Questions for all programmers willing to help a beginner

[J]

On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 16:30, user1 <bqz69 at telia.com> wrote:
> And do not forget to write good documentation to your programs, so the
> end users can use it.
>
> Possibly make long guides with details and also very short quick guides
> of the same documentation, so the users do not need to read pages and
> pages scrolling past their eyes, and can get along using the programs
> right away.
>
> A real good programmer should have that ability too I think.
>
> Possibly your brain also should be able to do multitasking as well.
>
> By the way I am not a good programmer *laugh*

Also, as has oft been repeated by me, some design choices are
debatable, but consistency is not.

When you're writing code, you need to make sure you write the same way
every time... especially if you're writing several different parts
that comprise a whole (e.g. you're writing libraries that will be
called by a main program).

being inconsistent will make your code a lot more difficult to read and follow.

And that goes doubly so if you are writing code for a project being
written by others as well (like most Open Source projects).  If 5
different developers are writing the code using 5 different styles, a
6th person reading it will have a hell of a time figuring out whats
what.

Good luck, but don't turn your nose up at good formal education like
you did.  The thought that "The only real education is self-education"
is just plain wrong.  Anyone can get a book and write code, some
people can, through time, effort and a lot of research, write good
code completely self taught.  But you can get a lot more out of a
formal class setting in a shorter amount of time (for most people in
any case).

I, personally, do not turn away any education, be it self-directed or
formal.  I enjoy learning new things regardless of the arena in which
they are presented.

Cheers
Jeff