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

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: 4, Insightful) by Lagg on Monday April 07 2014, @03:31PM

    by Lagg (105) on Monday April 07 2014, @03:31PM (#27569) Homepage Journal

    I sometimes wonder if I'm in the situation you are. But then remember that I already know programming in general and so am able to get back into rhythm regardless of language once I jog my memory and remember the relevant syntax. This is a big issue in academia and I'm happy to see that people still self-teach. You see, these days people are being taught how to write Java or whatever other crap they use these days instead of being taught how to program. i.e. being told what pointers are, what references are, the fundamentals of OOP and so forth. There is a trend where they forego all that and instead tell people "This is the lines you should write to render a window" and nothing beyond that. It's a terrible thing really and is probably why you're concerned about forgetting the language.

    In any case, having the standard open is a good thing. And referring back to TCPL and such is also good. It keeps you in good practice. As long as you remember the fundamentals of programming and what happens when those raw opcodes are read and ran you will be fine. Considering you already write C and will be writing assembly I don't think you'll have much issue with that. Just remember that syntax is irrelevant. After 15+ years of writing code in a plethora of languages I can easily say that sometimes you will forget things about syntax. It's just too much to retain and be able to readily reproduce.

    --
    http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
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