pearkes on Self-Taught Developers: Are You Missing Your Foundation?

Comment on Self-Taught Developers: Are You Missing Your Foundation?

One of the biggest traps self-taught developers fall into is not recognizing (seemingly) complex problems have likely been solved before.

A simple example in Python:

  for dog in dogs:
      print dogs.index(dog)
      calculate_dog = something_complex(dog)

vs.

  for i, dog in enumerate(dogs):
       print i
       calculate_dog = something_complex(dog)

xutopia 13y

I've seen CS degrees do these kinds of things as well.

sateesh 13y

I don't see your example as a trap a self-taught developer would fall into. The non-usage of enumerate just indicates that it is a code from some one who has started with python and any self taught developer who groks pydocs would eventually discover enumerate.

pearkes 13y

I guess that's kind of my point - there's no motivation to grok pydocs, because you don't realize there's a better way.

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