I self-learned to code at 30 • Hacker News Board

Re: I self-learned to code at 30

#111

Post by mbeex » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 4:26 PM UTC

asmr wrote: post #97

Not a big fan of these survivorship bias blog posts. I've been fiddling with code since I was about 11 years old (ActionScript for Club Penguin cheat tools as well as some Visual Basic). I got pretty serious in High School and learned Java as well Python. I am now pretty comfortable in the web stack as well as C, but still do not have the confidence to become a developer. I don't get how people can spend roughly 3 mo…

I'm a trained mathematician, but old enough to elude anything serious regarding computers during my studies more than 25 years ago. I did some Turbo Pascal + Assembler for my own interests completely self-taught during that period, though. I had to change direction at 31. After five years with small gigs mixed 50/50 with employment (main result: Getting an in-depth grasp of C++), I became a full-time freelancer at the turn of the millenium. I never looked back and always learned along the way. Because people continue reaching out to me, I tend to think doing some things right.

Re: I self-learned to code at 30

#112

Post by revskill » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 4:30 PM UTC

snejad123 wrote: post #109

revskill wrote: post #25

My experience with learning how to code, is just find some good guide, follow it TO BUILD A REAL USABLE PRODUCT. Learning by making a real usable product is the most important part here, other kinds of learning didn't work for me. P/S: This is different from learning by project. Project mostly is for fun, not a real usable product.

Out of curiosity, why do you believe that the learning process is more pronounced with making a real usable product rather than a fun project ?

Because when you make a real usable product, you're not doing just for fun. You're making product for others to use and to be happy. It's the mindset that make them different.

Re: I self-learned to code at 30

#113

Post by jonathanaird » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 4:42 PM UTC

beaconstudios wrote: post #20

jonathanaird wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hardest part I think is knowing that you should ignore all of the noise around different practices paradigms, and frameworks and focus on fundamentals. The best way is to look through and try to understand some very well written open source projects. I feel like I stumbled on doing this but for many, I think they probably just bumble along building web apps and taking much longer than necessary to understand fund…

I'm inclined to agree - there's a lot of cargo-cult practices in software development and it's hard to know that it's often over-generalised until you deeply understand the core of programming, which is essentially just breaking down big problems into small forward steps.

Yes, it took me two or three years to have any sort of valid opinion on TDD or SPA vs plain html and where each would be appropriate and in what quantity. Watching talks helped me a lot. Programmers really like giving talks.

Re: I self-learned to code at 30

#114

Post by Dudeman112 » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 4:48 PM UTC

wombatmobile wrote: post #89

sixQuarks wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why we have to sugarcoat it. Not only can anyone not be able to code, I'd go as far as saying that MOST people will never be able to code a production application no matter how much teaching/resources you throw their way. My mother, at her peak, would have never learned how to code even if you held a gun to her head.

If your mother ever told you how to do something which required you to make decisions along the way, she’s a coder.

According to that reasoning, babies are coders too.

Re: I self-learned to code at 30

#115

Post by jmchuster » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 4:48 PM UTC

asmr wrote: post #97

Not a big fan of these survivorship bias blog posts. I've been fiddling with code since I was about 11 years old (ActionScript for Club Penguin cheat tools as well as some Visual Basic). I got pretty serious in High School and learned Java as well Python. I am now pretty comfortable in the web stack as well as C, but still do not have the confidence to become a developer. I don't get how people can spend roughly 3 mo…

That would be the whole premise of bootcamps - train someone for 4 months and get them a junior software engineer job.

Now, we can argue about how whether these junior engineers are better or worse than CS grads. And a lot of these programs require you to have spent enough time on your own to be able to like write a fibonacci function. But the large number of people getting hired out of these programs does seem to indicate that switching careers into CS with less than a year of training is not unreasonable and maybe even normalized at this point.

Re: I self-learned to code at 30

#116

Post by jmchuster » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 4:51 PM UTC

bluedino wrote: post #8

systemvoltage wrote: post #5

Learning from YT videos, the kind you get by searching “learn programming” is IMO not a good idea. These videos are engineered for ad revenue and engagement metrics. Maybe be watch one or two to get a gist of how things come together but please buy a good book on the topic. Even better, take a college course in Coursera or EDx.

He called JSON, Git, and CSV 'languages' so... I have the feeling he didn't learn programming but was able to copy/paste a small project together.

That reminds me of a candidate out of college who said their favorite language was XML because of the pretty colors in the IDE.

Re: I self-learned to code at 30

#117

Post by known » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 4:52 PM UTC

I started coding at 17; And I continue to learn/code in new programming languages; It's fun :)

Re: I self-learned to code at 30

#118

Post by mbeex » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 4:55 PM UTC

rocgf wrote: post #7

I have a slightly cynical view about this sort of thing, and assume that most might have some counter-arguments for why my cynicism is misguided. I get that the point of the post is to encourage others, but proclaiming to have "learned how to code" feels misleading because there is no real finish line for it. This is an open-ended skill, there is no such thing as being done with it, same with most other skills. Maybe…

As someone else remarked here, if you are good enough to become employed, this would in my opinion statuate one kind of level (among many possible) describing something reasonable final (I agree of course, after this you will learn a lot more).

The other point is, life is not finished with doing coding. While I'm still a not too bad programmer, in particular my C++ abilities are not on par with my former ones. Simply, because I nowadays write most things in Python, wear other hats than pure programming etc., but I certainly can say I learned to code.

Re: I self-learned to code at 30

#119

Post by sixQuarks » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 4:55 PM UTC

yitchelle wrote: post #99

sixQuarks wrote: post #60

Self taught coder at 44. My memory isn’t the greatest, probably one of the hardest things I’ve done, required so much persistence to get through all the frustrations, only reason I made it was due to huge motivation. There’s no way in hell everyone can learn how to code. Even if most people had the intellectual capability to code (which they don’t), most don’t have the patience and persistence required to follow thro…

>> There’s no way in hell everyone can learn how to code. I have to really disagree with this statement. I agree that not everyone can write the next Google search engine, or even the next personal website. But you don't have to do to learn how to code. My coding skills are pretty crappy after stepping away from it some years back, but I would still consider myself to be able to code something up. Even a small VBA sc…

What you’re referring to isn’t what I consider coding. That’s more like scripting. Maybe most people could learn things like html, but creating a production application is a whole different ballgame

Re: I self-learned to code at 30

#120

Post by klibertp » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 5:22 PM UTC

crispyambulance wrote: post #98

sixQuarks wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why we have to sugarcoat it. Not only can anyone not be able to code, I'd go as far as saying that MOST people will never be able to code a production application no matter how much teaching/resources you throw their way. My mother, at her peak, would have never learned how to code even if you held a gun to her head.

> ...never be able to code a production application... It's true, the vast majority of people will never code a "production application". BUT, many folks code everyday in the form of excel macros, R, Mathematica, Matlab or Julia notebooks. Many people create programs and scripts in all kinds of tools to get stuff done. IT'S ALL STILL PROGRAMMING, it's just not what folks here would consider a traditional "production…

> There's nothing special about software development.

There's also "nothing special" about writing. Somehow, though, we don't see millions of Hemingways pop up each year.

Writing code is a form of art. There is a science behind it, but the same is true for many other art forms. It's true that everybody can be an artist. Not everybody can be a good artist, though. It's equally true for writers, painters, and coders.