I got a little heavy handed in a thread this week, I do have a nasty streak of superiority that comes out sometimes in my posts and I'm normally a laid back relaxed kind of guy, but it's hard to keep your cool when you are reading that 1000th post “Please give me code for this, I want to set-up my own space program to rival N.A.S.A. in <insert language here> how do I do it? Please post code.”
I upset somebody who clearly didn't really know what they were doing, the poster told me I was being a jerk and for a moment I almost felt apologetic. I thought, well... we were all learners once upon a time. Then I got to thinking, and some other things that have been happening in the threads here stalled me. I was reminded of some interesting articles I read some time ago about software bugs that resulted in human fatality, the case of the Therac25 being perhaps the most famous, here's a quote for you:

“What engineers didn't know was that both the 20 and the 25 were built upon an operating system that had been kludged together by a programmer with no formal training. “ - Simpson Garfinkle Nov, 08, 2005

Then I recalled some of the “Hey what's the best language for newbies?” type threads In which everyone recommends (not surprisingly) the language they obviously know best. One language that gets a lot of plugging is of course Microsofts' .NET. I wonder how far in the future the following might be?

Brainsurgery.NET 2050 Express Edition - Come on kids anyone can do it !

Is wading into software engineering without any formal training akin to brain surgery after reading three web pages on anatomy? Food for thought no ?

Several times I have recommended good books only for some numbskull to come in after me saying “you don't need books there's free tutes all over the net!”

You don't build a house by just wading into some patch of empty ground and glueing a load of bricks together, you draw up a plan first and you survey the site so as to avoid problems down the road when it will be too late.

So I guess what I'm saying is, if you want to get into software, forget about the languages themselves, install the one that's most convenient for you and do the “hello world” program then stop. Get yourself some books and read them, then read them again, do the exercises. Then come and post in the forums to get answers to the bits you don't understand, you'll get a much more positive reception from all of us. Don't de-value our hard learned craft and remember a community is something you are supposed to contribute too as well as draw sucker from.

Be a jerk. It's tough love!

Years ago, when I was about two years into my career as an embedded systems programmer, I thought I knew C very well. I had stumbled upon the newsgroup comp.lang.c looking for some code ideas. (This is back when Google was not synonymous with searching the web.)

While I was looking that some of the posts, I decided to answer one -- I think it was about using bitfields. I accidentally replied directly to a very -- and I mean very -- experienced C programmer instead of posting to the newsgroup. He was harsh, arrogant, and completely correct. And this was the push that made me learn how to be a better programmer, and to break out of the practice bad habits part of the cycle.

And thankfully, this little embarrassment was accidentally done as private emails rather than being captured for all time in comp.lang.c! It was finally a year or so ago that I replied back to that experienced programmer and thanked him for the kick in the pants that helped me learn to program better.