Thread: Google Code Jam 2010

Originally Posted by fufu

Sounds like apples and oranges to me.

They are a different skill set.

I'm not sure programming can be taught to just anyone. There are abstract concepts especially when dealing with objects that can be explained and many can regurgitate the explanation but most don't really 'get it'... what it truly means.

Many people program for years writing crap without really understanding the overall picture of object oriented programming. To them, code is just a bunch of spaghetti-like if then statements which gets unmanageable in anything large.

I think programmers are kind of born programmers.

Originally Posted by NeilPearson

They are a different skill set.

I'm not sure programming can be taught to just anyone. There are abstract concepts especially when dealing with objects that can be explained and many can regurgitate the explanation but most don't really 'get it'... what it truly means.

Many people program for years writing crap without really understanding the overall picture of object oriented programming. To them, code is just a bunch of spaghetti-like if then statements which gets unmanageable in anything large.

I think programmers are kind of born programmers.

Visual Spatial thinkers like me, yeah...but still Visual Basic isn't that hard and those guys were having problems with it....

Originally Posted by NeilPearson

They are a different skill set.

I'm not sure programming can be taught to just anyone. There are abstract concepts especially when dealing with objects that can be explained and many can regurgitate the explanation but most don't really 'get it'... what it truly means.

Many people program for years writing crap without really understanding the overall picture of object oriented programming. To them, code is just a bunch of spaghetti-like if then statements which gets unmanageable in anything large.

I think programmers are kind of born programmers.

What's so hard to understand about OOP? To me, it's such a natural way of programming. I have much more difficulty trying to work in a functional language, but then again I never was good at Lisp/Scheme.

The hard part about programming is being able to design efficient algorithms. I'm no expert by any means, but being able to recognize the difference between a O(n log n) and O(n!) algorithms is a big deal. One will finish in your lifetime, one won't except in extremely small test cases.

I was thinking about all the maths and how they are our representation of the world around us in a sort of programming language, calculus and physics it's almost like assembly code...

Then my mind trailed off into the widening possibilities of bio-computers and quantum computers and I freaked myself out....

Originally Posted by danzik17

What's so hard to understand about OOP? To me, it's such a natural way of programming. I have much more difficulty trying to work in a functional language, but then again I never was good at Lisp/Scheme.

The hard part about programming is being able to design efficient algorithms. I'm no expert by any means, but being able to recognize the difference between a O(n log n) and O(n!) algorithms is a big deal. One will finish in your lifetime, one won't except in extremely small test cases.

Most people just don't get OOP. They try but their classes are still dependent on the inner workings of other classes.

Most real world business programming out there will never ask you to use O(n log n) or O(n!). Most stuff is just accounting, inventories, averages, etc... nothing that is complicated math wise. You do have to really understand the difference between

Database db = new Database();
db.Open();

for( int i = 1; i < 1000000; i++ )
{
db.Whatever(); // using database
}

and

for( int i = 1; i < 1000000; i++ )
{
Database db = new Database();
db.Open();

db.Whatever(); // using database
}

and

Database db = new Database();

db.Open();
db.CallStoredProcedureThatLoopsOneToOneMillion();

They all end up doing the exact same thing but there are very big performance differences