23 Jan 2010

Walk Before You Run

I was reading an excellent post from John Nunemaker the other day.  It made me think of something I think is probably an issue in all the programming communities, but I have personally seen it a lot in the Rails and the more "OO" ColdFusion world.

Here is fictional example of what I see in forums *ALOT*:

"This is my first Rails project and my first time using Ruby at that, actually I have never even programmed before, but anyways I am having trouble getting started. I am trying to use Authlogic, MongoMapper and 3 or 4 other plugins... all in a RESTful ways of course! But I keep gettings errors! HELP!

or

"I am using ColdBox, Transfer and ColdSpring for this project coming up. I am having a really hard time understanding whats going on! WTF is a Bean, Gateway and Service! How do I fit Singletons and Transients into this? HELP!"

Now let me set this straight, there is nothing wrong with asking for help, especially with rather complex tools and concepts like the ones mentioned above. In fact, if you want to skip straight to the big guns, go for it, but your doing your self a dis-favor.

If you want to be a successful programmer, you need to understand your platform thoroughly. You need to know the basics, and also the more advanced concepts before trying all these extra tools and frameworks.  It is tough these days for people just coming on to the scene because we do have so many excellent tools available, but you just need to resist and spend time practicing on your platform of choice without all the extras. And if you want to be on top with other "gurus" we are not just talking about spending a hour or two reading the docs. Its more like John Nunemaker said:

"The kind of practice where all of a sudden I realize that it is 2am and I’m exhausted physically so I should go to bed, but mentally I feel on fire so I let the code have me for another hour or two (I imagine this state to be like a marathon runner or ironman near the end of their race)."

That is how the people that lead our industries got to where they are, they did not just jump in and magically become a guru. Anyone can be up there with them, its just up to you to make the time and have the dedication to get there.