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Nemanja Trifunovic wrote: "real world" samples
Especially as examples need to be simple yet language features (or rather, their interaction) mostly have to deal with high complexity.
Learning by spec only works for people who learn a spoken language by reading a grammar book, though.
Personally, I love the idea that Raymond spends his nights posting bad regexs to mailing lists under the pseudonym of Jane Smith. He'd be like a super hero, only more nerdy and less useful. [Trevel] | FoldWithUs! | sighist | µLaunch - program launcher for server core and hyper-v server
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yes, only a few pages, and for most of the time, I use high quality open source projects codes as my spec and coding standard.
Regards,
unruledboy_at_gmail_dot_com
http://www.xnlab.com
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Usually I read the language reference, but never the specification. (That's for the compiler guys )
And, as libraries tend to get bigger and bigger (.NET ...), only parts of their reference.
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I'd love to read the reference, just not enough time, I know theres loads of stuff in there I would just love to use if I only knew it was there. Problem is I keep falling asleep....
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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you can't learn a language by reading a reference, you need tutorials and real world examples. This survey is based on an idiotic proposal.
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Some people can. We call them mathematicians.
Personally, I love the idea that Raymond spends his nights posting bad regexs to mailing lists under the pseudonym of Jane Smith. He'd be like a super hero, only more nerdy and less useful. [Trevel] | FoldWithUs! | sighist | µLaunch - program launcher for server core and hyper-v server
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I'm no mathematician; I'm a pedant and a Theoretician[^] -- a big, dense book is my primary weapon.
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I have read through specifications for Fortran, C, Ada, back when I did compiler work. Not much call for compilers anymmore, I've moved on...
I've skimmed C# books. Wouldn't even know where to find a real specification. I'm not implementing C#, just finding how to use it...
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Over 40% of people have voted for "I haven't, and won't".
My $.02 on this subject: Beside being utterly boring, language specifications are like code comments - 95% of what your read is useless. Or as Samual Johnson said: "What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure."
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Just because others are worse doesn't mean you are good.
One should have read some language specifications, just to be able to consult it in case of "that's funny!" - especially if your language is as complex as C++. I've seen many incorrect "compiler bug!" posts that are rather a misunderstanding of the C++ standard.
Personally, I love the idea that Raymond spends his nights posting bad regexs to mailing lists under the pseudonym of Jane Smith. He'd be like a super hero, only more nerdy and less useful. [Trevel] | FoldWithUs! | sighist | µLaunch - program launcher for server core and hyper-v server
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peterchen wrote: One should have read some language specifications, just to be able to consult it in case of "that's funny!" - especially if your language is as complex as C++. I've seen many incorrect "compiler bug!" posts that are rather a misunderstanding of the C++ standard.
I agree that when confronted with a subtle error or question one should consult the spec, and I have done so (especially before screaming "compiler bug"). But consulting the spec for targeted information on a particular topic is quite different from reading the entire thing, much less retaining all of it.
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No need to read it cover to cover, jsut trying to figure out how it's written.
Personally, I love the idea that Raymond spends his nights posting bad regexs to mailing lists under the pseudonym of Jane Smith. He'd be like a super hero, only more nerdy and less useful. [Trevel] | FoldWithUs! | sighist | µLaunch - program launcher for server core and hyper-v server
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... no, just the interesting parts.
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I would agree - my choice would be "read parts of it".
I look into the specs when I need, when I meet some... dilemma
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Admit it, by "interesting parts", you mean the pictures!
Personally, I love the idea that Raymond spends his nights posting bad regexs to mailing lists under the pseudonym of Jane Smith. He'd be like a super hero, only more nerdy and less useful. [Trevel] | FoldWithUs! | sighist | µLaunch - program launcher for server core and hyper-v server
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They have pictures now? /me "reads" a ton
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JRiggs wrote: the interesting parts
That would be the whole thing.
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I add a dot to an object and intellisense gives me the spec of what that object can do (yes I know that's a framework spec, not a language spec). Outside of that about the best I have time for is a "whats new in Language X version Y"
Would be nice to have the time to read up on everything a language can do, but these days I've got multiple contracts on the go, and with some of them being only 150 hours in total I survive on what I've learnt from experience. Last big exploration I did was when NET 3.0 CTP came out back in 2006 I think.
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