Comment by bee_rider

10 months ago

How’s your career going?

I’m often worried that I’ll look like a dummy when I have to look up basic loop syntax. I’m not dumb, and I’m somewhat experienced… I just write code in Python, Matlab, Fortran, Bash, whatever else. It is shocking that the basic shape of syntax can be so different!

And also the degree to which it doesn’t actually matter. It’s just when starting a new file. My brain needs a little bit of syntax around to get locked into the language I think.

3 comments

bee_rider

vundercind 10 months ago

I have been paid to write code for over 20 years, in eight or nine languages, and wouldn’t bet a serious amount of money I could fizz-buzz in any of them, including one I wrote a bunch of today, without a reference. Not without getting something basic about the language wrong in a way that would keep it from working on the first try.

This is, if anything, becoming more true the longer I do this sort of work.

williamcotton 10 months ago

My brain refuses to learn bash conditional syntax. Personally, when I’m about to write a conditional in bash I take it as a cue to switch to another language.

bee_rider 10 months ago

    for i in $( ls | grep “a complicated enough filter that I never have to use conditionals in my loop”) ;
    do
         echo -n “if I don’t want to work on ” $i 
        echo “ it is time to change languages” 
    done