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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

#51

Post by enjo »

tryitnow wrote: post #40
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…

Now lets see if he can keep that job... likely knowing basically nothing about what he is doing.

Re: How I Became a Programmer in ~12 Weeks

#52

Post by bdr »

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.

It's going to keep happening...

Re: How I Became a Programmer in ~12 Weeks

#53

Post by _gd3l »

oz wrote: post #39

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.' W…

Exactly. As a 17-year-old I've been able to run my own little freelance business. The internet = opportunity if you use it right.

Re: How I Became a Programmer in ~12 Weeks

#54

Post by tsewlliw »

oz wrote: post #39

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.' W…

from me to you: http://developers.whatwg.org/ is an incredible resource you might put above w3schools, despite w3schools amazing google juice.

Re: How I Became a Programmer in ~12 Weeks

#55

Post by saraid216 »

rorrr wrote: post #25

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

What part of "I watched 13 lectures of MIT's OpenCourseWare on computer science" means "I learned how to program in nothing but Django"?

Re: How I Became a Programmer in ~12 Weeks

#56

Post by jwallaceparker »

ricardobeat wrote: post #49

> I was a computer geek from way back, had a few BBSes in the late 80s (yes, I'm a child of the 80s & 90s), learned QBasic & VisualBasic back in the day, and tinkered with Python for a few years off and on... In every single one of the "how I learned to program in X days" stories, the author had some previous experience. I wouldn't count running a BBS and learning 3 programming languages as "no previous experience".

Agreed.

Learning any programming language, especially as a youth, puts you in a completely different class from someone who has no prior exposure to computer programming and its core concepts.

Re: How I Became a Programmer in ~12 Weeks

#57

Post by jwallaceparker »

oz wrote: post #39

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.' W…

> there's never been a better time to learn to code, simply because the resources are so abundant and available.

I felt this way in 2001 when I started to teach myself HTML. There were plenty of free resources available online to learn.

The free education available now is exponentially more abundant. I would expect a similar leap during the next 10 years.

Re: How I Became a Programmer in ~12 Weeks

#58

Post by shioyama »

ricardobeat wrote: post #49

> I was a computer geek from way back, had a few BBSes in the late 80s (yes, I'm a child of the 80s & 90s), learned QBasic & VisualBasic back in the day, and tinkered with Python for a few years off and on... In every single one of the "how I learned to program in X days" stories, the author had some previous experience. I wouldn't count running a BBS and learning 3 programming languages as "no previous experience".

I was going to post something similar. Glad to see I'm not the only one who felt that line stood out.

Re: How I Became a Programmer in ~12 Weeks

#59

Post by mattdeboard »

ricardobeat wrote: post #49

> I was a computer geek from way back, had a few BBSes in the late 80s (yes, I'm a child of the 80s & 90s), learned QBasic & VisualBasic back in the day, and tinkered with Python for a few years off and on... In every single one of the "how I learned to program in X days" stories, the author had some previous experience. I wouldn't count running a BBS and learning 3 programming languages as "no previous experience".

"learned" was DEFINITELY an overstatement. I knew they existed is more accurate.

Re: How I Became a Programmer in ~12 Weeks

#60

Post by neilk »

As far as I'm concerned, you can become a programmer in 12 hours. That's easily enough time to learn enough Python so you could start writing programs that satisfy your own needs, if they were simple enough.

Of course, there is no upper limit to how good a programmer you can become. We can only (maybe) set lower limits.

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