Can one 'forget' to program?

[nikki]

Hey guys!

I'm in year 10 in school, and we have 'board exams', our first public exam. This is considered a really important exam in this system, and they say it can 'make or break your life'. So, there's a lot of pressure from the school, parents, friends (even neighbours!). I can feel the pressure building up now. Just after an exam we had a week ago we have another on the 26th of November, and I'll have to study for that, and some other tests in between. After that, there are many exams in preparation for the 'board exams'.

This'll mean that I can't do much programming-related stuff, and if I use the computer at all, I'll just be reading about Linux, checking out Slashdot, reading about Haskell and Forth, stuff like that.

I know it sounds sucky (may be not for you older lot ), but its that way, and we can't do anything about it.

These 'dark ages' end at the end of March next year.

I don't want to start work on a big project (read: Ogre-based project), because if I do, I'll do one of the following:

1. Spend less time on the project because of studies, and feel guilty for not working on it (I feel really guilty whenever I even lose even a minute while working on a project).
2. Spend too much time on the project and mess up at school.

So, I'll probably just read and learn new stuff, not going too deep into it.

The main question: Will this spoil anything? Will I forget how to program? I really don't want to stop writing programs or generally hacking around. I'd give anything for a computer with an internet connection.

Thanks for your answer.

ps. You can consider 'programming' a synecdoche for 'all that's computer related'.

[penwriter]

Hi Nikki,

As someone who has been a programmer for over 30 years, I think it is safe for me to say that if programming is your passion, you will never really forget it. It is more likely that those subjects that you study simply to pass an exam will be lost with time. Sure, things will change, advances will be made and you will have some things to catch up with, but by and large the skills that you truly love and learn don't go away. You will be building and adapting upon them both as your life-long vocation and advocation.

[darke]

Whilst not quite being in the same league as penwriter (only 20 years of programming, 10 of them in paid work), I started programming in school in grade 4, and went through the whole "can't program, must study" things a number of times, and it didn't seem to affect me much.

Though from a more "in the workforce" perspective, I've watched a number of coworkers over the years move from "code monkey" to "pure manager" positions, and it seems to take a good two to three years to lose most of the practical day to day skills, though they seem to pick it up quickly again if they have to dive back in. (Though of course, they start complaining about losing their tough, and reminicing about the "good old days" within 6 months of their work being non-computer-focused. )

Programming's mostly a mental thought process, you may need to start hitting the reference help pages/books a little heavier then usual when you get back into it after a long break, but you only tend to lose the small details, rather then the way things work. For example, I do java work for my day job, and study at university part time, so end up doing some more interesting C++ projects in my spare time once every few months after uni semesters end, so I tend to have to use the C++ API references a bit more heavily then the java API which I use every day.

(I also abuse run-on-sentences and commas too. But that's more of a hobby. )

[sivael]

Programming is not a skill. It's a way of... thinking (You thought I'd say "life" didn't You... )
And because of that You can forget everything - all the grammar of the programming languages, and still be able to relearn them in a few weeks. Been there:P

Actually I never worried about any exam I'd take - I'd just take it and see where it got me.

"Fear is the mind-killer" - as well as stress... don't let it get You:P

[SunSailor]

Programming is a concept, you don't forget about that. Maybe you'll need a day or two to get your fingers back to work, but you won't forget how to place one command after another, breaking it up with some nifty loops or class declarations, I can assure you that. It's a bit like riding a bycicle. You don't forget that either, but you may need one ride down the road to sit secure in your saddle again. Btw., best wishes for you examen!

[gamedboy]

For a programmer, it is hard to forget even if you try. When you are trying to sleep, your brain would keep remind you of bugs not solved, and you can feel the for loop ticking...

[jacmoe]

Don't worry.

Yes, you will get rusty - but rust never sleeps.
If you care, just do some small, focused C++ excercises regularly.
I think there's several good C++ puzzles sites @ the 'net.

[nikki]

@all: Thanks for the reassurance. Now I'm satisfied and can sleep a good sleep.

Actually, I find that some times, not programming for a while causes a huge programming-efficiency spike after the non-programming period. You get some great ideas during the period, and after that you go implement all of them, and end up doing a lot more than usual.

This happened to me when I was working on GraLL and had to stop for a month because of... Yeah you guessed it... Exams. After the exams, boom! I made around 4 levels for the game in a week.

[KungFooMasta]

nikki, have you ever thought of advancing your framework so you can re-use it for other projects? You already have 1 game under your belt, so your framework should be in good shape, unless its fairly hardcoded to GraLL mechanics.

[nullsquared]

Can you just 'forget' English? Think about that, and then you also have your answer for C++. Back when I was 11, I stopped programming for about a year total, and when I went back to it at around 12 and a half, I still remembered it all (well, at least 'all' I knew back then). You might just feel a little rusty with the syntax, same way you might feel a little rusty with the grammar of an unspoken language.

[jacmoe]

Exactly.
Spend some quality time with it - and it all comes back to you.

[beaugard]

I actually think taking pauses has improved my programming. It somehow has a cleansing effect - I tend to remember the "good" programming patterns while forgetting the "bad" ones.

Changing language is even better, especially to radically different ones. Everyone should take a vacation from c++ once in a while.

[nikki]

nikki, have you ever thought of advancing your framework so you can re-use it for other projects? You already have 1 game under your belt, so your framework should be in good shape, unless its fairly hardcoded to GraLL mechanics.

Thought? I must say, I've already made many small 'prototypes' just to make sure its flexible, and I believe it is.

You can watch a (long, boring and bad quality) video of the Blender exporter here (the game is GraLLish for some reason, but trust me, it doesn't have to be): NGF-Blender Video

I've been cleaning up the framework for the past two weeks, and its pretty good now. It used to be a single .h file, now I've split it up (can't do that for the template functions, but I put them in a different part in the headers). I also started work on a simple demo using the framework, and am thinking of writing a tutorial on making that demo.

@nullsquared, jacmoe: Thanks, feeling better now. Looks like the main problem left is the exam itself.

@beaugard: If what you say is true, I'm gonna try learning Haskell. It looks cool.

[Walley]

Can you forget to ride a bicycle?

Essentially the memories of what you've learned will always be there in your mind (granted you don't have some kind of brain disorder to screw things up ) - it's just that they'll become more fuzzy over time, and you'll have to remind yourself of them. Doing so is fairly simple though, and you'll have little dilemma getting back into it.

Besides - in my view the true gift a programmer wants to have is the ability to learn for themselves - I wouldn't worry too much about forgetting specific content. Ironically, in the context of school exams, this is the one thing they largely forget to teach kids .

[twilight17]

in the context of school exams, this is the one thing they largely forget to teach kids - how to learn for themselves .

hallelujah.

[reptor]

I wouldn't worry too much about forgetting specific content. Ironically, in the context of school exams, this is the one thing they largely forget to teach kids .

Best exams I had at school (higher education) were ones in which I actually learned something. I had many such exams, for example my physics teacher was excellent in creating exams which forced us to actually learn during the exams - and I loved every one of those exams! I could walk out of there knowing that my knowledge (intelligence, possibly) actually increased during the exam.

There were those teachers also who didn't understand how to create such excellent exams and who required us to memorize all sorts of silly little things and not explain why we do it, what is the benefit, but we just had to deal with them somehow.