Path: csiph.com!aioe.org!news.mixmin.net!news.albasani.net!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Lew Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.programmer Subject: Re: Aspect questions? Date: Wed, 29 Feb 2012 23:24:11 -0800 Organization: albasani.net Lines: 105 Message-ID: References: <4f4a6b1d$0$290$14726298@news.sunsite.dk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: news.albasani.net URK8R7MZQtb2vTsQWX4u4ZNBI7OK6hiyTjKoBbbcaf6aWv2+4z6xjtRB8Zb4oc/5E6RwYvT87XyPKfEC+CzhEBx6TXMsWXkpUMxtLOYujtT5Cvxt7FlEXaVtTPQf/Bq8 NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2012 07:24:08 +0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: news.albasani.net; logging-data="hFZ+Xv7WKIEcN/7vrZP8Y0jrUpvV7qePxu7qvsYvmWeWx530fR4/BBqDBJF7zi61uhNFhghgWyW5nlKel1Y1j5Gc/D6xBS2x31pbUPNPbvy6wrwNo0VVpCCYpgcGhUwk"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@albasani.net" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:10.0.2) Gecko/20120216 Thunderbird/10.0.2 In-Reply-To: Cancel-Lock: sha1:6lj1PVV3DXajgom96yiwJ0CIVes= Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.java.programmer:12552 On 02/29/2012 05:44 PM, Novice wrote: > Martin Gregorie wrote in > news:jimfg8$di4$1@localhost.localdomain: > >> On Wed, 29 Feb 2012 15:25:55 +0000, Novice wrote: >> >>> I envy you for being fluent in both C and Java (and probably >>> others!). I have other languages but they're pretty much all very >>> rusty from lack of use. Mind you, I have found that I can relearn >>> things pretty quickly even after a long gap. I had occasion to look >>> at a COBOL program a few years back and found it very familiar. Mind >>> you, I doubt I'd say the same about C if I were to try that again ;-) >>> >> Just about all I use these days are C and Java plus a few scripting >> languages (awk, PHP, bash shell scripting and Perl if you insist). In >> another life I wrote much more COBOL than was good for me, so could >> probably get up to speed fast with that too. There are a raft of >> others I used for single projects (PL/1) or that were specific to >> particular hardware (TAL, PL/9, filetab, RPG III and various >> assemblers). >> >> I'm not sure its useful to know a lot of languages: idioms often don't >> transfer don't at all well and if you're not careful you can end up >> writing the nasty sort of code best summarized as "a Real Programmer >> can write FORTRAN in any language". I'm sure that it's useful to know several languages. > I'm inclined to agree with you, Martin. I feel good about knowing at > least one language that is very widely known and used, Java. And I can Not enough. > always fall back on COBOL in a pinch ;-) Some of the others, even if I > refreshed myself on them, would be of no use anywhere. I don't imagine > CSP is used anywhere any more. Or whatever 4GL Online Express was part > of. ;-) I learned SNOBOL once, at university. No practical use to it whatsoever. I learned Prolog for the Hell of it. Never made a dime from it. Studied a whole book on natural language processing with Prolog. Never got f**k-all for that professionally. Learned enough LISP to know that its fanboys are drug addicts. No one's ever offered to make that investment pay off, not directly. Did I waste my time? Could it be that learning multiple languages, and how the hardware works, and how to freaking build an application such that it actually runs for someone for a change, and all those other foundational, below-the-surface-part-of-the-iceberg skills have indeed made me the supergenius amazing developer that I am? Could there be some gestalt effect that polyglot programming skills elicit? Inquiring minds want to know. > I wonder if any employers consider it a mitigating factor if you know > several languages if you are applying to them and Java is not their shop > language (or one of them)? Or do they just drop you from consideration > immediately and not even consider training you in their language? My I've been hired again and again and again for languages that I didn't know until I started the job. How long does it take to learn a computer language? It took me about a week to learn Java. Less for Python, assuming you can say that I've learned it just because I can write effective programs in it. (I haven't, actually.) They gave me three class sessions in college to learn Pascal; I never showed up for the third session. Didn't need to. C I just picked up on the job because it looked interesting. Basically every language I've used professionally I learned on the job, and every language I've learned outside of work I have not been paid to use. > impression is that employers all expect you to have a long list of > qualifications and certifications in _exactly_ what they want. And they > don't seem to want to have to spend any money training anyone for > anything. That's why my resume shows qualifications in every skill. > I was talking to a friend who does volunteer work at a hospital and she > was furious. She said even getting a job as a porter in a hospital - > basically someone who pushes carts around and can apparently be fully > trained in 20 minutes - requires a community college diploma with 8 > required credits before they can get that diploma. She spoke of > "credentialism run amuck". What next: a university degree in Chemical > Engineering to be able to make coffee at Starbucks?.... Why would that be bad? America is a woefully under-educated nation. People who complain about having to learn are idiots. What's worse, they're idiots on purpose. Hospitals are places where people put their lives in your hands. I hope to heck everyone in a hospital is educated. I don't care if you are swabbing toilets. It minimizes the chances that they will steal drugs, or do something stupid to hurt the sick people. Your friend is a schmuck. "Credentials run amuck [sic]" is the excuse of a lazy person. If they don't want to put in the effort to get qualified for a good job, they can just go back to asking, "Would you like fries with that?" -- Lew Honi soit qui mal y pense. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Friz.jpg