NorthWest Miscellanea

.. ( and some pretty crappy advice probably)

My ex-G/F’s son recently called me, asking if I could suggest a first language to learn. He’s 13 and he’s pretty sure this is the field he wants to enter.

The conversation went mostly something like this.

Me: I think that applications more and more are going to be web-based applications. Have you heard of Ruby?

Andy: <started to say something>

Me: <Interrupting him> It’s object oriented, but I’m not sure if you want to just start with something that is just strictly procedural so that you can learn basic concepts.

Andy: Yeah, I’ve written something in Perl and I’ve already looked at Ruby.

Me: <realizing that I shouldn’t have interrupted>. Oh, okay, I think Ruby is a great language to learn then. More and more hosting providers are supporting this, and many corporations are adopting it <then realizing, why the hell would he care about hosting providers, and the business case for it, he’s 13 for gdssake, and do i know the facts on this?>

<continuing..> However, have you heard of C?

Andy:

Me: <not even waiting for the answer, unfortunately> It might be a good idea to learn a lower level language such as this, so that you could learn the concepts of memory management, pointers, etc.

< Really? Will this be a necessary requirement for him to just have fun, enjoy his career and provide value later? How do I know that he won’t be another Jason Fried (37Signals founder), but skip the college. I think I should shut up and just change the subject. I think, though, that he’ll probably go to college and take these classes anyway, on data structures and memory management, and architecture. >

Andy: Are you there?

Me: Have you heard of Python?

Andy: <silence …> No

Me: Okay, well I saw a book at the store and the title was Learn How To Program with Python, and since I’ve written in Python before, I could see why this particular language could be a good starting point. It has even been ported to the .NET Framework, with the name of IronPython, and Python was written originally as an OO language.

Andy:Is C# a good language?

Me:Yes, definitely. I’d recommend it as a good language to learn, since you can use to write WinForms applications …

<tempting to mention “WPF” which transcends WinForms, but this kid is just asking for a simple opinion, not information on some new future GUI technology from MS!>

.. as well as ASP Web Pages.

For the rest of the phone call, I think I steered away from languages, and just simply suggested that he think about a program he wants to write, and that he would actually use.

And then recommended that he use a language that he thinks might be the best one for this particular program that he would write. Though I obviously like PHP myself, I think I steered away from it in indirect ways, because I don’t know how valuable it would be in the learning stages.
Then I mentioned that he find an Internet Discussion Forum, and even suggested Sitepoint and Devshed, where he could search for “first language to learn”, etc.. to get better, much better insights from others, including those of his age.

I also made it a point to seek someone who I could actually give valuable advice to, so that I could reverse the negative “advice-karma” I set in motion with this call, before something happens.

But what language do you start with, anyway, these days?

I’ve given up on .NET becuase I realized I was trying to pick up the basics just to qualify for a position here in Seattle. My interest is just not in .NET
I’m much more into php and python. I had this paranoia that there would not be near as much LAMP type jobs, but I was completely wrong

But I sort of watch the developments that come from that whole area, for an unknown reason. Soo…

WPF, Windows Presentation Foundation is the new way to write Windows applications, and even on the browser, eventually replaces ASP.NET (but the ASP replacement is even further down the road, I’d say 3 years, but what do I know). And WPF requires video performance that you just don’t see on most of today’s business machines.

Here is a good Video by Bill Hollis, a speaker on .NET subjects. He begins by sort of chronicling the history of GUI’s, and why WPF is eventually very necessary because of the wide range of resolutions and the need to avoid basing anything on bitmap-based graphics.

http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Hollis-WPF-Presentation

p.s.
The best checkbox that I’ve clicked off this year:

(This is what turns off the GUI editor for Wordpress, what a bleepin relief!)

The software i mentioned a little while back, MasterList Professional is definitely fullfilling the need for organizing my projects, -scheduling regular tasks to update websites I have, quickly creating new tasks, etc..
However, I also wanted this program to replace the free web-based ‘feature/bug management program’ I was using, (called “Mantis”)..

So I’m using MLPRO to also keep track of bugs/features for new websites/programs I write. I’ll see as time goes by, how it works to integrate absolutely every project and their tasks into one program.

One of the other ways I use GTD (i.e. MasterList) in Software Dev’t :

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This is not a new type of process on the level of Agile, or a new philosophy.

It’s actually meant to be the successor of Test-Driven Development.

On Google Video, there is a video of Dave Astels doing a seminar on this:

Behavior-Driven Development Video

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.. and even if I don’t , I’m still never moving away from WA.

Street signs, first.

This is what you need each time you come to an intersection and you need to know what street it is:

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This has nothing to do with being the end of the year. (i.e. These aren’t what I necessarily discovered in the past 12 months.)

I just felt like publicizing my currently favorite, most useful products/tools/languages.

PHP - Useful, easy, fun to use. Even just at home, I use PHP along with MySql to do several things on my private Apache server on my PC, ( including an “expected shipment” list where every time I order something, I enter in the item ordered, the U.P.S. tracking number along with a link to U.P.S. website, and a checkbox to check when received.)

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