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Tavish’s excessively long programmer biography

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Re: Tavish’s excessively long programmer biography

#11

Post by jcadam »

computerlab wrote: post #10

I wrote up something similar a few months ago called "Everything I Have Ever Programmed": https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/everything-i-have-ever-progra... I recommend taking a bit of time to do a similar write-up, it comes easily and you'll probably be surprised by the sheer amount of stuff you've worked on, and might see some interesting patterns.

I'd like to write something like this, but I'd be unemployable if any potential employers actually read it.

Old enough to have learned to program on an Apple II while they were still in production == too old to work here.

Re: Tavish’s excessively long programmer biography

#12

Post by schlowmo »

jsnell wrote: post #3
personjerry wrote: post #2

Could this be used like a resume?

I wouldn't recommend it. It's too long and too unstructured for that purpose. Also it's inverted such that the most important parts are at the very end. If the CV is so long that it probably won't be read completely by everyone involved in a hiring process, you at least want the most relevant parts in the beginning. It also doesn't quite work as a story, since it's mostly just a list of events. Even biographies need…

While I second this recommendation I would also think that it doesn't make much sense that most HR people would prefer a "classic" resume over such a piece.

It tells you a lot more about a person WHY and HOW he/she started several different things then the fact THAT those things were done.

Try to imagine how this text would read in a resume like style: strip out all the anecdotal things about how and why and just leave the "facts". To a HR person this would read like "Oh my gosh, this person isn't knowing what to start next." But with all the anecdotal parts it reads more like "Oh a person which knows how to train different skill by theirself."

Re: Tavish’s excessively long programmer biography

#13

Post by k__ »

musha68k wrote: post #7

TL;DR - Programming - don't get discouraged, it's hard but possible for anyone really - fun too sometimes! ;) Really great write-up to share with aspiring programmers of all kinds - debunks a lot of stories many of us tell themselves and others ;) I hope for more honest personal stories like these (not only for "programming"?) - always great to read about those. The internet (IRC and forums like HN especially) has al…

hehe, my first years of programming were filled with failure.

With 8 years I got a C64 and tried programming on it, but didn't get much going beside some arithmetic and prints.

My next gig was mIRC with 15 years. Copied some scripts to get funny colors going and later build some funny chat bots for games or social experiements.

Then I did a website with PHP, when I was 16 and had some C in high school were I build 2 console games (asteroids etc.)

With 21 I did my first paid website.

As one can see, it took me many many years before I was able to make money with my skills.

Re: Tavish’s excessively long programmer biography

#14

Post by ivanhoe »

Webmonkey was such a fantastic project, they really influenced my life with those tutorials. As I've learned more about html/css/javascript it motivated me to move forever from Delphi/C++ into the web development world. If any of them ever happens to read this comment, a huge THANK YOU!

Re: Tavish’s excessively long programmer biography

#16

Post by chatmasta »

This is cool. I'm around the same age as you and share a lot of that background. I've wanted to put something like this together for a while, possibly in the format of a timeline on a personal blog.

It's also fun to look back at old forum accounts and blogspot posts and think "shit, I was 12 years old when I wrote that!"

I remember being going to barnes and noble, picking up a fat "advanced PHP programming" book, and slapping it on the counter (which was taller than I was). The guy behind it looked at me like uhhhh is this for you?

Re: Tavish’s excessively long programmer biography

#17

Post by coldtea »

bundze wrote: post #5

What's the point actually? I mean, I admire the diligence required to write it all down but how should this change my outlook on programming? The general idea is 'in order to be a good programmer, keep doing computer stuff'. Do we need extensive biographies full of details to learn this?

The point is to enjoy (or not) the adventure of another fellow human being in his way of becoming a better programmer.

To identify with some stages that you yourself went through, or to consider some difficulties that he had that never occurred to you as particularly difficult.

One can even get ideas about how to make teaching programming easier, or how to ease the setup/deployment of some open source project based on the author's experiences.

Heck, one can find a hundred messages and ideas to take out from this post.

Re: Tavish’s excessively long programmer biography

#18

Post by mongo0se »

bundze wrote: post #5

What's the point actually? I mean, I admire the diligence required to write it all down but how should this change my outlook on programming? The general idea is 'in order to be a good programmer, keep doing computer stuff'. Do we need extensive biographies full of details to learn this?

I agree. I thought it was boring, as well as pointless.
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