Entrepreneur Geek

Peter Norvig says:

Walk into any bookstore, and you’ll see how to Teach Yourself Java in 7 Days alongside endless variations offering to teach Visual Basic, Windows, the Internet, and so on in a few days or hours.

The conclusion is that either people are in a big rush to learn about computers, or that computers are somehow fabulously easier to learn than anything else. There are no books on how to learn Beethoven, or Quantum Physics, or even Dog Grooming in a few days.

Peter then compares programming with art and music. He argues that it takes ten years for somebody to be an expert programmer. (and not 24 hours or 3 days or whatever)

I believe he is close. My experience has been that it takes around 6 active programming years for somebody to develop the problem solving skills required for programming. Whatever is the programming language.

I agree with his comments on how to be a good programmer though. They are solid.

Thanks to Kartik for the link!

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