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Coding as a Career Isn't Right for Me

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Re: Coding as a Career Isn't Right for Me

#111

Post by Ao7bei3s »

sly_foxx wrote: post #57
hanniabu wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering and decided to quit my job to learn programming at home. Took me a year to get to the point where I'm comfortable and know my way around. However, just because I taught myself doesn't mean that it was free. I had a year of lost wages which is about 65K, so all in all it costed about the same amount for me.

He had 4 years of lost wages + $65k in debt. When you're in college, you don't work. So, again, he's in much worse situation than someone who learns programming at home in 1 year.

Except he didn't have an engineering degree, so its not clear he'd have had any job at all, much less a well-paying one.

Re: Coding as a Career Isn't Right for Me

#112

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

hanniabu wrote: post #83
sly_foxx wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He had 4 years of lost wages + $65k in debt. When you're in college, you don't work. So, again, he's in much worse situation than someone who learns programming at home in 1 year.

I went to college for 4 years as well, so again, you can say we were in the same boat: 4 years of lost wages + $65k in debt for him, 4 years of lost wages + $65k in lost wages for me

The difference is that you lost that money, but you don't owe it to anyone. Nobody can come over and take your stuff because you owe them that money.

And then there's the matter of a debt being an amount agreed upon by all stakeholders, whereas your "lost wages" are just a number you calculate in an arbitrary manner, which may or may not reflect reality. Maybe you did lose $65k by not working. Maybe if you hadn't gone to college you'd have been hit by a car and you'd have lost far more than that. Maybe you'd be unemployed. Who's to say?

Money is not money unless it's in your pocket (or bank account) or in an IOU.

Re: Coding as a Career Isn't Right for Me

#114

Post by Mithaldu »

tomreece wrote: post #87
Mithaldu wrote: post #22

> I want to get away from coding for you and code for me. > I don't like coding for you. I don't think any of us do. I'm sorry you haven't found anything to like and be excited by, but i assure you it is out there. I personally have never worked in a company with much process, so i haven't experienced that kind of hell. But do keep in mind, there's also another kind of hell: Where everybody is a cowboy coder and walk…

Thanks for the advice. My first job was full stack Java backend (SpringMVC) and jQuery hell front end. Second was full stack, Python backend, AngularJS front end. My new job is writing Protractor tests for multiple AngularJS applications. I enjoy writing Python. Javascript isn't that thrilling to me. Not super excited by the countless FooJS libraries and Promises and async everything. In Protractor if I want to get t…

Python isn't bad, though it can also be constricting. Java is of course the kind of language likely to land you in Enterprise Country. Maybe you can pick up Clojure though? And yeah, as a web dev myself, everytime i have to touch JS i walk away with a headache.

Also, if you want something challenging, but not quite C, maybe give Rust a chance. I hear lots of companies with fun stuff are using it.

Re: Coding as a Career Isn't Right for Me

#115

Post by solipsism »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #110
solipsism wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep on insisting you're owed what you were promised, and keep on saying "Eff. That. Noise." See how far it gets you. My rules may suck, but they have the advantage of being reality. But you probably have your own reality? Great, just don't be surprised if you're the only one living in it.

What kind of defeatist attitude is that? "Reality sucks and you can't change it"? Where would our lord Steve Jobs be if he thought like that? Seriously though. If you don't like the hand you're dealt, you try to change it. How is that unrealistic, or unlike what most people do? And how is it unreasonable to fervently wish to have it better in life than what you do? Why is it entitled? There's nothing more common-sens…

I don't understand how you get "Reality sucks and you can't change it" from anything I said. The part of reality that we're talking about, that I said sucks, is the rule that says that you are not entitled to anything. No matter how hard you work, no matter what tests you took, no matter what they told you would happen if you paid tens of thousands of dollars for school, you are entitled to nothing! Like everyone else who isn't lucky enough to have it all handed to him, you'll have to continue to claw and scratch and struggle to survive and to create wealth and to get the things you want.

When did I say you shouldn't try to change the hand you're dealt? Absolutely you should! If you don't like the status quo, turn it over! How do you confuse "No one owes you anything" with "you should not try to change anything"?

Re: Coding as a Career Isn't Right for Me

#116

Post by solipsism »

tomreece wrote: post #94
solipsism wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep on insisting you're owed what you were promised, and keep on saying "Eff. That. Noise." See how far it gets you. My rules may suck, but they have the advantage of being reality. But you probably have your own reality? Great, just don't be surprised if you're the only one living in it.

I don't understand why this discussion is about entitlement. I thought this was the american dream? You work hard, you make something of yourself. Things go your way. Things are going well enough my way, but I'm not happy. I don't want it. Hell, give me a lobotomy and erase my education from me. In return, absolve me of my student loans. Let me start over and try again. I can't even do that because I'm in so much deb…

I also don't understand why it ever was about entitlement. Your blog post wasn't about entitlement. I don't understand why grillvogel made the original joke about entitlement. And I was about to say that, when I read that you replied that indeed the entitlement is strong in you.

That's why this is about entitlement now. Because you said it is.

Re: Coding as a Career Isn't Right for Me

#117

Post by cgh »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #108
cgh wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you seem to work with web applications. So no wonder. In my opinion, in terms of fun, interest and challenge web programming ranks slightly above Cobol, for exactly the reasons you state. You mentioned you wrote a game. Game programming might be something you like and not every place is a sweatshop, although you have to be discerning. Embedded/low-level programming is cool too. I used to write router firmware,…

>> Well, you seem to work with web applications. So no wonder. In my opinion, in terms of fun, interest and challenge web programming ranks slightly above Cobol, for exactly the reasons you state. Hey. Lay off the COBOL, especially if you haven't actually done it (I don't know if you have). I've done web dev for the last four years, since graduating. I now learn mainframe development, with COBOL and JCL (and also REX…

You are right, I shouldn't badmouth Cobol. I've never worked with it professionally but I did have to learn it in school. And let's face it, it's a good career move to learn it as there's going to be a "Cobol crunch" soon and the opportunity for relatively low-stress, high-paying jobs is good in that area.

Re: Coding as a Career Isn't Right for Me

#118

Post by al2o3cr »

moron4hire wrote: post #19
grillvogel wrote: post #13

the entitlement is strong with this one

I rather much agree with him. What the hell was the point of getting a supposedly in-demand degree, graduating top of my class, maintaining my skills at the top of the industry, if I was just going to get stuck in a corporate hell-hole? Programmers of the world, unite.

"if I was just going to get stuck in a corporate hell-hole"

Who exactly "stuck" you in that hole? If you're "at the top of the industry" then FIND SOMEPLACE ELSE if things are terrible.

Your boss is not a cruise director; just getting your paper and showing up is not a guarantee of happiness, any more than getting good grades in HS and then showing up at college was a automatic guarantee of academic success.

Re: Coding as a Career Isn't Right for Me

#119

Post by dang »

sly_foxx wrote: post #26

$65k in student loans to learn programming? The author is clearly an idiot. Programming can be learned from home for next to nothing, because you have all the tools you need there. It's not like you're a surgeon and you're working with expensive/complex equipment.

> The author is clearly an idiot.

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Re: Coding as a Career Isn't Right for Me

#120

Post by jacalata »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #107
pyrrhotech wrote: post #46

Work is called work because it isn't supposed to be fun. If your's is remotely tolerable, only requires your time from 9 to 5 and pays you enough to cover all your necessities and even some luxuries you are better off than 95% of the world. Life's a bitch, then you die. At least you make enough money to not have to do it past your 40s if you don't want to.

Eh, no. Work is called work because it's supposed to produce something. If all it does is drive you nuts, waste your life and fill the world with garbage, then what's the point of it? You might as well give it all up and go tour the world with nothing but the clothes you wear. And what's that I hear, about getting a pension in your 40s'? Wasn't that what the Greeks did wrong, that they wanted to get a pension in thei…

Nobody mentioned pensions, the comment was saying you should save up your own money.
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