How long does it take to learn DM? in BYOND Discussion

ID:722339
 
May 3 2012, 2:50 pm
I have been learning DM for about 6 months. I think I learned a lot and improved a lot. But I still have a lot to learn. I still have a long way before I become a pro, it feels. So how long does it really take to learn DM if learn at about an hour per day every day?
#1 May 3 2012, 3:30 pm
Really depends if you have previous programming expierence. Also programming is based on logic so if you can get the logic of some code then your set. I dont think that to LEARN DM it takes more than a month. But to actually master the language it could take years. Depending how long you spend on the pc learning and how much games/apps you code a day.
#2 May 3 2012, 8:53 pm
This is not a game, you don't have an "experience bar" that is slowly filling each time you look at some code.
You will get better as you go. The time it takes for you to advance is all based on your patience, work ethic, and your willingness to learn.
I've been programming for 3 years, and I still need some help/advice on some things, and there are still some things I don't understand just yet.

Of course, at the 16-24 age range, life can be quite busy while juggling school and work and just plain life itself. This leaves you squeezing to get in time to program, and doing that sacrifices most of what social life you have. This brings me back to the willingness to learn; you have to really want to learn or you won't get anywhere.
#3 May 4 2012, 3:41 am
Well, they say you become expert at crafts and mechanical skills after 10,000 hours practice. Programming isn't strictly a craft or mechanical skill, neither is DM.

But if you don't mind some flagrantly incorrect numbers, lets assume it is a strict craft or mechanical skill. Your answer given 1 hour per week is ....

27 years, 4 months and a bit.

Ho ho ho ho. I hope most people would be an expert after spending quite that long on it.

Totally up my Java experience on guesstimates ...

~20 hours a week actual programming in my job, for 3 years, with 228 working days in a year = 2736 hours. Add 4 years of university with ~10 hours a week of actual programming for java ~= 1200 hours.

So after 7 years of fairly so-so work, I accrue more or less 4000 hours practice. In about 7 more years, I'll apparently hit the mathematical "expert" level, in this mostly contrived scenario.

The reality of the matter is, the answer is "A long time, at the current amount of effort you're putting in, but that may be okay". The question is, to what purpose are you learning DM?
#4 May 4 2012, 6:34 pm
huh? i said one hour per day.
#5 May 4 2012, 7:11 pm
Yes, so 10,000 days to be "an expert". Like I said, it's spurious though.
#6 May 5 2012, 6:41 am
Stephen's point wasn't really to give you the 27 years figure, but to point out that there's no magical time after which you become 'an expert,' because life isn't the same as a time-graph.

The answer to your question is another question; 'Why do you want to be an expert at DM?'
#7 May 5 2012, 11:03 am
Took me about 3 months to really get a good grip on the language. I started with a strong knowledge of programming however.
#8 May 6 2012, 8:31 am
There's a difference between knowing DM and knowing how to do things using DM. It's easy to learn the language. If someone asked you to write code that saves a map, you might not know how. But if someone told you:

1. Create a savefile.
2. Make a for loop which goes from 1 to world.maxx
3. Make a for loop inside the first one which goes from 1 to world.maxy
4. Use locate() to find the turf at that x/y.
5. Write that turf to the savefile.

If you know the DM language you can implement that code. It doesn't take long to become familiar enough with DM that you can do this. Unfortunately, you don't have people who give you nice instructions like that on how to implement features, you have to come up with that yourself. Being able to figure out how to use the DM language to solve problems is much harder and takes more time to learn.
#9 May 15 2012, 8:49 pm
In response to Forum_account (#8)
Forum_account wrote:
Being able to figure out how to use the DM language to solve problems is much harder and takes more time to learn.

And you'll find similar problem solving skills are needed for any programming language. So, learning other languages may help. :)
#10 May 15 2012, 9:08 pm
In response to Complex Robot (#9)
Complex Robot wrote:
And you'll find similar problem solving skills are needed for any programming language. So, learning other languages may help. :)

The same thing helps you learn new languages after having a solid grasp on DM as well, you find things so in common across many languages -- even languages that are entirely different from each other in syntax that you easily pick up how it works in that specific languages.