General discussions: One-Year Anniversary

Christopher Matthews 2015-07-15 08:32:58

Hello, fellow programmers! I am proud to say that I have just solved my 125th problem here at CodeAbbey, and not a moment to soon! You see, I am very proud of myself, because next month will be my one-year anniversary here at CodeAbbey, and in July of last year is when I first started learning to program. I would like to thank all of my friends here at CodeAbbey who have helped me along this journey, specifically Rodion and Serge, for always being there to answer my endless questions! I'm sure I can be quite annoying at times :) Well, I shall bask in my own ambience for awhile before continuing on my journey for knowledge and mastery!

And, Mr. Rodion... I am ready to receive my certificate! (Which to me is a very important accomplishment; I remember there was debate about this in the forum not too long ago about the value of certificates...)

P.S. I'm sure you have noticed, Rodion, that some time ago I have switched from Python to C# :)

-- Christopher P. Matthews

Rodionische 2015-07-15 09:23:00

Dear Christopher, Hi!

I believe it is even less than a year:

Registered: Aug 6 2014
Last visit: Jul 15 2015 06:11

And moreover I know that you intentionally tried not to be too rush - I've seen you often resubmitted old solutions improving them etc. So I suspect you could make it much faster but you've choosen more "fundamental" approach.

> for always being there to answer my endless questions!

I dare to note that now you yourself answer other people's questions! :)

Shortly speaking I'm extremely pleased to see your "professional growth" - because you started from very different field and I know that many people soon lost their motivation. And motivation is the cornerstone in successful career, at least in IT. Though probably as a musician you get used to steady training and hard labour of self-learning :)

At least for me first year of learning programming was far less fruitful back in 1998 - well, I've learned Pascal and Assembly then, but comparatively poor - it took few more years to learn how to code more "properly"... well, sorry, it is just nostalgie :)

> I am ready to receive my certificate!

Be sure, I will add it to your profile in a few hours (I only need to reach the computer where templates are stored).

And yes, I am quite curious about this recent change to C# - have you already some job position in mind - or something like this?

Christopher Matthews 2015-07-15 10:08:01

Well, there are a few reasons for my switch to C#:

First, I wanted a language with static typing, compiled, and true object oriented, which I found in C#. I felt that Python makes things a little too easy at times, and does things for me which I need to learn to do myself. Also, I found that C# is one of the most popular languages as far as jobs go, and I was also happy to learn that it is the language of choice for many developers in Europe, and I plan to live in Europe very soon. Also, since I am a musician, the name C# makes sense! (Although, be sure that this is not my primary motivating factor for choosing the language!)

I feel that using a static typed language gives me more control over things, and I feel that it is good to learn how to manage such things as a programmer. Also, with LINQ and lambda expressions, C# (and .NET in general) can employ functional programming! All in all, I am very satisfied with my choice to move to C#, and I have actually fallen in love with the language. (Sorry, Python! Don't be jealous! I had to move on! You and I weren't meant to be together! We've had some good times together though!)

P.S. Another plus for switcing to C# is that you get a really awesome IDE, for free!

-- Christopher P. Matthews

Rodion (admin) 2015-07-15 16:25:50

Dear Sir, your certificate is ready and attached to your profile. Here is the direct link:

Click this image to get to the page with certificate - then click the image there to see it in full resolution.

Rodionische 2015-07-15 17:04:35

Ha-ha! You probably know I'm javist and you probably know about C# vs Java "skirmishes" :)

>Also, I found that C# is one of the most popular languages as far as jobs go

Especially in US, I dare say - for support/lobbying of Microsoft products is very strong here!

>Also, since I am a musician, the name C# makes sense!

Honestly speaking I almost hate it for 7 sharps at the key - it is very hard to read for prophane like me :)

>I feel that using a static typed language gives me more control over things

You may laugh, but I write code in Java for my work - it is yes, strictly typed, very robust - and extremely verbose - but for my side-projects I prefer scripting languages for a change - PHP or Python. Dynamic typing allows to write far shorter code and do a lot of magic tricks (for which C# or Java need reflection while C++ could not do them at all). You see it is "maintainability - flexibility" choice... So it is good you will have different languages in your toolbox :)

>Another plus for switcing to C# is that you get a really awesome IDE, for free!

Heh, I wonder what you say if you can use IntelliJ Idea - though to be honest it takes enough time to find out all its features... :)

Well, to conclude I dare to put here that:

C# currently has richer syntax and features compared to Java - i.e. the language itself is sensitively "more developed" - though that is not about standard API which is roughly comparable.
Java has sensitively larger volume of libraries and frameworks - and if you ever will have a look into large distributed solutions - you will see they use Java very often - also google and amazon cloud services use Java almost everywhere. Then go Scala and Python, by the way. Probably there are big-data frameworks in C# but I'm not quite aware of them.

Rodionische 2015-07-15 17:04:55

However the good news are that Java and C# are resembling each other in many features and constantly steal them between each others - so if you will decide to change your mind one day, it would not be extremely hard :)