In article <0244e76b$0$20638$c3e8...@news.astraweb.com>, Steven D'Aprano <st...@removethis.cybersource.com.au> wrote: >Nathan Stoddard wrote: > >> The best way to become a good programmer is to program. Write a lot of >> code; work on some large projects. This will improve your skill more than >> anything else. > >I think there are about 100 million VB code-monkeys who prove that theory >wrong. > >Seriously, and without denigrating any specific language, you can program by >(almost) mindlessly following a fixed number of recipes and patterns. This >will get the job done, but it won't make you a good programmer.
For programming practice I do the problems of http://projecteuler.net/ I'm on the Eulerians page (best performers on 25 last problems). There is not a single VB programmer in the top 100. (Lots of Python programmers, C-family, also Haskel, APL, LISP Algol, Forth, Perl and I repeat not a single VB programmer.) Currently the top place is a Python programmer. These programs may be very demanding, minutes on very fast systems. Bad algorithms take days, weeks or literally forever. Interestingly the factor 5 between Python and C is irrelevant compared to a good algorithm, apparently. >-- >Steven Groetjes Albert -- -- Albert van der Horst, UTRECHT,THE NETHERLANDS Economic growth -- being exponential -- ultimately falters. alb...@spe&ar&c.xs4all.nl &=n http://home.hccnet.nl/a.w.m.van.der.horst -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
