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You're never too old to learn to code

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Re: You're never too old to learn to code

#41

Post by throwaway2016a »

Lio wrote: post #27
devhero wrote: post #4

Learning to code can be a daunting task at any age but entering a Coding Bootcamp where the average age range of the students is 18-25 can make an aspiring web developer who is older feel out of place. I attended a Coding Bootcamp at the age of 31, and while I am still technically considered a millennial (And I am super young at heart), even I have felt like there is a bias in tech/startup culture that leans towards…

> Don't wear a suit I guess this varies from country to country but personally I think that's bad advice. In my experience it's better to be over dressed than underdressed. I'm in my 40s and have never worked anywhere that had a formal dress code, it's always been wear what you want unless you're talking to a customer. I pretty much expect most dev jobs to be jeans and t-shirts. I'm a contractor now so do quite a few…

Conversely I was hired at a search company (no not that one... or that one) when I got out of college and wore a suite to an interview. Come to find out later the suite almost sunk me because they felt I might not fit with the culture. Fortunately my code stood on it's own.

Today I routinely wear a nice button up shirt and designer jeans (the "cheap" $80 kind not the $500 ones) to work. Which is overdressed still but I feel it is a nice medium.'

Occasionally I'll take in a Broadway play (when it travels to Boston) and I always wear a suite. Sure, half the people there will probably be in T-Shirts but I like dressing nice. 15 years ago they probably wouldn't have even let you in without a suite.

Edit: As one might gather from my lats comment. I'm North East USA (New England). NE is very different culturally from any part of the country. We are closest to California but here suites are more common.

Re: You're never too old to learn to code

#42

Post by saltycraig »

buserror wrote: post #13

While I agree that in principle you can learn to code at any age, I think this article misses the entire point of every "learn to code" article. Whether it's kids, women, oldies etc etc. Coding is a calling. You can learn anything if you have the calling for it. If you learn because you 'should' (ie, it's encouraged by others and or/money) you will end up being average at it, at best. Coding is not for everyone, it's…

"Writers write." -- Stephen King

Re: You're never too old to learn to code

#43

Post by [deleted] »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #39
dalbasal wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, the origins of this bias are fairly arbitrary. First, there is a real reason. Young people are more likely to be engaged with newer knowledge, technology, tools and such. That's balanced against older people being more experienced. It's particularly relevant in the software space, but the youthful exuberance VS experienced sobriety trade-off exists in all fields. Think of medicine, architecture, art... The bigg…

>> The point about people learning more new things in their youth is valid regardless of field. That, too, requires a citation. It's not an unreasonable assumption to make, but then so is the assumption that, as time goes by, the chance to encounter new knowledge increases so that older people will tend to have more knowledge than younger ones. Let's not just embrace either assumption without good reason, is what I'm…

[deleted]

Re: You're never too old to learn to code

#44

Post by justin66 »

buserror wrote: post #13

While I agree that in principle you can learn to code at any age, I think this article misses the entire point of every "learn to code" article. Whether it's kids, women, oldies etc etc. Coding is a calling. You can learn anything if you have the calling for it. If you learn because you 'should' (ie, it's encouraged by others and or/money) you will end up being average at it, at best. Coding is not for everyone, it's…

> If you learn because you 'should' (ie, it's encouraged by others and or/money) you will end up being average at it, at best.

I would venture to guess that where you land on some largely imaginary "calling" scale affects your performance as a coder less than where you fall on the very real intelligence bell curve.

I roll my eyes sometimes when I hear about guys transitioning to software from the hard sciences because of the hype or money or whatever, but there is no denying that some of them have been extremely good at the job, quite a bit better than "average at best."

Re: You're never too old to learn to code

#45

Post by ElixirIsCool »

buserror wrote: post #13

While I agree that in principle you can learn to code at any age, I think this article misses the entire point of every "learn to code" article. Whether it's kids, women, oldies etc etc. Coding is a calling. You can learn anything if you have the calling for it. If you learn because you 'should' (ie, it's encouraged by others and or/money) you will end up being average at it, at best. Coding is not for everyone, it's…

>The NEXT trap is to realize that your time is limited. You can't learn everything and you have to be very, VERY selective on the set of tech you want to invest your time in. Don't bangwagon on stuff -- ask yourself whether it's likely to be a selleable skill -- if not, don't waste time on it.

As someone with limited health and daily brain power I struggle with this. I have played with a number of programming languages and have made a bit of money with programming but I'd like to have deeper knowledge of a language and it's ecosystem. I have been struggling to decide which technology I should focus the most to be both more employable and work on my projects. Many of the projects I want to do involve websockets.

Should I focus on something like react/node/socketcluster or react/phoenix? Focusing on only Javascript might seem like the right answer on the surface but the documentation for node is quite poor and fragmented for things that are not the standard express + mongo stack. Node looks harder to learn when compared to phoenix and elixir looks like the best tool for the job. On the other hand there are a lot more jobs for node and almost none for elixir.

I'm currently thinking to focus on javascript for frontend and elixir for the back so I'm both able to find JS related jobs and work on my websocket projects while having an easier time with documentation and working with an exciting and pleasant language.

Re: You're never too old to learn to code

#47

Post by superplussed »

buserror wrote: post #13

While I agree that in principle you can learn to code at any age, I think this article misses the entire point of every "learn to code" article. Whether it's kids, women, oldies etc etc. Coding is a calling. You can learn anything if you have the calling for it. If you learn because you 'should' (ie, it's encouraged by others and or/money) you will end up being average at it, at best. Coding is not for everyone, it's…

I've known people who have tried to get into coding, where it was clear that coding wasn't a "calling". And they struggled horribly and suffered alot of anguish trying to figure out why it was so hard for them.

And my answer was always: learning to code is fucking hard. For everyone. Staring at code for hours not sure why it's not working is something we've all faced, but those who find coding a "calling", who find the process of coding so magical and alluring that it's almost an addiction, they see the roadblocks as part of the fun. Because at the end of every obstacle that is overcome is a little endorphine hit, and is another leveling up of our problem solving ability, of our general skillset.

Without that sense of calling it would be easy to give up, to chalk it up to "not being for me". But in the end, the draw wasn't great enough to compensate for the pain.

Re: You're never too old to learn to code

#48

Post by enraged_camel »

ElixirIsCool wrote: post #45
buserror wrote: post #13

While I agree that in principle you can learn to code at any age, I think this article misses the entire point of every "learn to code" article. Whether it's kids, women, oldies etc etc. Coding is a calling. You can learn anything if you have the calling for it. If you learn because you 'should' (ie, it's encouraged by others and or/money) you will end up being average at it, at best. Coding is not for everyone, it's…

>The NEXT trap is to realize that your time is limited. You can't learn everything and you have to be very, VERY selective on the set of tech you want to invest your time in. Don't bangwagon on stuff -- ask yourself whether it's likely to be a selleable skill -- if not, don't waste time on it. As someone with limited health and daily brain power I struggle with this. I have played with a number of programming languag…

Learning languages for which there are lots of jobs might sound attractive, but let me offer a different perspective: it is difficult to shine and become renowned in well-established ecosystems because so many people have so much headstart. Sure you might be able to get a job, but you will also be much easier to replace.

In contrast, new and exciting ecosystems (like Elixir) give you the opportunity to become a big fish in a small pond. There is the risk that the language/framework will never become popular (and maybe even fizzle out) but at least you will enjoy your time with it.

Re: You're never too old to learn to code

#49

Post by justinhj »

buserror wrote: post #13

While I agree that in principle you can learn to code at any age, I think this article misses the entire point of every "learn to code" article. Whether it's kids, women, oldies etc etc. Coding is a calling. You can learn anything if you have the calling for it. If you learn because you 'should' (ie, it's encouraged by others and or/money) you will end up being average at it, at best. Coding is not for everyone, it's…

I’m selective about what I learn by only one measure... is it fun for me? Usually it turns out to be not only fun, but also intellectually stimulating and brings new ideas in front of me. However over time I’d say nothing I learned on the side was of no value to my day job and to my overall development as a programmer.

Re: You're never too old to learn to code

#50

Post by 121watts »

buserror wrote: post #13

While I agree that in principle you can learn to code at any age, I think this article misses the entire point of every "learn to code" article. Whether it's kids, women, oldies etc etc. Coding is a calling. You can learn anything if you have the calling for it. If you learn because you 'should' (ie, it's encouraged by others and or/money) you will end up being average at it, at best. Coding is not for everyone, it's…

What's wrong with being average?
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