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How I Became a Programmer in ~12 Weeks

mattdeboard.net

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Re: How I Became a Programmer in ~12 Weeks

#31

Post by tryitnow »

kreek wrote: post #20

I envy that the author learnt programming and web development now as opposed to even a few years ago. Without devolving into "in my day I walked ten miles in the snow just to compile"; it's just so much more pleasant now. Stack Overflow, Heroku (and similar), GitHub, PDF Books. Obviously it takes time and effort to get better everyday but the learning curve is a bit flatter now.

I second this. Although my story is different. I would put my toe in the water and try to learn to program, but it all just seemed so absurd to me, so I pursued other areas of study.

Then earlier this year I started doing Hartl's Ruby on Rails tutorial and things just started clicking. Now I am teaching myself Ruby on Rails and I am looking for explore other more difficult languages (just for fun, I don't want a career as a developer).

For whatever reason, Ruby just got me more interested in programming. Now I am dipping my toes into SICP, which I would have never have guessed I would be interested in.

I think once you get your hands dirty with something relatively easy like Ruby on Rails, you start seeing the need for all the other computer science concepts and languages and that piques your curiosity.

However, I can say that teaching myself a little coding has really helped out in my day job, I notice I think differently about problems. My thought process is much more structured.

Re: How I Became a Programmer in ~12 Weeks

#34

Post by gwern »

salem wrote: post #10

I'm sure the work ethic gained from 10 years in the USMC helped

Let's not confuse correlation with causation; I once looked around for studies showing experimental interventions which actually increased work ethic (specifically, I was looking for studies on the Big Five construct 'Conscientiousness') and didn't find any.

So, I'm sure the work ethic that let him join and last 10 years in the USMC helped.

Re: How I Became a Programmer in ~12 Weeks

#35

Post by marquis »

kreek wrote: post #20

I envy that the author learnt programming and web development now as opposed to even a few years ago. Without devolving into "in my day I walked ten miles in the snow just to compile"; it's just so much more pleasant now. Stack Overflow, Heroku (and similar), GitHub, PDF Books. Obviously it takes time and effort to get better everyday but the learning curve is a bit flatter now.

There's also a lot more to learn and possibly more confusing. In 'my day' it was just CGI with MySQL, Apache and perl, then comes Java, then along came PHP then Python, Ruby, now there is JQuery and Redis and Hadoop and.. and on HN now you see a hundred new frameworks each saying 'we're great, use us!'. While I welcome that there are easier ways to actually learn all these things and the amazing communities, I'm not sure it's really easier to actually just get started. Oh, and you've got Reddit and Facebook and HN sucking up your time and a fast internet connection to procrastinate on Netflix and Youtube.. I could go on.

Re: How I Became a Programmer in ~12 Weeks

#37

Post by sheeps »

Nice post, very inspiring.

I have been dabbling with Ruby and other languages for a year, but have never had this sort of discipline. For a couple years I have wanted a programming job but have always had serious doubts about whether I can really "hack it" as a professional. I don't know any programmers personally (well, one friend on the other side of the country in SF, heh), and I look at job openings and their requirements / desired experience all seem so intimidating. :-/

Re: How I Became a Programmer in ~12 Weeks

#38

Post by wattjustin »

hotelinspector wrote: post #13

Snarky comments making me think people just got annoyed by the title and didn't read the post. A lot of good advice for people who would like to program rather than be programmed but aren't in a place to take a cs degree.

Agreed! I am only about 5 weeks in to learning Python with no previous experience and doing it very much part time as I work full time but there are some great tips in this article. Don't let the title throw you off here.

Re: How I Became a Programmer in ~12 Weeks

#39

Post by oz »

My mantra for the past 2 weeks has been that there's never been a better time to learn to code, simply because the resources are so abundant and available.

I'm self-learning web development right now. Between HTML Dog, W3 Schools and Google, I have more than enough information. I wanted to play around with WordPress-fired up a VirtualBox VM with Fedora, and an hour later had completed the 'famous 5-minute install.' When I begin to take on client work, most sites can be hosted on a cheap Linode or Bluehost.

Most of the information you need is free. Infrastructure (if you need it) costs peanuts. You have nothing to lose. Why not start now?

Re: How I Became a Programmer in ~12 Weeks

#40

Post by tryitnow »

rorrr wrote: post #25

Algorithms are not even mentioned. Data structures are not there either. Sorry, you're a django coder, not a programmer.

Those are valid points, but I think they miss the purpose he was driving at. Maybe the title of the article could be different, but that's a minor issue.

Bottomon line: He wanted a job as a developer. He got that job. Success.

You're right though, people do have to learn these other concepts, but first they have to have some money to pay the bills, then they can just knock themselves out learning all about algorithms and data structures.

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