Learning PHP/Car Engines

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15320057

by billphipps • 9 years ago

5 4 9 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Does anyone know if my learning PHP code would better my chances of being or learning how to be an effective Car Mechanic? I'm stuck on this.

ultrablue• 9 years ago

I suppose that in terms of modules interacting, dependencies, information flow, etc. there are analogs in car mechanics.

Troubleshooting is always the same, regardless of the technology: Look at the symptoms. Observe the system to see what it's actually doing. Analyze any residue left behind as the system operates/fails. Start with the most obvious potential sources of error. Eliminate things as you go. What's left at the end is the root cause.

However, keep in mind that computers are vastly more complex than engines. Add networking and it gets even more complicated. One way to think of it is that a computer running a LAMP stack (as an example) has hundreds of 'engines' all interacting with each other. The result is that what's wrong with one 'engine' affects the others in ways that aren't always obvious.

billphipps• 9 years ago

Would you suggest learning networking a better more relevant alternative? or any other "methodologies", "technologies", or "computer systems"?

krapp• 9 years ago

Why one or the other? Learning to be a mechanic is probably more difficult, time consuming and requires a greater investment, but you could still do that and teach yourself PHP on the side.

PaulHoule• 9 years ago

Maybe learn something about embedded dev.

That is, there is a CAN bus plug on modern cars, shouldn't you learn how to access it? This is easy to do in Python

https://pypi.python.org/pypi/python-can

but I don't see drivers to do it from PHP.

Learning PHP/Car Engines

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