Ask HN: How to become a better programmer?

Learn another language. Not just because PHP isn't a particularly good one (IMHO), but because learning new languages inevitably teaches you new ways of thinking about programming.<p>Ruby is good for OOP.

Hey Paton,<p>The quickest way to become a better programmer is to take a real world problem and then to solve that with a technology that is as far removed from the ones that you are already familiar with as you can imagine.<p>Since you're already in to the imperative mode why not try a functional or a logic language for a change to see what the other side of the street looks like ?<p>The interesting bit in that approach is that when you return to your current languages you'll look at them in a completely new way.

It's important to differentiate between the technical ability to build web applications and the craft of programming. It seems you are interested in the former, in which case I would recommend learning a popular framework (Ruby on Rails or Django). While you are learning a framework you'll pick up the base language just fine.<p>If you'd like to learn the more general craft of programming, Peter Norvig has some excellent advice: <a href="http://norvig.com/21-days.html" rel="nofollow">http://norvig.com/21-days.html</a>. You'll find some language recommendations in the appendix.

A lot of good programmers aren't fans of OOP.<p>Of course, before you can decide whether you're a fan or not, you should understand it. So I'm all for that:)

Since nobody suggested it, go to college/university and learn about data structures, lists and processor architecture. It will help you become a much more insightful programmer.

"improve my PHP abilities to OOP"<p>Reading that made me laugh. PHP's OOP is extremely flawed (among various other things, like their inability to universalize the $needle and $haystack argument order: <a href="http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=37088" rel="nofollow">http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=37088</a>), so using PHP to "improve your technical abilities" wouldn't really get you anywhere except having a better understanding of PHP.<p>I think that what you're trying to accomplish really needs to be defined in terms that aren't so broad. Especially these days, "technical skills" is such a vague term that it can really be applied to anything.<p>You don't need to have a complete understanding of some silly framework or whatever in order to still be considered an excellent developer in many ways. For example, you could write a stunningly elegant and clever mathematical algorithm in C without using a function more complex than sqrt(). (Or maybe you could write a more efficient sqrt!)<p>I think that learning something like that might improve your understanding of machines and could, indirectly, improve your understanding of "web apps and services"—that is, understanding HTTP, statelessness, and so forth.<p>tl;dr Figure out exactly what it is you want.

<a href="http://norvig.com/21-days.html" rel="nofollow">http://norvig.com/21-days.html</a>

You need a sound understanding of CSS, HTML and javascript. Although you may have been messing about with them a lot, try and get an in depth understanding of CSS selectors, what semantic HTML mark up is, and how to write quality code in javascript -- unobtrusive javascript is something to look up.<p>Javascript is really worth learning in depth. It has some quirks that will gently introduce to some useful topics such as JSON, closures, elements of functional programming, prototype based inheritance, and so on. Further, it will help you understand how to get more out of other dynamic languages too; python, ruby, etc. Douglas Crockford has some great videos on Javascript that are worth looking up.<p>You're not restricted to client-side programming with Javascript either. For instance, look up nodejs - a nascent server-side javascript framework that looks quite promising. It will <i>really</i> make you think if you've just been a PHP guy up to now!<p>Try and get a handle on PHP's more advanced aspects - many of which have only really arrived in recent versions. Classes, name spaces, closures and so on. Although I'd really suggest another dynamic language altogether; python is a good choice, but ruby is splendid too.<p>Once you're confident with that stuff you may want to go in a slightly different direction. Try Java, C, Clojure or Erlang. Try reading some more general computer science books.<p>I hope that helps. Good luck and all the best.

Before making any suggestions I would ask what is the definition of a better programmer? Since this can be a bit subjective I will suggest that you strive to become an 'expert programmer'. It is difficult to even define what an 'expert' is, but normally one would recognize an expert as someone that effortlessly accomplishes a task. Some characteristics of experts from psychological studies are:<p>1. Experts such as chess grandmasters rely on a vast store of knowledge of game positions. They tend to organize this information in chunks, which can easily be retrieved from long-term memory. The same is true for other experts from sports to mathematics.<p>2. They also typically engage in years of effortful study, continually tackling challenges that <i>lie just beyond their competence</i><p>In my opinion you need to accumulate both, ie, expand your store of knowledge, as well as continually striving to handle situations where the task in hand is beyond your ability.<p>At this point in your experience my personal recommendation is to actually focus on number 2, for example refactor some PHP code into OOP, to give you another angle of programming as well as tackle JavaScript for the same reason.<p>The 10-year rule states that it takes approximately a decade of heavy labor to master any field. As one that has gone through a couple of 10 years:) the best advise I can give is 'learn to program' rather than learn 'to-days-popular-framework-or-language'. Think about it as similar to writing a book, knowing English will not turn you into an author. Practice will as well as motivation.

PHP is mostly an imperative language with a C-like syntax. In imperative languages with a C-like syntax most OOP is just syntatic sugar on a pointer called "this" with a bit of RTTI checks for casting. If your code is unmaintainable with out OOP, OOP isn't going to help.<p>A far more effective skill to have is to figure out how to build a complicated application simply rather than switching to language that makes it easier to increase line count and have semi-working code.<p>I know PHP isn't cool anymore but at the same time, Facebook was built with it. One person can't build Facebook (in it's current incantation) so it's pretty useless to try and find the magic framework that will let you. Figure out how to prototype quickly: once your userbase exceeds the capabilities of whatever tech you have picked you'll usually have enough users to find capital/revenue or have it knocking your door down. At that point it's easy to find the skills to port to whatever the language / paradigm de jour is.<p>Figure out how to make the SMTPs of the world not the X.400s once your not building X.400 you can implement SMTP in just about any language.

I was in your position not long ago. I'd recommend using Ruby on Rails, which will teach you a lot about OOP and the MVC framework. There are some similar frameworks for PHP (like CakePHP), but Rails' established community and abundant documentation make it a better starting place.<p>Javascript (<a href="http://www.w3schools.com/js" rel="nofollow">http://www.w3schools.com/js</a>) is an extremely important part of the web today, and jQuery (<a href="http://www.jquery.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.jquery.com</a>) makes it more manageable than ever before. It's not difficult to learn -- you can make a lot of headway in a single day.<p>If at all possible, work alongside other people. You'll learn a lot from their habits and their code. And work on actual projects. Learning for the sake of learning is much more difficult than learning while you're building something.

I wouldn't concentrate so much on certain programming languages, instead I would concentrate on designing programms. I don't know your background. I guess you are learning on your own, so I would recommend <a href="http://www.htdp.org" rel="nofollow">http://www.htdp.org</a> or <a href="http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Electrical-Engineering-and-Computer-Science/6-00Fall-2008/CourseHome/index.htm" rel="nofollow">http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Electrical-Engineering-and-Compute...</a>. Some people will recommend Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. This book maybe the best on programming, but I don't think it suits a selfteaching individual.

I can do everything I need to with PHP and MySQL, however I'm currently working on JSP, and planning to learn Ruby and Python.<p>If you want to learn object oriented thinking I would recommend Java or C++. Fortunately I was already proficient at C++ before I started web programming so I already had a fairly firm grasp of object oriented thinking.<p>As for learning programming languages, to my way of thinking the more languages you know the better, both from a job standpoint and from a flexibility standpoint.

Build stuff. Break it. Fix it. Build more stuff.

I'd say focus on the basics - learn more about algorithms, operating system internals, data structures, concurrency, human-computer interaction, general OO/Functional/Procedural programming principles, etc. Languages are dime a dozen - once you're strong in fundamentals, picking up a new technology/language/framework becomes a lot more easier.

Buy a subscription to Safari Online and spend 15 minutes each day reading about programming.<p>It doesn't really matter what you read. Just pick a book that currently sounds interesting and read it. Since you are interested in OO PHP, there is a book called something like "Developing Object-Oriented Applications in PHP 5"

Sounds similar to where I was a few years ago. Here are my tips:<p><a href="http://breckyunits.com/twelve_tips_to_master_programming_faster" rel="nofollow">http://breckyunits.com/twelve_tips_to_master_programming_fas...</a><p>Feel free to email me if you want to talk further. Good luck!

Lots of people like Ruby+Rails or Python+Django, so these are obvious choices. Also, if you choose a system that lots of people use, it's easier to get support from the net when things go wrong (as they are bound to from time to time).

Learn a new programming paradigm. For example, if you are a OOP literate, learn FP.

91 Ways to Become the Coolest Developer in the World <a href="http://www.techquark.com/2008/11/91-ways-to-become-coolest-developer-in.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.techquark.com/2008/11/91-ways-to-become-coolest-d...</a>

to build complex web applications you need to learn javascript, I would also take move along to ruby / python / erlang as well as/instead of php.<p>then I would start bashing out applications as quick as you can, stuff with a smaller scope and a clear end so you can keep them public for quite a while and learn how to reduce/remove maintenance cost.

I can't describe how OOP changed my life. You have to learn it.