“Learn how to do it manually first, then use abstractions to save time. Code generation tools which pretend to abstract out something, like all abstractions, leak, and the only way to deal with the leaks competently is to learn about how the abstractions work and what they are abstracting. So the abstractions save us time working, but they don’t save us time learning. And all this means that paradoxically, even as we have higher and higher level programming tools with better and better abstractions, becoming a proficient programmer is getting harder and harder.”

I’ve been thinking for some time about the possibility of starting another website. This blog is certainly where I post general goings-on with me and my programming, but I think it would be cool to create a website dedicated to teaching up-and-coming programmers things, categorized in an easy to navigate way. This is partially inspired by StackOverflow.com, but would be targeted at a much lower skill level. My thought is that it wouldn’t necessarily be so basic as to teach things like loops and if statements, but more so at a level where things like algorithms and language constructs would be relevant. The reasoning behind creating a site like this is partially self serving:

“Teaching is the highest form of understanding”. –Aristotle

I feel that by teaching what I know, might help me to even further my understanding of the subjects. The other reason for creating such a site is out of a dissatisfaction for the available knowledge on simpler programming subjects. Sites like stackoverflow are really good, but asking questions on there can be a tricky business if the question is simple, because there is a certain unspoken expectation that you are an above average knowledgeable programmer by using the site. This isn’t a blanket statement, and I don’t wish to be misunderstood when I talk about stackoverflow – I love stackoverflow and I’m an active participant. I just think it would be beneficial to have a website that caters to those who are just getting their feet wet in our industry, to get them excited about furthering their study beyond what they might be getting in a classroom environment. I’ve always felt that individual study time was critical for anyone in our field, but that if someone isn’t all that excited about the field to begin with, they probably aren’t going to go out of their way to learn more about it on their own. The proposed site would give newcomers a taste.

I haven’t purchased a domain for this site, nor have I come up with design or content. It’s an idea that will probably float around in my head for a while before materializing fully.

I spent some time with my previously mentioned study list and determined that I could probably remove some things and add others. Below is the new list, with my current progress.

• Algorithm to reverse a string
• Linked List from scratch
• Quick Sort from scratch
• Insertion Sort from scratch
• Selection Sort from scratch
• Bubble Sort from scratch
• Singleton pattern
• Factory pattern
• Maze solver
• Composite pattern
• Decorator pattern
• Greedy algorithm
• Backtracking algorithm
• Memoization
• Hash table from scratch
• Binary tree class + search from scratch
• Graph traversal algorithms
• Heap from scratch
• Preventing integer overflow
• Web services in: Java, C#
• Java command line compilation flags
• GCC command line flags
• Ant, Make
• Eclipse project/build configurations