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Besides practice(practice and more practice) reading books and forums, analyzing others people code is a must in order to have a career in this field.
The problem is that I'm a student(feels like always on learning stage) but sometimes i can't solve the problems by my own. I was thinking that on public open source repositories might be the answer I'm looking for.
My question is how can i find the answer to some of my problems in open source projects/community? Do you have any tips to share for me?
ty
A few things for learning problem solving skills related to software developement (once you've found a project that you are interested in that is also written in a language you feel comfortable with) are:
Sign up to the mailing list
Lurk about on the project's IRC
channel (assuming they have one)
Read through bug repots (the open
ones to try solve them, and the
closed ones to see how others solved
them).
and of course discuss discuss discuss, if you think you have a basic grasp of the problem at hand but need clarification on some issues don't be afraid to ask your peers.
Hope this was of at least some help,
Welcome to the open source world and good luck!
Analyzing others people code is a must... I'm a student... public open source repositories might be the answer?
The problem with open source is that the quality varies too much.
(There's lots of my own code sitting in public open-source repositories that I wouldn't want anyone to try to see, let alone learn from.
And yet some of my code, the code I have lavished time and attention on, is very good—or so my peers tell me.)
So you don't want to pick an open-source project and learn from J. Random Hacker. You want to learn from the best hackers.
Here are some strategies:
If you're a student, you have acccess to teachers. One or two of them may have an idea about software. Ask them what is worth reading—what you will learn from.
Look at conferences and journals that publish about software: SIGPLAN, SIGSOFT, USENIX, Software—Practice & Experience, Journal of Functional Programming. Read about systems that look interesting to you. Write to the authors and ask them if they recommend you try to learn from their code. Listen carefully to what they say; most of the best hackers know they can do better. If you extract a grudging admission, with a bunch of caveats, that maybe there is something to learn there, you've found the right person.
If you're learning C, a lot of the old Bell Labs stuff is really worth looking at (and a lot isn't). I admire the work of Jon Bentley, Brian Kernighan, and Rob Pike, among many others. You can download and read the source of the original awk, or Pike's interpreter for Newsqueak.
Popularity does not correlate with suitability for learning. The GNU tools are very popular, but almost anyone who has seen both will tell you that you will learn more from the Bell Labs versions. And Linux is very popular, but people I trust who work in the field tell me that if you want to learn about operating systems, you should study BSD. I myself work in the field of compilers and can tell you that if you want to write a compiler in C, the model to emulate is the little-known lcc, not the wildly popular gcc.
Finally, I highly recommend the work of Richard Bird, Hans Boehm, Ralf Hinze, and Phong Vo (two Haskell programmers and two C/C++ programmers).
What I've found useful over the years, is to validate your code, go through coding conventions and best practices for various languages. Open Standards are the inevitable part of Open Source Software. In order to maintain a successful OSS project, it has to have some common ground in the community, so for instance:
if doing some (X)HTML and CSS, always do it by the W3C standards. Passing validation will in itself improve your skills greatly. Use tableless markup (see Benefits of tableless design);
if doing some PHP, go through PEAR coding standards which is the de facto standard for all OSS PHP projects;
if doing some Flash Platform coding in Flex/ActionScript, see Flex SDK coding conventions and best practices;
if doing some Java, see Code Conventions for the Java™ Programming Language.
Lastly, but not less importantly, research Object oriented programming and various architectures used for software development, e.g. the MVC pattern.
... analyzing others people code is a must in order to have a career in this field.
I wouldn't say that is correct. Certainly it is not a must. Reading other people's code doesn't usually explain why they chose to solve a problem a certain way, and what alternatives they considered and then dismissed. Besides, it is not uncommon to find open source code that is badly designed and/or badly implemented.
The problem is that ... but sometimes i can't solve the problems by my own.
Ah. Well the solution to that is to practice, practice, practice, and not be afraid to make mistakes. Be self-critical, but don't let this stop you from "having a go". The more you do your own problem solving, the easier it will become.
Ask, ask, ask, ask if you come across a particular problem or solution that you don't understand. Make a good-faith effort to solve the problem or to understand a solution, share your thought process, and ask. SO is an excellent place for that, which you undoubtedly have already discovered. Good luck!
As other said, ask to the mailing list of the project, anyway some of open source developers are not willing to help (unfortunately) for this sort of things.
In this situation I search answers by myself: pick up a terminal and use grep.
Guess naming of classes/functions that involves your problem you will find the way toward the module where the interesting bits are written.
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I've been coding since my early teenager years. I started out with HTML, went on to PHP/MySQL (created my own forums, social networking sites, etc..) and then branched out into more traditional languages such as Java and C++ (also picked up a little VB .NET in high school). I'm most familiar now with C++ as that is the language of choice taught to us in Computer Science II (skipped Comp Sci I) at RPI. I now feel like I have a very good knowledge of how to program from this class (the homework assignments were brutal).
It is now summer and I am interning at a company that is providing me some level of new experiences with programming, but I want more. I want to feel the incredible satisfaction that I got out of my computer classes at RPI whenever I finished a long assignment (generating every possible wordsearch from a set of words to include and exclude comes to mind).
My question is, where do I go from here? I tried following a tutorials online, but they were all too simple. I then tried heading over to sourceforge and helping out with various projects. But, as soon as I downloaded the code I got lost in its complexity. I have never created actual software of a real life applicapable scale. And I don't know where to get started. How do you transition from programming knowledge to actuall creation of software?
I'm also open to learning new languages (javascript/jQuery, ASP .NET, C#, Python), or using new libraries and/or frameworks with c++ (we only used the STL in Comp Sci II) and other languages. Again my question is, where do I go from here? And I am welcome to all possible answers.
Thanks Much,
Michael
You could join a big open source project, you'll learn a lot and accomplish something cool.
EDIT after comment: If this is too complicated for you, try starting a "real" project. I say "real" because it should be something that you want to do, not a "create a blog" or "how to do a loop". For instance last year I created a fully functional project management system that I now use for some of my projects. If this is real, you will be more motivated and you will want to get this done.
Pick the technology you want for it. I'd recommend Ruby on Rails because it's awesome and full of interesting concepts that will improve the way you code overtime (DRY, RESTful, MVC...)... but you can pick whatever you want.
Try to create your project using what you know and basic tutorials. You will get stuck and have to learn some more in order to get the features you want going. To me that's the best way to improve the way you code and general programming knowledge.
Since you'll start the project from scratch, you'll see where to start and how this will evolve. I'll take the project management tool. We started with "A project has todos" and we ended up with all kind of other features such as a complex calendar, a full ajax interface, a embedded chat...
Once you see how you did this, try doing the same with a friend of yours to get a fealing of teamwork in development. Learn how to use SVN, basecamp... learn about software development processes (Agile!), peer programming..
There's a lot to experience! Then you could give open source another try.
Hope that helps
I'd recommend trying a pure functional language, such as Haskell. It's a completely different way of looking at programming, and I found it very satisfying.
I recommend the book Real World Haskell for learning it.
Edit: In response to comments, my interpretation of the question is where can he go from here as a programmer. Functional programming is a logical direction. For someone learning functional programming for the first time, Haskell is nice because it doesn't really allow for imperative programming practices. Furthermore, it has basically all features you will find in other functional languages, which means it will be easy to pick up other functional languages.
I would suggest looking at Project Euler. It's a great and fun way to learn a new language, and it does provide that level of satisfaction when you solve the problems. They offer a huge range of problems at all levels of difficulty.
I think the best way to improve your skills as a programmer is to do what programming was intended for: solve problems. I'm sure you've been playing around on your machine and at one time thought to yourself "I wish there was a program that did this..." or "I wonder if there are any programs that do X..." Instead of just googling to see if someone else wrote it, write it yourself. Start with something small, and gradually make it more complex. Add features. Allow yourself to fail, and when you do, ask yourself (or us at stackoverflow) how to overcome that obstacle. Once you have the basics of programming, everything else is just making big things out of littler things, and the little things are usually pretty easy.
When you are making something you know you will actually use, it's more fun and more gratifying when you finish.
Do you understand all of the following and how they work?
Linked lists (single and double)
Sequential vs. binary search
Binary trees
Stacks
Red-black trees
Algorithmic complexity and big O notation
Recursion
Hash tables and hashing algorithms
If you don't feel completely conversant in any of these, take a class in data structures and algorithms.
It seems like you've experienced many languages, but have not created a real-world application. Creating software in any of those languages will bring you to a new level.
PS: Creating software is much more than just knowing how to mess around with a language.
Check out Design Patterns.
I believe that's beyond mere simple coding.
You could offer your abilities to a non profit or a friend or someone who needs a website or program built.
Tell them you can do it for free and then just go for it. As you start to make it you'll start to see what you need to learn.
For example I bit ago I had the program Peel www.getpeel.com on my Mac. But sold my Mac for Wind as I am traveling.
Seeing that there was nothing for Windows (or nothing I could find) like Peel. I build my own in PHP and am up to a 4th rebuilding of it as I learn betters ways to do each new thing I am learning.
You've got to find a particular type of functionality that interests you. For me it's been basic socket programming and making my own protocols. I got that feeling when I was able to create a functional file uploading control that worked in conjunction with a file upload service on the server which I had created. The protocol handles authentication, chunking and hash comparison. Sometime soon I plan on incorporating file-resume functionality as well.
Well my advice will be to find a problem/project you are interested in and try to code it. Trying a real problem is something that drives you. Find something not to complex but not too simple. Something to try when starting a new language is to write some tools. You can for example program a python script that print metrics on a C++ project. You can write a tool that extract some statistics from a website you use, etc. When I learn programming game programming was quite fun (I was young :-) ). You can try to program some simple game using a 3D engine like Ogre3D for example. Participate in an opensource project is great too but as you stated perhaps a bit overwhelming for now ;-)
Find something you like and that has a REAL useful goal for you. You will thrive to solve the problem and learn a lot along the way !
I think the transition from the kind of finite tractable problems that are part of class projects (and some internships) to "real world" projects is quite tough. Sounds like language syntax, getting bugs out of code etc. is something you are comforatble with.
When we come to larger projects, probably with many release cycles, with developers working together, different kinds of problems emerge. I remember being shocked when I saw my first big project plan - what a small propertion of the time was actually writing code!
The thing I found helpful as a junior was "Sitting By Nelly", I was lucky enough to work for enlighted employers who put me with very experienced and helpful developers. Sometimes to work with, sometime to work alongside. I reckon that helped me get over the hurdles you describe.
So, I reckon you need to find employment of this kind. Be less concerned about specific technologies, salary etc. Look instead for the culture and level of responsibility you would have.
I think you should really start a "real world application" as suggested here. You will see that a real project requires a bit more than just knowing the language.
I suggest you find some simple problem you had issue with, and make a software that solves that issue.
For example, if you want some kind of software that checks RSS feeds every 5 minutes and makes a little pop-up as soon as a new one comes along. Or you want a program that will let you do simple presentations by just dragging a few pictures in.
Then whatever you choose, start by making the simple solution to the problem and extend from there (like do different settings, extra features etc.)
I've looked for the answer to this question for a while now. Most all of the suggestions are usually either help an open source project or build something that interests you. I'm starting to realize that those answers are vague because what's 'interesting' or 'valuable' experience and how to get started doing it is completely subjective. Also, there's only one way to get real experience, which is to work on real projects. It's difficult but find a project, personal, open source, or otherwise that will increase your knowledge in a technology or platform that you think will hold your interest. Then just dig in. It doesn't have to be of earth shattering importance, just valuable in relation to your own goals.
There is no magic bullet transition from academic puzzle solving programs to real world applications. The best way to learn is just to jump in head first. It will take you a very long time to learn what you need to if you only ever look at your own code. You need to be looking at code written by professionals and struggling to understand why it works the way it does until you do understand it.
It seems overwhelming at first, but you will quickly start to see patterns if the application is at all logical. Well written code will be separated in logical ways, so you should be able to pick it apart one layer at a time.
For example, you could try a bottom up approach where you try to understand how the database interactions are handled before looking at the code that uses the database layer. You keep going upward until you get to the GUI event handlers.
Large enterprise applications can be even harder to understand because there might be a lot more than one executable, or component. Try to stay focused and learn what the component is responsible for doing, and then pick it apart a piece at a time.
You will see that there are not just patterns at the function and class level, but at higher levels as well. This makes it simpler to understand what is going on when you understand those patterns.
Try to find an internship or co-op position. I was in a similar situation after my first few courses. I took a co-op position sophomore year and I learned so much more on the job than I did in class. Class is great for teaching you theory and the basics. I learned C# on my first project on my co-op and that got me my second co-op position at another employer (wanted to see how it was working at a small company).
This past spring, I accepted a position at my first co-op employer, reworking my first major project I had started on my co-op. I have a list of side projects I also want to complete, which will help round out my skills, as well as learn some other languages.
So my suggestion is try finding a job where you can have a great mentor. On my second co-op, I learned alot of the coding standards that I code against from my supervisor. He was a great teacher, and really had some great input, and explained why things should be done certain ways.
You will almost certainly go nowhere unless you find something that interests you. Figure out what is interesting, and then how to write software involving it.
The only way to begin is to begin! There is really no other way... The best answers you get would always tell you this. You have the knowledge, now put it to work!
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Let's say your company has given you the time & money to acquire training on as many advanced programming topics that you can eat in a year, carte blanche. What would those topics be and how would you prefer to acquire them?
Assumptions:
You're still having deliverables to bring into existence, but you're allowed one week per month for the year for this training.
The training can come from anywhere. IE: Classroom, on-site instructor, books, subscriptions, podcasts, etc.
Subject matter can cover any platform, technology, language, DBMS, toolset, etc.
Concurrent/Parallel programming and multi-threading, especially with respect to memory models and memory coherency.. I think every programmer should be aware of the considerations in this arena as we move into a world of multi-core/multi-cpu hardware.
For this I would probably using Internet research most heavily; but an on-campus primer at a good university could be a good way to start off.
Security!
Far too many programmers just build something and think they can add security as an afterthought after finishing the "main" part of the program. You could always benefit from knowing more about how to secure your app, how to design software to be secure from the get-go, how to do intrusion detection, etc.
Advanced Database Development
Things like data warehousing (MDX, OLAP queries, star schemas, fact tables, etc), advanced performance tuning, advanced schema and query patterns, and the like are always useful.
Here are the three that I'm always finding myself explaining to junior developers who didn't get enough CS training. All that other stuff is generally more hype than substance, or can be fairly easily picked up. But if you don't know these three, you can do a great deal of damage:
Algorithm analysis, including Big O
Notation.
The various levels of
cohesion and coupling.
Amdahl's Law, and how it pertains to optimizations.
Internationalization issues, especially since it sounds like it would not be an advanced topic. But it is.
Accessibility
It's ignored by so many organizations but the simple fact of the matter is that there are a huge number of people with low or no vision, color blindness, or other differences that can make navigating the web a very frustrating experience. If everybody had at least a little bit of training in it, we might get some web based UIs that are a little more inclusive.
Object oriented design patterns.
I guess "advanced" is different for everyone, but I'd suggest the following as being things that most decent developers (i.e. ones that don't need to be told about NP-completeness or design patterns) could gain from:
Multithreading techniques that go
beyond "lock" and when to apply them.
In-depth training to learn and
habitualize themselves with clever
features in their toolchain (IDE/text
editor, debugger, profiler, shell.)
Some cryptography theory and hands-on experience with different common flaws in security schemes that people create.
If they program against a database, learn the internals of their database and advanced
query composition and tuning techniques.
Developers should know the basics in SQL development and how their decisions impact database performance. It is one thing to write a query it is another thing to write a query, understand the explain plan and make design decisions based off that output. I think a good course on PL/SQL development and database performance would be very beneficial.
Unfortunately communication skills seem to fall under the "advanced topics" section for most developers (present company excluded, of course).
Best way to acquire this skill: practice.
Take of the headphones, and talk to
someone instead of IM'ing or emailing
the guy at the next desk.
Pick up the phone and talk to a
client instead of lobbing an email
over the fence.
Ask questions at a conference instead of sitting behind your laptop
screen twittering.
Actively participate in a non-technical meeting at work.
Present something in public.
Most projects do not fail because of technical reasons. They fail because they could not create a team. Communication is vital to team dynamics.
It will not harm your career either.
One of the best courses I took was a technical writing course. It has served me well in my career.
Additionally: it probably does not matter WHAT the topic is - the fact that the organization is interested in it and is paying for it and the developers want to go and do go, is a better indicator of success/improvement than any one particular topic.
I also don't think it matters that much what the topic is. Dev organizations deal with so many things during a project that training and then on the job implementation/trial and error will always get you some better perspective - even if the attempts to try out/use the new stuff fail. That experience will probably help more on the subsequent projects.
I'm a book person, so I wouldn't really bother with instruction.
Not necessarily in this order, and depending on what you know already
OO Programming
Functional Programming
Data structures and algorithms
Parallel processing
Set based logic (essentially the theory behind sql and how to apply it)
Building parsers (I only put this, because it actually came up where I work)
Software development methodolgoies
NP Completeness. Specifically, how to detect if a problem is NP-Complete, and how to build an approximate solution to the problem.
I see this as important because you don't want a developer to try and solve an NP-complete problem by getting the optimum solution, unless the problem's search space is very small, in which case brute force is acceptable. However, as the search space increases, the time required to solve the problem increases exponentially.
I'd cover new technologies and trends. Some of the new technologies I'm researching/enhancing my skills with include:
Microsoft .NET Framework v3.0/v3.5/v4.0
Cloud Computing Frameworks (Amazon EC2, Windows Azure Services, GoGrid, etc.)
Design Patterns
I am from MS based developer world, so here is my take on this
More about new concepts in Cloud Computing (various API etc.). as the industry is betting on it for sometime.
More about LinQ for .net framework
Distributed databases
Refactoring techniques (which implies also learning to write a good set of unit/functional tests).
Knowing how to refactor is the best way to keep code clean -- it is rare when you get it right the first time (especially in new designs).
A number of refactorings, however, require a decent set of tests to check that the refactoring did not add unexpected behavior.
Parallel computing- the easiest and best way to learn it
Debugging
Debugging by David J. Agans is a good book on the topic. Debugging can be very complex when you deal with multi threaded programs, crashes, algorithms that doesn't work. etc. Everybody would be better off being good at debugging.
I'd vote for real-world battle stories. Have developers from other organizations present their successes and failures. Don't limit the presentations to technologies you're using. With a significantly complex project, this is bound to cut into 'advanced' topics you haven't even considered. Real-world successes (and failures) have a lot to teach.
Go to the Stack Overflow DevDays
and the ACCU conferences
Read
Agile Software Development, Principles, Patterns, and Practices (Robert C. Martin)
Clean Code (Robert C. Martin)
The Pragmatic Programmer (Andrew Hunt&David Thomas)
Well if you're here I would hope by now you have the basics down:
OOP Best practices
Design patterns
Application Security
Database Security/Queries/Schemas
Most notably developers should strive to learn multiple programming languages and disciplines, in order for their skill set to be expanded in more than one direction. They don't need to become experts in these other skills but at least have a very acute understanding of integration with their central discipline. This will make them much better developers in the long run, and also let them gain the ability to use all tools at their disposal to create applications that can transcend the limitations of a singular language.
Outside of programming specific topics, you should also learn how to work under Agile, XP, or other team based methodologies in order to be more successful while working in a team environment.
I think an advanced programmer should know how to get your employer to give you the time & money to acquire training on as many advanced programming topics that you can eat in a year. I'm not advanced yet. :)
I'd suggest an Artificial Intelligence class at a college/university. Most of the stuff is fun, easy to grasp (the basics at least), and the solutions to problems are usually creative.
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
How would I prefer to acquire the training? I'd love to have a substantial amount of company time dedicated to self-training.
I totally agree on Accessabiitly. I was asked to look into it for the website at work and there is a real lack of good knowledge on the subject, not only a lack of CSS standards to aid in the likes of screen readers.
However my answer goes to GUI design - its quite a difficult thing to get right. There's too many awful applications out there that could be prevented just by taking the time to follow HCI (Human Computer Interaction) advice/designs. Take Google/Apple for inspiration when making a GUI - not your typical hundreds of buttons/labels combo that too often gets pushed out.
Automated testing: Unit testing, functional integration testing, non-functional testing
Compiler details (more relevant on some platforms than others): How does the compiler implement certain common constructs in language X? On a byte-code interpreted platform, how does JIT compilation work? What can be JIT-compiled (for example, can virtual calls be JIT compiled?)?
Basic web security
Common design idioms from other problem domains than the one you're working in at the moment.
I'd recommend learning about Refactoring, Test Driven Development, and various unit testing frameworks (NUnit, Visual Test, CppUnit, etc.) I'd also learn how to incorporate automated unit testing into your continuous integration builds.
Ultimately if you can prove your code does what it claims it can do, you don't have to be there to answer questions as to why or how. If a maintainer comes along and tries to "fix" your code, they'll know instantly if they broke it. Tests written around the requirements (use cases) explain to the maintainer what your users wanted it to do, and provide a little working example of how to call it. Think of unit tests as functional documentation.
Test Driven Development (TDD) is a more novel design approach that begins with the requirements, where you start by writing a test before you write the code. You then write exactly enough code required to pass the test. You have to stop before you write extra code (that you may never need), because you will refactor it later if you find that you really needed it.
What makes TDD cool is that a bad interface (such as one with lots of dependencies) is also very hard to write tests for. It's so hard that a coder would rather refactor the interface to make it easier to test. And that refactoring simplifies the code, removing inappropriate dependencies, or grouping related tests together to make it easier to test, thus improving cohesion. By making it immediately apparent to the developer when he's writing a badly interfaced module, the developer sticks to the architecture and gravitates to the principles of tight cohesion and loose coupling. Good interfaces are the natural result. And as a bonus, once you pass all your tests, you know you're done.
On the surface this seems like an easy question to answer, just enter your favorite pet peeve about what other developers can't do correctly. But when I read through the answers and gave it some thought, I realized that every "advanced topic" brought up was covered in my undergraduate computer science curriculum--20 years ago. And I doubt that OO, security, functional programming, etc. concepts have changed in that time. Sure the tools have, but I argue that tools are different than topics.
So what is an "advanced topic" in computer science? Who is the Turing, Knuth, Yourdon of the 21st century?
I don't have a clear answer to this question, though I'd like to see more work on theories for parallel programming that will enable tools to abstract that messy stuff for developers.
Quite funny that noone hasnt mentioned:
debugging.
tools & ide you work with
and platform you are developing to.
Everyday development is much more fun if you know your tools really well and you accomplish more and make your life easier if you know how to debug someone elses code at ease.
Source Control
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I have an interesting idea for a new programming language. It's based on a new programming paradigm that I've been working out in my head for some time. I finally got around to start working on a basic parser and interpreter for it a few weeks ago.
I want my new language to be successful and I want to eventually create a community around it when it's ready to release. The idea behind it is fairly innovative, so I don't expect it to gain a lot of ground in the business world, but it would thrill me more than anything else to see a handful of start ups use or open source projects use it.
So taking those aims into account, what can I do to help make my language successful? What do language projects do to become successful? What should I avoid at all costs? I'd love to hear opinions or stories about other languages -- successful or not -- so I can think about them as I continue to develop.
So far, the two biggest concerns on my mind are finding a market, access to existing libraries, having amazing tool support. What else might I add to this list?
The true answer is by having a beard.
http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/tamir/archive/2008/04/28/computer-languages-and-facial-hair-take-two.aspx
Although not specific to new programming languages, the book Producing Open Source Software by Karl Fogel (available to read online) may be contain some hints to the issue of making a community around your new programming language.
In terms of adoption of programming languages in general, it seems like the trend lately has been to have a rich library to make development times shorter.
As there isn't much detail on what your language is like, it's hard to determine whether adoption of the language is going to depend on the availability of a rich library. Perhaps your language will be able to fill a niche that has been overlooked by other languages and be able to gain users. Or perhaps it has a slick name that will draw people in -- there are many factors which can affect the adoption of a language.
Here are some factors that come to mind when thinking about recent successful languages:
Ability to leverage existing libraries in the new language.
Having an adapter to external libraries written in other languages.
Python allows access to code written in C through the Python/C API.
Targeting a platform which already has plenty of libraries available for use.
Groovy and Scala target the Java platform, therefore allowing the use of and interoperation between existing Java code.
Language design and syntax to allow increased productivity.
Many dynamically-typed languages have gained popularity, such as Ruby and Python to name a couple.
More concise and clear code can be written in languages such as Groovy, as opposed to verbose languages such as Java.
Offering features such as functions as first-class objects and closures which aren't offered in more "traditional" languages such as C and Java.
A community of dedicated users who also are willing to teach newcomers on the benefits of a language
The human factor is going to be big in wide-spread support for a language -- if people never start using your language, it won't gain more users.
Also, another suggestion that I could add is to make the development of your language open -- keep your users posted on developments in your language, and allow people to give you feedback. Better yet, let your users take part in the decision-making process, if you feel that is appropriate.
I believe that by offering ways to participate in the bringing up of a language, the more people will feel that they have a stake in the success of the new language, so the more likely it will gain more support.
Good luck!
Most languages that end up taking off rapidly do so by means of a killer app. For C it was Unix. Ruby had Rails. JavaScript is the only available programming system common to most browsers without third-party add-ons.
Another means of success is by fiat. This only works if you have significant clout. For example C#, as nice as a language as it might be, wouldn't be any where near as popular as it is now if Microsoft had not pushed it as hard as it does. Objective-C is the language of MacOS X simply because Apple says so.
The vast majority of languages, though, which lack a single killer app or a major corporate backer have gained success through long term investment of their respective creators. Perl and Python are prime examples. C++ has no single entity behind it, but it has evolved as the needs of developers have changed.
Don't worry about trying to make the language be successful; worry about using it to solve real problems and make real money.
You'll either make lots of money from using this language, or not. Once you have lots of money, others may care how you did it. Or not, either way you have lots of money.
If you don't make lots of money, nobody will want to know how you did it.
Edit based on comment: I define successful as people using it, and people use languages to solve problems, most for profit, thus successful == profitable.
In addition to making the language easy to use (which has several meanings), you should develop a comprehensive library that covers and also provides a good level of abstraction over (the following most important areas):
* Data structures and manipulation
* File I/O support
* XML processing
* Networking (plus web based technologies like HTTP/HTTPS)
* Database support
* Synchronous and asynchronous I/O
* Processes and threads
* Math
A well thought out framework that makes rapid development faster (and easier to maintain) would be a great addition. For this, you should know the currently popular frameworks well.
Keep in mind that it takes a lot of time. I think it took python about 10 years (someone please correct me if I'm wrong).
So even if your community still seems small after say, 5 years, that's not the end of the story.
"It's based on a new programming paradigm that I've been working out in my head for some time."
While laudable, odds are really good that someone has already done something with your "new" paradigm.
To make a language usable, it must build on prior art. Totally new is not a good path to success. My favorite example is Algol 68.
Algol 60 was wildly popular (back in the day, which is a while ago, admittedly).
The experts wanted to build on this success. They proposed some new paradigms, the effort split into factions. The purists put the new paradigms into Algol 68; it disappeared into obscurity. Some folks created a different version of Algol, called PL/I. It did not have any really new paradigms. It actually went somewhere and was used heavily. Another group created Pascal -- it didn't have much that was new -- it discarded things from Algol 60. It actually went somewhere ans was used heavily.
Your new paradigm must have a clear and concise summary so people can fit it into a context of where the language is usable, how it can be used, what the costs and benefits of using it are.
A "new programming paradigm" causes some people to say "why learn a completely new paradigm when the ones I have work so nicely?" You have to be very clear on how it helps to have a new paradigm.
The language and libraries must work, and work very, very well. A language that isn't rock-solid is worthless. In order to be rock-solid it must be very simple.
It has to have a tutorial that will help anyone get started with your language.
Good Framework for Common Tasks
Easy Installation/Deployment
Good Documentation
Debugger/IDE and other Tools
A popular flagship product that uses your language!
Good documentation, including a detailed reference manual as well as simple examples to get people started quickly.
Good library support so that people can actually write useful programs.
Most popular languages seem to be very strong in either or both or both of those.
Use Trojan Horse approach
C++ - The Forgotten Trojan Horse
An interesting article on why C++ can grab the heart of programmers successfully.
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which were your achievements in programming in 2008?
what technologies surprise you or learn this year and what do you expect in programming terms in 2009
Edit:
Changed to Wiki
I wrote 2 VB.NET language features that will ship as part of VS 2010.
I designed a programing language called Liberty,
However, I've only implemented a small fraction of it. I stopped working on it so that I could concentrate on building a profitable software company. My original intent was to market the language (actually an IDE for it) as my first product, but the economics of programing languages being as they are, I decided to pick something else for my company's first product. I've been thinking about turning it into an open source project. If the statement "A programing language that feels like LISP, but looks like C#..." has any appeal to you, and you are interested in working on an open source .NET compiler, let me know.
I started my own software company
I've designed and implemented most of my company's first product "Transactor Code Agent", which should be shipping in Q1 2009. I've been billing it as a "Disaster Recovery Tool for Programmers".
It's a tool that provides automatic local version history for source code. You point it at the folders that contain your source, and then anytime you make a change to file it automatically creates a backup for you. It's meant to be a compliment to existing source control setups, by protecting all the "broken", "in-progress" work that you usually don't check into source control.
By the way, we are looking for beta-testers. If you are interested let me know.
After Scott's outing I would feel deep shame in confessing what I achieved in 2008.
I made one of my "flagship" applications better by removing features from it.
For the first time, I sold my work to a general audience, via the App Store. In so doing, I:
Reached over five times as many users as my most widely-used previous work (26000+ instead of 5000+)
Made more than three times as much money as my most lucrative previous work (a Google Summer of Code grant in 2005)
Learned two new environments (Objective-C/Cocoa Touch and Ruby/Rails) after sticking with Perl for many years
Disciplined myself enough to get the boring bits done
Learned what it meant to be responsible to thousands of people
But perhaps most importantly, I made beautiful things that I could be proud of.
In 2009 (or maybe late '08) I'll release a new product that I hope will push all of that even farther, and maybe even be a best-in-class solution for a problem everybody faces.
Helped push another release towards the door (not quite there yet)
Presented a paper on accelerating the Hough Transform at WorldComp
Averaged just shy of one blog post per week
Built up hope of catching John Skeet in reputation
Did a huge set of bizarro work with reflection and dynamic code generation
Gave up all hope of catching John Skeet in reputation
Managed three employees, more or less successfully
I decided I would learn a new language, nothing specific at the time, since then I have learned Python.
This coming year, I would like to learn another language, preferably something like c++ or maybe just maybe (I'm a *nix kinda' guy) Ill try a Microsoft stack with something like .net but we'll see what happens.
Improved interviewing skills. I am now better able to discern good and bad applicants through better questions, including small whiteboard coding sessions.
I am up to speed with Drupal, though lots still to learn. First time really working with a good framework.
2009, maybe i'll get around to doing some lisp funness
I opened myself to the world of Dynamic Languages and Functional Languages. I can read programs that dont resemble a C++ or C# kind of code with {} and ;. In the process developed better understanding to patterns like MVC.
I needed to learn PF early this December as our existing firewall solution was woefully underpowered for an industrial application, but we didn't have the dough for the "professional" solutions (i.e. ci$cso stuff).
So I ended up taking my existing OpenBSD box in the server stack and turn it into the firewall using PF. Since the system uses multiple servers and multiple IP's (some on domains), I needed a combination of NAT, RDR and the usual RULES.
It's certainly not as sexy as learning APL or LISP (or Ruby etc.) for fun, but it was necessary and urgent.
The new firewall is performing beautifully and I don't have to reset the horrid little firewall appliances twice a week anymore (which had to be done remotely which also was not fun). :-)
Cheers,
-Richard
Well, I've builded a big site (for some project) and learned java, now I want to learn C for coming year.
I released my first program into the wild world of the Internet.
I went outside my .NET bubble by creating the previously mentioned program in Objective-C.
I built a pretty cool string extractor utility and corresponding processing library to facilitate automatic localization of string resources in a native C++ application without refactoring the code to extract the strings from where they were used, with the added benefit of allowing cross-language string pooling of localized strings.
I also built a cool operator_cast<> function (with some help from the SO community) to help codify programming intent when using custom casting operators.
1- I made changes to a International Wine Contest Software that i previously wroted. it was changed because the a new sponsor have a different logic in the contest we were notified about the changes 3 days before, so a friend and I code like 2 days in a row,literally running from work to the contest in order to provide support. at the end everything was Flawless
2.- Released my first program for Sales and inventory for Video game retailer
3.- Start my Coding Blog
both in .Net of Course