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Ask HN: How can I tell if I have programming aptitude?

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Re: Ask HN: How can I tell if I have programming aptitude?

#81

Post by michaelbuddy »

canicode wrote: post #70
boona wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I see a lot of people that can do things much better, and faster than me. It's intimidating. I think there is a mindset issue at play here. Instead of thinking "Wow, that person is such an elite hacker, I wish I had been born with that talent." think of it as "Wow, it was amazing how they came up with that solution. I want to learn how they did it so I can do the same.". Stated different, ask people their process.…

It feels like cheating though. Once you ask someone for help, the problem is dead. You haven't solved it yourself, and now even if you do solve it, it won't count. Someone told you how to do it. Your interviewer isn't going to help you with technical questions.

the problem isnt' dead because the solution and what you do with it in the future. Teaching a (wo/man) to fish. There's always going to be future problems and ways that synthesizing what you know from others IS the way we get better. Also you're being selfish. Not asking means you're not able to give another an opportunity to enjoy helping you and taking that with them as an accomplishment for the day. Get out of your head on this one. You're able to help people who can't do something right? Why deny the joy or accomplishment to somebody else?

Re: Ask HN: How can I tell if I have programming aptitude?

#83

Post by mod »

canicode wrote: post #66
weland wrote: post #37

Here's a little story that I tell to anyone who asks me this question. It's how I got it answered for me a long time ago. > How can I tell if I have programming aptitude? I have a friend who's a painter. She's a visual artist with a fair deal of success; she can actually live out of her art (and by that I mean she actually sells her paintings for a living, she doesn't just design logos to buy her a little time for he…

I see a lot of people that can do things much better, and faster than me. It's intimidating. There are also some problems that I can't even solve in pseudo code. I literally just can't come up with an algorithm that would work. I get a few ideas, and then quickly realize that they're all terrible. Yet I'm sure that there are people that can look at the same problem and come up with 5 different solutions in 30 seconds…

This response basically proves (to me) that you have an aptitude for coding.

As your knowledge increases, you'll gradually run into fewer problems that you can't solve in pseudo-code, but you're not SUPPOSED to be able to solve any problem in code when you start.

The mere fact that you even have a few ideas to try is testament to your aptitude.

Keep on trucking, you'll get there.

Re: Ask HN: How can I tell if I have programming aptitude?

#84

Post by mod »

canicode wrote: post #78
richardthered wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're looking at this the wrong way. It doesn't work this way for any profession. Do you think that doctors are created by taking a sick person, sticking them in front of an untrained 'doctor-want-to-be', and seeing if they somehow miraculously manage to correctly diagnose and treat an ailment they've never heard of? No. They train. They study symptoms, and causes, and treatments. They learn about how symptom X is c…

That makes sense. I do want to make sure I'm not just memorizing strategies though. I want to be able to figure things out independently, with my own logical thought. I'll continue learning. Getting problems right and watching those tests light up green on Codingbat is a very nice feeling. I do get genuinely upset and frustrated when I can't figure out a problem, though. I'm not sure whether that means I hate coding…

I don't think that's related to liking or hating coding.

I get the same feeling, but I get it about plenty of other things.

I love coding, but I don't love it on a daily basis while I'm working, and I certainly don't love getting stuck on a problem I can't solve. I do love the moment I get it working, though.

Re: Ask HN: How can I tell if I have programming aptitude?

#85

Post by abc_lisper »

dmichulke wrote: post #16
venomsnake wrote: post #5

If you can grasp pointers, recursion, asynchronous programming/callbacks in less than a week (as a concepts, not apply-able skills) you have it.

Pro tip: In order to understand recursion, you have to either just know it or know someone who understands it.

Recursion is Mathematical Induction, written as a program.

Re: Ask HN: How can I tell if I have programming aptitude?

#86

Post by giaour »

Jach wrote: post #79

The quickest way: get your IQ tested. If you're north of 115 and have the desire for programming, you'll be fine, though your 130+ peers will probably do better. If south, but you still have desire, you can still produce value, maybe even become a very rich person or internet-famous, but you're unlikely to be a top tier programming god. If you don't have the desire in either case, what are you going to do instead? Co…

I don't believe an IQ would be a worthwhile investment for anyone trying to decide if a career path is for them. I'm sure many of the "top tier programming gods" you're thinking of are of slightly above average intelligence and just have exceptional communication skills.

Re: Ask HN: How can I tell if I have programming aptitude?

#87

Post by forbidden404 »

weland wrote: post #37

Here's a little story that I tell to anyone who asks me this question. It's how I got it answered for me a long time ago. > How can I tell if I have programming aptitude? I have a friend who's a painter. She's a visual artist with a fair deal of success; she can actually live out of her art (and by that I mean she actually sells her paintings for a living, she doesn't just design logos to buy her a little time for he…

That is definitely it. I've been playing guitar for years and when some friends tell me how I was born to play because I'm talented, I tell them it's not like this. It actually makes me feel bad. It diminishes all the time that I spent practicing to get better, trying to learn new things, listening and improving my playing.

It's the same thing for almost everything you decide to do, if you take the needed amount of time to practice something every single day, eventually you will get really good at it.

Re: Ask HN: How can I tell if I have programming aptitude?

#89

Post by cableshaft »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #49
hauget wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Even if you were somehow very good at programming but you hated it, would you choose it as a job? I'd drop it immediately, don't waste your precious time on it." Not everyone has that choice, as making a living and doing what you love are sometimes mutually exclusive. Casey Neistat washed dishes before he got into making viral videos. Einstein worked as a patent clerk. Dreamtheater's Mike Mangini worked in IT to pay…

For some it's even worse; for me, "doing what I love" is not "programming", but "programming as long as it isn't my job". Weird and not 100% capturing the complexity (I increasingly believe I may have an attention deficit disorder on top of diagnosed depression I'm dealing with), but in my case it's: I program for money, often hating it, because I'm relatively competent at it, and then I program for fun because I lov…

The one thing people don't tell you about "do the thing you love" for a job is that the people who make decisions and decide which projects to work on usually won't be you, unless what you love to do is be a manager or business owner, which I really don't (I can be project leader, but I don't want to stop programming entirely).

So yeah, I've worked for several companies where I've absolutely loathed the project, but that's what I was assigned to do, so I have to program for it, even though it bores me to tears.

Even when I was making games for a living, I sometimes ended up working on games that I knew were awful, but I wasn't in a position where I could switch to something else easily (I live in the Midwest, where gamedev jobs are scarce anyway, which is one reason why I got out of that industry anyway).

What do I want to work on? Whatever game or app concept I came up with that excites me at the moment.

Who's going to pay me good money to do that? No one.

So instead I'm currently working in an enterprise environment to help pay down my school loans while working on my own stuff with what little energy I have after work hours.

Re: Ask HN: How can I tell if I have programming aptitude?

#90

Post by segmondy »

Do you like puzzles?

Do you like putting things together and taking them apart?

Are you disciplined enough to organize lots of tiny little things into something big over a long period of time without getting bored and giving up?

Can you see the forest and the leaves all at the same time?

If you answered yes to all of this, then you have what it takes. I say this to anyone else that answered yes, I don't care if you know 0 programming, but if you can do the above, you have what it takes to become a very good programmer. Programming is about putting little things together, organizing them, and at the same time seeing the big picture (forest) while seeing the small pictures (leaf on a tree). It's not magic or difficult.

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