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September 3, 2002
Things every programmer should have to go through...
Here's a few things I think every programmer should experience at least once:
1) Debug a really hairy multi-dimensional linked list. I mean really hairy. Pointers and memory will become clear to you. Or you will go mad...
2) Write a jail program for a chroot'ed environment. Bonus points if you set the environment up too.
3) Write a parser for Apache log files that are in anything but the standard format. Regex-fu get's rusty if you don't work it out. Extra super double bonus if you write an email address parser that follows the RFCs (no fair copying from the Perl book!)
4) Get laid off for a long time, like, say, a year. Very humbling...
5) Learn at least 6 programming languages. This is just so you can come to the realization that they are all pretty much the same, but some have better uses for a particular job than others, yet all are good. Except COBOL. That just sucks.
6) Write a hexadecimal calculator in Pascal. Why? Because I had to do it and I have loved C all the more for the experience.
7) Program for 10 hours a day on a crappy 15" monitor (13.5" viewable). You will quickly learn to greatly appreciate large monitors.
8) Program in Objective-C using Cocoa on a nice Mac with lots of RAM. It's just good for the soul.
Posted by ed at September 3, 2002 2:28 PM