Re:Ask HN: Learning to code, without a computer?
by guessmyname on Saturday October 08, 2016 @08:04PM
(#12669290)
> Learning to code without a computer is what we all did, 40 years ago!
Comments like this reminds me of how much of a difference is to live in a 3rd-world country compared to a 1st-world country. I am still on my twenties and I can still relate to what the parent comment says, I learned the basis of my programming skills reading books around ~8 years ago because during that time having a personal computer in my home country was a luxury. Very often I joke with my friends that most of the innovative things that we find in the market are already +3 years old. I still remember the popularity of the BlackBerry when it was already obsolete in the US because of the iPhone.
One thing I did during that time to learn some algorithms was to buy a deck of cards — which I suppose is allowed in jail — which allows you to understand sorting algorithms and some of the basic data structures like queues and stacks. Writing things on paper might also help to visualize and memorize some concepts (I know, memorizing is not the solution, but what else can you do when you cannot run your code in a computer).
I hope it helps, and good luck to @givinguflac 's friend.
Comments like this reminds me of how much of a difference is to live in a 3rd-world country compared to a 1st-world country. I am still on my twenties and I can still relate to what the parent comment says, I learned the basis of my programming skills reading books around ~8 years ago because during that time having a personal computer in my home country was a luxury. Very often I joke with my friends that most of the innovative things that we find in the market are already +3 years old. I still remember the popularity of the BlackBerry when it was already obsolete in the US because of the iPhone.
One thing I did during that time to learn some algorithms was to buy a deck of cards — which I suppose is allowed in jail — which allows you to understand sorting algorithms and some of the basic data structures like queues and stacks. Writing things on paper might also help to visualize and memorize some concepts (I know, memorizing is not the solution, but what else can you do when you cannot run your code in a computer).
I hope it helps, and good luck to @givinguflac 's friend.