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How long did it take

Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 1:03 pm
by impulse()
Before you woke up one day and you were writing PHP off the top of your head without using much reference?

Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 1:08 pm
by MrPotatoes
i don't think i can say that about any language

what i can say is that it took me several months (for any language) to be able to seriously find errors with little to no effort. but i always use referances. constantly actually. then again i also use other code and other tools as well

Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 1:12 pm
by impulse()
Do you ever have blocks where you become incapable of writing code?

I've become worried today, I've been learning solidly for 2 months and every day I've believe I've been getting better and better untill today. I went to continue a shopping website I've been writing and I don't know how the hell it works. I want to alter things but I've totally forgotten how everything works :( I'm scared all the knowledge is going to vanish.

Is this a regular occurance for a coder?

Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 1:50 pm
by MrPotatoes
take a break and you'll be fine

Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 1:57 pm
by Luke
impulse() wrote:I went to continue a shopping website I've been writing and I don't know how the hell it works. I want to alter things but I've totally forgotten how everything works :( I'm scared all the knowledge is going to vanish.

Is this a regular occurance for a coder?
Yes, it is... that's why it is so important to write clear and well-documented code. You will learn this over time. Once you have more than one or two projects you're working on, it becomes very difficult to remember the ins and outs of every application you've ever worked on. Comment your code thoroughly and use clear and descriptive names for your functions/classes/variables etc. and you'll be fine.

Organization helps productivity in any field of work...

Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 3:05 pm
by Buddha443556
impulse() wrote:Before you woke up one day and you were writing PHP off the top of your head without using much reference?
Some days I need a reference for everything. :oops: Of course, it's those days when there are no references to be found that we earn our pay.
I want to alter things but I've totally forgotten how everything works :( I'm scared all the knowledge is going to vanish.
Every once in a while, I wake up and the only language I can remember is FORTH. It's a sure sign I need a break. Sounds like you need a break too. :wink:

Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 3:29 pm
by alex.barylski
I personally always use reference...except for ubitquious functions...

I focus on fundementals rather than specifics...reasoning it's much easier to lookup a function than it is to study OOP at a conceptual level.

Yes there are times when a function totally escapes me and I can't find it, but I am sure something like it must exist...in those cases you post on a forum like this and someone is bound to have some experience with it and be able to enlighten you.

The only time it makes sense remembering API's is when you need the understanding of one to make sense of another, like a OS SDK or a framework API. In those cases, you kind of have to learn the system, which requires remembering the API. For the most part though, I find referencing works much better :P Save you from having to remember tons of functions

Cheers :)

Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 3:34 pm
by RobertGonzalez
For me, about a year of solid developing. But I still use references (the Manual, this community, feyd).

Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 5:57 pm
by Chris Corbyn
Having to look at reference material reflects nothing about the skill level of the developer. I always have php.net open in my browser and keep referring to it. Stupid thing is it's always the same functions I'm looking up (in_array(), array_key_exists(), strpos() <insert needle..haystack function here>). This is one thing which bugs me about Zend certification -- it's asks some stupid questions like "What value is returned if you pass a string to count()?"

Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 6:02 pm
by Maugrim_The_Reaper
You'll always need a reference. I use the PHP Manual daily. I could I suppose learn all those functions but why bother? You'll get familiar with the main ones over time, and the rest are easily looked up for those not so frequent times you need them.

Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 12:01 am
by alvinphp
I use reference sites all the time, especially for regular expressions. I do not have a whole lot of documentation, but I structure my site in a way (OOP) where I could go back to the site in a year and it is relatively easy to understand as I make it so logical.

Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 2:58 am
by JayBird
Yep, i use the PHP manual every day

Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 3:02 am
by Oren
Me too.

Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 10:08 am
by RobertGonzalez
Me too.

Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 10:10 am
by feyd
I'm probably at using it a few times a week. Typically, once I read an entire reference I don't have to go back to it much if at all.