How much do you know off-hand?

[Necrix]

I only know C++, but this can apply to all languages.

As I'm learning more and more, I'm getting slightly intimidated at how much there is and how much I don't know. Instead of letting this get me down, I figured I'd just learn as I can and reference as I go as I need to.

Well, I still have to wonder..

How much do you know off-hand? How often do you have to reference stuff?

Thanks alot for all replies.

[bad_brain]

well, actually I don't have to code that much, at least not from scratch....so I don't have to look things up often when I edit some stuff others did.

I am mainly into server administration, if you want to label that as coding:
I have to look up stuff regularly, because with every new command there is a new syntax....

[IceDane]

Knowing functions and their parameters offhand is useless. That information, which can be looked up easily, should not be taking up space in your brain that you could fill with useful information that needs to be understood rather than just remembered.

No one really know the windows API off hand, or the entire standard C library. No point.

[floodhound2]

For my line of work I have to just know how to learn on my own. There is so much out there it can be overwhelming. Its difficult but part of the job. I can tell you that its all similar on some level.

A good foundation in basic electronics will help greatly. If you know how the parts work at the most basic level then programming languages becomes easier to learn.

[leetnigga]

Note: Never trust a programmer who says he knows C++.

Off hand I know a lot of ways to design a program. I know quite a bit about how the computer works on the lowest levels. I know the workings of networks and operating systems.

I don't know the name of the function that calculates the length of a string for every language, but the point is that I know most of them have the feature. Knowing that things exist and a little about common implementations is more important than knowing the exact names in my opinion.

Personally I think I adapt quite well to other languages and their naming conventions, etc. but I don't think that is most important.

[Necrix]

Note: Never trust a programmer who says he knows C++.
...

Is that a note to me or a note-to-self?

[leetnigga]

Is that a note to me or a note-to-self?

It was a response to you saying you know C++, and a general message. C++ is a beast and it's almost safe to say that nobody fully understands C++.

Okay, honestly it was my knee-jerk response to someone saying he knows C++.

[IceDane]

The post that leetnigga linked was most likely meant to be a joke by the original poster, to an extent anyway.

Yes, C++ has a lot of stuff that's hard to understand, but none of it is impossible to understand. All of those the things that he mentions on the curve are easily understandable if you find some good info on them(Effective C++, More Effective C++, Effective STL). I don't know what he means by static object initialization segfaulting though.

And yeah, template error messages are so convoluted that the only course of action is just to find the line the error happened on and hoping you can spot it.

[Necrix]

Ah, k. No arguments there. Thanks for the explanations

I went ahead and joined the forums at cplusplus.com. I'll try and take stuff I learn there and bring it here.

[Lundis]

an example

Code: Select all

src\settings.cpp: In member function 'std::string Settings::getNameByMac(std::string) const':
src\settings.cpp:145: error: passing 'const std::map<std::basic_string<char, std::char_traits<char>, std::allocator<char> >, std::basic_string<char, std::char_traits<char>, std::allocator<char> >, std::less<std::basic_string<char, std::char_traits<char>, std::allocator<char> > >, std::allocator<std::pair<const std::basic_string<char, std::char_traits<char>, std::allocator<char> >, std::basic_string<char, std::char_traits<char>, std::allocator<char> > > > >' as 'this' argument of '_Tp& std::map<_Key, _Tp, _Compare, _Alloc>::operator[](const _Key&) [with _Key = std::basic_string<char, std::char_traits<char>, std::allocator<char> >, _Tp = std::basic_string<char, std::char_traits<char>, std::allocator<char> >, _Compare = std::less<std::basic_string<char, std::char_traits<char>, std::allocator<char> > >, _Alloc = std::allocator<std::pair<const std::basic_string<char, std::char_traits<char>, std::allocator<char> >, std::basic_string<char, std::char_traits<char>, std::allocator<char> > > >]' discards qualifiers