Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How I Became a Programmer in ~12 Weeks

mattdeboard.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 190 posts

Re: How I Became a Programmer in ~12 Weeks

#121

Post by ricardobeat »

mattdeboard wrote: post #59
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.

I "learned" Clipper and QBasic when I was 10. I can't write a single line in either today, but I'm 100% sure that experience made it a lot easier for me to become a developer. It's like riding a bike.

Knowing what a for loop is already puts you miles ahead of the pack. It implies knowledge of variables, counters, operators, etc. We take many concepts for granted that are not that obvious to most.

Re: How I Became a Programmer in ~12 Weeks

#122

Post by yelsgib »

mattdeboard wrote: post #100
cmagahern wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think he was trying to be insulting. From what I gather, he was trying to justify the negativity theme in the comments for this post, which was the subject of the original comment. I agree that the blog post was not detailed enough, and didn't talk enough about HOW you became a programmer in 12 weeks.

What kind of information do you mean? I programmed, asked questions, programmed, read source code, and programmed. There's zero magic. I learned in the same way all human beings learn. We're knowledge workers. I gained enough programming knowledge to be a programmer. Where's the confusion?

Where's the content?

Re: How I Became a Programmer in ~12 Weeks

#123

Post by postfuturist »

spacemanaki wrote: post #78

The amount of negativity in this thread is depressing. I think a lot of people either didn't read the article or just skimmed it. For those of you who are citing Peter Norvig's essay, I also thought of the essay when I read this; it's one of my favorites. I've read it several times because it is humbling and inspires me to rise to the challenge of really becoming a great programmer. If Matt reads it he might feel sim…

Agreed, the condescension is nauseating. It's extremely rude to tell someone who writes software as a day job and who is so enthusiastic about it that he is not a real programmer. Sure, he's closer to the beginning than the end of his journey as a programmer, but so what? He jumped in head-first, and just wanted to share that joy. I have to take a break from HN. Sometimes this community is a real downer.

Re: How I Became a Programmer in ~12 Weeks

#124

Post by prophetjohn »

kamaal wrote: post #102
prophetjohn wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the point of this post, even if it seems a bit of a tangent from the what the author is saying, but >>in case you think you have spent 10 years learning all the secret recipes in computer science books but are not good in other areas. You are no better than the 'Learn programming in 30 days guy'. and >>Your regular data structure and algorithm sauce is probably 1% of what is required is just false. Sure, studyi…

>> but your comment largely renders advanced degrees, like PhDs, about as useful as some poorly written Java book with regard to success as a software engineer. I am not saying that at all. All I'm saying is, as programmers we tend to assume knowledge of text books and programming is all that is needed to win. And that if you have it, that is all there is that it takes to win. This is largely untrue. I have seen that…

Textbook-type knowledge of programming (and more specifically, data structures and algorithms) are not all that's required to be successful in this industry, but it's sure a hell of a lot more important than 1% of the whole puzzle.

I can't say much about 12-weeks-programmer guy, but if the only skill that 12-weeks-programmer guy has is the programming skills he's obtained in those 12 weeks and the only skills 10-years-of-pounding-CS-books guy has are the skills he's obtained from those books, I'm going to pick the guys that's been reading all about automata theory to be more successful.

Not that I'm saying that the author is destined to be unsuccessful. I'm just trying to point out that classical CS skills are more important than you're portraying.

Re: How I Became a Programmer in ~12 Weeks

#125

Post by jebblue »

gwern wrote: post #83
count wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets not confuse an absence of evidence as an evidence of absence - just because there's no study yet that shows that 10 years in the USMC helps with work ethic, doesn't mean that 10 year in the USMC does NOT help with work ethic (unless you mean to say in your survey of the lit. you found something claiming the opposite of the op's claim). That said, I'm inclined to agree with your last statement...

Well, in general terms, if the USMC (or the Army, or the Navy, or...) really did build up work ethic - a personality trait that correlates quite a bit with income - why do veterans seem to do so poorly, even veterans who never experience the confound of war? Because personality traits are, like IQ, very tough to alter. (This is why that psilocybin-increases-Openness study got so much play.)

>> why do veterans seem to do so poorly

What are you saying that we do poorly at?

Your comments are more "confounding" to me than any war situation I was ever in.

Re: How I Became a Programmer in ~12 Weeks

#126

Post by digitist »

crikli wrote: post #108

I can play a few Megadeth riffs and I've written two very shitty songs. This does not make me a musician or a songwriter. It makes me a dude who can create noises that resemble music. The OP groks the basics and has learned how to use Django. This does not make him a programmer. It makes him a dude who can create code that resembles a program.

Perfect analogy for this asinine, laughable post. The author is a hobbyist, not a programmer: would anyone here actually trust or hire this guy with his "1000 hours" of mostly semantic knowledge to develop a real world application? I think we should incite him to build and submit a production application for community review--perhaps he can develop it in ~1 week.

Re: How I Became a Programmer in ~12 Weeks

#127

Post by eurohacker »

mattdeboard wrote: post #59
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.

dont you think php would have been easier to learn than django or ruby for getting a site working ?

Re: How I Became a Programmer in ~12 Weeks

#128

Post by wahnfrieden »

oz wrote: post #47
wallflower wrote: post #12

Quoting a self-help talking head here: "It's not important to get things right/perfect. It's important to get things going" Congratulations and realize that the nth step in learning is realizing that you can always learn more.

"It's not important to get things right/perfect. It's important to get things going" Not realizing that fact held me back for years. When I wanted to learn / do something, I would obsess over finding absolutely the best tutorial / process. Then I would obsess over the right learning environment. Always worrying about the incidentals, and ignoring the essentials. HN has helped me a lot in this regard. Reading about bi…

I used to do that too - find the best practices and right ways of doing each new thing I came across in my projects. Although it wasn't efficient, I'm still glad I did, since it's a luxury that I don't as often have time for now as a professional. Having covered a lot of these things when it was still just a hobby has paid off, now that I can use it all again.

Re: How I Became a Programmer in ~12 Weeks

#129

Post by Mvandenbergh »

latchkey wrote: post #69

I absolutely admire you. There are so many people in this world who pretend that something is preventing them from learning or doing something and you went out just did it. You may (or may not) be the best engineer in the world, but I'd hire you in a hot second just because you have the tenacity to make it your mission to figure something out. Sometimes, 90% of writing code is just sticking with a problem until you g…

What I think is great is that he learned enough to get an 'in' in a relatively short time. Obviously getting from knowing some Python and being able to work with Django to being a master developer will take years, but it is so much easier to do that if you already have a fulltime programming job.

If you're trying to learn all the skills that a great developer needs in your free time, you'll realistically be able to spend no more than 4-5 hours a day at it over any sustained period. If your fulltime job is software development, even if it isn't hardcore by HN standards, then you will grow your skills so much faster.

Re: How I Became a Programmer in ~12 Weeks

#130

Post by giis »

>I put myself in a position where I had no room to be lazy or complacent. I think above all else that made me work 10x harder. I didn't play video games, I didn't watch TV, I didn't sleep all day. All I did all day every day was code, hack, program and develop.

That's the great thing to do. Just shutdown the door to outside world and focus on things in hand.I have done that once.Would love to do it again.(Past experience http://giis.co.in/LFY.png )

Post reply on HN