Programmers don't read?

I stumbled across this article a while back from coding horror (whom I've discussed before) discussing why programmers shouldn't read books anymore. I've personally discussed how books exist in my little mind, signaling that I do, in fact, read books. The problem with print media is that it moves at the pace of handicapped snails when compared to the day-to-day changes that the internet can offer. New algorithms and discussions can be presented, tested, and destroyed in the time it takes for one chapter to be proofread for a print book. In that same vein, however, the internet is cluttered with a great deal of crap, mis-knowledge, and lack of understanding. Things that proofreading, and controlling the 'big picture' all flesh out when creating a print book. All that aside, I think that there's just some great literature out there in book form that benefits from being in a cohesive world view that you can only get from a book. You know, the thing that doesn't contain pop ups and advertisements down the side of it?

I'm Published and more importantly, I enjoy publishing. I think it's because I enjoy reading publications too. I'm the guy sitting at the lunch table that will talk to you about anything technical, for any reason. I just like hearing new ideas and concepts that you can't find anywhere but inside someone else's head. I also enjoy reading good books about good topics.

I've told my students @ SMU many times, that if you're not reading publications, and potentially not considering writing them, then you're not that good of a programmer.

Why?

Simply put, programming is an ever-evolving blob of skill sets. We're always changing, probing, asking, challenging, categorizing, and debunking even our most solid dogma. If you're not out there reading the latest in this concept, then you're behind the curve. Quite frankly you can't learn it all from just programming. In fact, if that's all you do, program, and don't learn from other resources, then quite frankly, your code is going to be very short sighted, and is going to suck.

I still find that the best way for a programmer to learn is to have a mentor. I guess it's something about the mirror neurons in our brains that make information coming from another human so much more potent than information coming from a piece of paper.
I can personally say I've had a few mentors in my career. Each have progressed my programming abilities by leaps & bounds each time. But I find the things I learn from these other programmers are not low level coding gems, but rather, higher level concepts and programming patterns. You know, the type of shit that you HATED when you were in college; Reading a 400 page book about how important it is to use "//" vs "/*" doesn't stick when you've got 8 finals to cram for. I suppose that proves there's a time for everything.

I would say that mentor programming needs a solid place in the games industry. Game programming is STILL not like any other product programming on the planet. IMHO The application programming world was always under lock-and-key, and now the dangerous world of the web has seemed to develop a leash and collar. But games programming is still such a wild-west world. Each studio handles issues in a way that's completely different from other studios, containing separate vibes, skillets, and personnel. And because of that, you need to learn abilities that will carry you between these jobs, and still make you a valuable professional.

A great example of this comes from a time I worked at a smaller game company. The programming lead had pointed out another programmer, and mentioned that he used to be a big-shot at EA; Shipped a bunch of titles. I dutifully took note, and continued on my way. About half way through the project, we noticed that the game wouldn't load any more in final builds. The culprit? The EA pro had replaced all the error checking for model & asset loading to exist INSIDE Assert(..) macros, so that 50% of our loading code was compiled out in release builds.

Regardless of the fact this guy worked @ EA, and shipped games, he blatantly didn't bring over the basic skill sets to keep him from blowing such a rookie mistake.


So, if you're just starting in the industry, find a mentor, read some research papers, and spend some time talking to the guy at lunch about crazy ass programming ideas.

~Main