Re: Amazon Web Services
Re: Amazon Web Services
- Subject: Re: Amazon Web Services
- From: Ruth Bygrave <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 20:52:06 +0100
On 20 Jun 2007, at 18:30, Gary (Lists) wrote:
One of my big problems with this list is that I assume it's full
of busy
professionals and it's somehow a bit unfair to bother them with
Script Kiddie
questions...
Just FYI, 'script kiddie' is a derogatory hacker term. It does not
mean
'newbie' or 'noob', as I think you might be implying.
I meant, 'daft user whose code looks like a 9-year-old's just messing
about with LOLCODE or l33tspeak in comparison to good design',
crossed with 'learned in a quick-and-dirty way on scripts as opposed
to properly'. If this is incorrect, I'll stop saying it... But hope
you get the idea of what I was trying to get across.
See: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Script_kiddie>
"Jon Pugh" wrote:
As for professionals versus hobbyists, we were all hobbyists at
one point.
Some of us have just gotten old since then.
But I always feel that Real Programmers who learned properly with a
proper education or at least ploughed through more books on their own
before asking questions (and for whom it's the day job) don't deserve
to get dumb questions from somebody who's essentially using them to
*get* an education and whose code could scarcely be more mangled and
is falling over stupid twit scope and variable type errors every five
minutes!
This list is probably full of two types of people
1) People for whom actual coding is the day job.
2) Ordinary professional people who never really mess with code much
from day to day but who have really app-specific questions
It is probably not full of people like me who haven't got a day job,
have written about 50 or 100 lines of code and have the vague idea
it's rubbish, and could do with a leg up on all the basics with the
hope of selling a tiny specific shareware program for about £5 for
the kudos, if they get anywhere over the next six months or so and
get inspired (and who are getting the problem that they can't get an
easy view of those lines of code because their flow-of-control is
shot to hell because when they started the program 3 months ago they
didn't know how to write code).
I know what I really could do with is a proper education, but my past
is littered with failed attempts to learn programming. The only
difference with Applescript is that I wrote my own little programs
and they ran, unlike my attempts to learn VB/VBA/C++/Delphi and XSLT
(the pattern being, Windows programming doesn't seem to fit me
comfortably). The difference with my attempts to learn those other
languages is that I followed along in the book for three chapters,
hit a mental roadblock, and gave up. The books I got on Applescript
were the only ones that were well-thumbed, because Applescript was
the first language where I got as far as actual tiny projects I
wanted to do for myself as opposed to thinking 'oh god I need to
write a Celsius to Fahrenheit converter now and I'm allergic to doing
sums'.
Sorry to vent, but I have the bad luck of living in a country where
there isn't a visible hobbyist community for Applescript where I
could go along to monthly meetings and learn by finding somebody at
the same level as me, I've gone along to 3 or 4 Mac user group
meetings especially to say, is there anyone who's downloaded a few
scripts and feels like playing with it who could get in touch with
me, and their eyes glazed over.
My first year's playing with Applescript was essentially unsupported
apart from dipping into books and asking odd questions of this list.
This was enormously motivating from the point of view it was all my
own work. Unfortunately, I have a nasty feeling that now what I
should do is Buy Another Book (prob Matt Neuberg's) and start again
with nobody at the same level as me but the teeth-gritted feeling I
now have to follow the book and do it properly.
Eh? Speak up, Sonny. You say you're a professional lobbyist?
My hearing aid ain't what it used to be, and now that I'm on the
Niagra, my
blood pressure is up and I hear a timpani drum in my left ear all day.
(giggle)
R _______________________________________________
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