happily admitted to not having any practical experience with in the interview (but I do have experience with .NET which may be viewed as somewhat similar by some).

I suspect some accommodation of the co-op system may be taking place — none of the three not-ranked jobs ended up hiring to their limit (including at least one that did not get an employee they’d want at all). The larger companies may realise that the people they really want are likely to get a lot of offers (there’s a statistic going around about 80% of the companies wanting the top 20% of the students), and rank strategically.

I ended up turning down the job which I applied to without a cover letter, but it was primarily because my other offer is in a better location. The jobs I really wanted at the beginning turned me down for an interview seemingly regardless if I had the cover letter or not. My overall interview yield (including non-programming jobs) was 3/12 for cover-lettered and 5/52 overall. I’m not sure if it was the languages I named and explained or the sole fact that I attached a coherently-written cover letter that drove the interview rates up.

But it’s definitely possible to get a job without naming a single language in your application. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it, but it’s possible.

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 02:18:16 +0000

If you’re familiar with the syntax of , great. The key question is, do you understand the core logic of programming in general? I was able to write a fairly basic VC program in about ten minutes, having never used C of any flavor before. Is it that I’m just that awesome? Some could argue that. The truth is, I knew *how* to do the task long before I started it. Given a bit of pre-built code for initializing the form, I followed suit and picked up the syntax basics pretty quickly and adapted to accomplish the task at hand. Even then, I wouldn’t say I really “know” C just because I wrote one program. The syntax still bugs me, and I’d have to pump more time into it and become truly familiar with the syntax before I’d claim I “know” C . I do, however, know VB and C#. My previous job was VB, and my current is C#, so I sort of have to know the language. But the ability to think in computer terms for any language far outweighs knowing the language itself. I started on TI-BASIC, with IF’s and GOTO’s falling out every program’s entry point. While the style and syntax may have changed drastically for me, the fundamentals are still the same. Conditionals, loops, information management… that’s what allowed me to flow smoothly between languages. Syntax aside, you can’t “know” any language until you understand the fundamentals.

By: The Angry Walrus » A Response to ‘You Don’t Know That Programming Language’

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 05:52:32 +0000

[...] over at the Computer Science Canada blog wrote an article on the 8th of June about what it means to master a programming language. The article raised the [...]

By: Tony

Tony — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 04:08:29 +0000

@Bashar — welcome back!

I think your view on this points out one of the issues — your Perl and PHP are listed together, though you are significantly more familiar with one, than another. And when you use PHP as a template to fill with Perl syntax, you still end up with a “PHP” program. At least in spirit.

@Matthew — maybe it’s just the way you are saying it… but memorizing documentation is not “mastery”, as it’s most important to know what the best documentation to look up is. You are correct to say that general concepts should take precedence.

@Tim — it’s not always necessary to have one “big application” for a portfolio (you might be better off with a plethora of various small scale scripts), though big applications offer their own unique challenges. It’s good to have experience with both.

By: Tim

Tim — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 01:20:59 +0000

I’d say I have a proficiency of about 3 in my favorite languages. That just goes to show that while I’ve learned a great deal over the years, I have little to show for it in the way of applications written.

At the moment, my focus has been on C# while I plug away and learn game design concepts as well as I can. I think that once I fully grasp the logic and reasoning behind the concepts, then applying the C# will be the easier part.

Anyway, great post.

By: Matthew

Matthew — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 20:58:09 +0000

I think that learning a programming language is fine, but a little bit on the redundant side. More importantly, people should be learning programming concepts -and ways they can be implemented without being held down by language choice. You should be familiar with coding concepts before you try to ‘master a language’.

Of course becoming a master really isn’t necessary when pretty much all the documentation you need is available online.