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Remembering Multiple Programming Languages?

posted by janrinok on Monday April 07 2014, @02:51PM   Printer-friendly
from the I-forget-more-than-I-remember dept.

Subsentient writes:

I've historically always tried to stick to one or two big languages, because as soon as I start deviating even for a week, I go back to my primaries and find that I, humiliatingly, have forgotten things that anyone else would be completely incapable of forgetting. Now, I'm going to be learning assembly, since that kind of thing falls in line with my interests, and I'm concerned about forgetting big chunks of C while I learn. I already often have the standard open in a tab constantly despite using C since 2012, so my question is, how do you guys who are fluent in multiple languages manage to remember them? Have you been using both for almost forever? Are you all just mediocre in multiple languages rather than pro in one or two?

 
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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by pe1rxq on Monday April 07 2014, @03:18PM

    by pe1rxq (844) on Monday April 07 2014, @03:18PM (#27555) Homepage

    Using a language for 2 years is not a very long time. Having the standard open is a good thing.
    Please keep using it. I have been programming in C for a good decade longer and still occasionally use the standard. My assumptions usually turn out to be right, but checking once in a while never hurts.

    I would not trust code from someone who claims to never use any language standards or documentation.

    As for the assembly: If you also look at the assembly generated by your C compiler (start with small functions) you will improve not only your assembly skills but also get a good insight into the relation between C code and the generated assembly.
    C is a great language for such a comparisson as it is low level enough that you can easily recognize what the compiler is doing.

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Subsentient on Monday April 07 2014, @08:51PM

    by Subsentient (1111) on Monday April 07 2014, @08:51PM (#27775) Homepage Journal

    I have a rule, "If I forget something or wonder about something, I must always immediately drop everything and look it up in the standard until I understand it".

    --
    "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti