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Show HN: I spent 2 years building Tablane as a 17-year-old

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Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years building Tablane as a 17-year-old

#141

Post by Vinnl »

geysersam wrote: post #66
amitprasad wrote: post #12

Hey Marcus! Super cool to see another fellow Minecraft-jumpstarted developer. I got into programming way back in 2013 with Minecraft mods and then Bukkit/Spigot plugins. > I decided to look for open Developer positions, to work with a team of experienced developers so I can learn even faster. Seeing as you're in Europe and not in the U.S. (with exorbitant tuition costs), I would actually recommend against skipping ou…

If you want to work for a couple of years, do it! College doesn't go away, it can wait.

The "college experience", however, won't be available anymore when you're no longer of a similar age as your peers there. I wouldn't have wanted to miss out on that.

Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years building Tablane as a 17-year-old

#142

Post by Moissanite »

iamben wrote: post #97
filoleg wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add to your great points, if OP ever decides to immigrate elsewhere (not even talking about the US specifically, but pretty much anywhere outside of the EU), attempting it without a college degree can range somewhere between extremely difficult and impossible. Yes, even for high-earning fields like software development. Unless there are strong reasons not to do college, I would recommend to not skip it. Disclaimer…

Just my experience, but I'm not sure how much a degree matters in UK after you have a few years experience. The exception probably being 'big companies' and (obviously) graduate schemes. I guess getting your food in a door somewhere (if you have no other way, and no experience) - a degree will probably help. All that said, I really grew up at university. I loved it. It was great fun, great to expand your social circl…

I would say a degree, masters and PhD all give diminishing marginal returns when applying for a given job, but they open doors (and bypass recruitment filters) which you might get tripped up by with just work experience.

There is also a lot to be said for being a well-rounded person. Even at £9k per year, I would encourage people to go to university - it is the most convenient way to meet a lot of new people, experience living in a different part of the country, and learn to be an adult all while keeping some structure and goals in place.

Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years building Tablane as a 17-year-old

#143

Post by Moissanite »

iopq wrote: post #124
c7DJTLrn wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 on this. Left school at 16 to do an apprenticeship, then went straight into industry. As a result, my social life is like a withered plant. Don't waste time and money on education you don't need, but also don't grow up too fast. You only get one life and one chance to be carefree.

I went to college and didn't have a social life. Maybe it's on us

In college/university, the social life is there for the taking, and you just have to let it sweep you along. As an adult, finding the same number of acquaintances takes an immense amount of effort.

Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years building Tablane as a 17-year-old

#144

Post by randomdata »

shudza wrote: post #56

Go to college and have fun. You are too young to waste your best years working.

"Go to college" usually implies registering with a college and becoming a student, which, to justify, is going to require way more work than you'll ever encounter in a job. Perhaps you meant to say: "Take a vacation and befriend college-aged people who like to have fun while on it"?

Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years building Tablane as a 17-year-old

#145

Post by qprofyeh »

Anytime before 2010 I would have recommended to skip college. But there’s no advantage anymore to starting an engineering career early without a degree. We’ve reached a stage where programming has become a mainstream skill. The only reason to skip college is if you’re committed to become a serial entrepreneur then I’d say try hard join a late stage profitable startup or scale-up where you soak in knowledge of how that company became successful and is operated.

Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years building Tablane as a 17-year-old

#146

Post by randomdata »

xupybd wrote: post #58
marconlp wrote: post #48

I've seen a lot of discussion about my choice of looking for a job directly after Highschool. Reasons against college - I recently visited a College Conference and wans't really impressed by any of them, mainly because their presented curriculum where basic js, css, html, react, easy leetcode algorithms which I already know - I don't really happy with my current position in School, where I sit and listen to the teach…

You're probably right that a college is not the fastest or cheapest way for you to learn but the world works in funny ways. You might find a degree opens more doors than it should. That said there are ways to get those qualifications at your own pace and much cheaper. Find a way to speed run a degree. It'll be worth it.

> You might find a degree opens more doors than it should.

You might, but it (typically) comes so late in life is it really worth it? I worked while my friends went to college. They're now starting to see these doors open. I'm ready to retire.

> Find a way to speed run a degree. It'll be worth it.

That will help over a traditional track, but unless you're ready to speed run a degree at like the age of 10, you're still going to be way behind. Due to the time value of money, the most valuable working years are in your teens (or even before, although the law can often make that a challenge).

Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years building Tablane as a 17-year-old

#147

Post by 8n4vidtmkvmk »

thih9 wrote: post #70
filoleg wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add to your great points, if OP ever decides to immigrate elsewhere (not even talking about the US specifically, but pretty much anywhere outside of the EU), attempting it without a college degree can range somewhere between extremely difficult and impossible. Yes, even for high-earning fields like software development. Unless there are strong reasons not to do college, I would recommend to not skip it. Disclaimer…

To add to that, you might not even need a master's degree; bachelor's is perfectly fine too and it's less of a time/effort investment.

bachelors was enough for me to get a visa, i think it was just the right amount of schooling. but i do miss my uni days

Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years building Tablane as a 17-year-old

#148

Post by phryneas »

Hi, RTK Query author here - from taking a skim at the code, you really went deep into our documentation. Looks good! :)

Many people here tell you "study", others tell you "don't". Both is okay. In Germany, you probably don't need it when going into IT, and in my last job we had many people coming from both perspectives and it was a great mix. What counts in most companies more than a degree is experience - and you probably will not get happy in a company where it is the other way round. One pro for studying is that you can get the time to learn social skills among your peers - I can only say for myself that I really needed that more than anything else. You could of course also do both: become a Werksstudent. In the end, it's all up to you ;) If you are looking for a job now, my old colleagues at Mayflower are always looking for promising people (and you certainly match that description). They are great developers and amazing humans. They have offices in Munich, Würzburg and Berlin, so no matter if you want to stay where you are or get out into the world a bit (which I certainly would recommend), you could work with them. Take a look at https://mayflower.de/karriere/ and even if they don't have a job as Werksstudent out there right now, just apply anyways and see. Oh, and tell them greetings from Lenz - that's me ;)

Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years building Tablane as a 17-year-old

#149

Post by james_impliu »

marconlp wrote: post #102
winrid wrote: post #98

Very impressive! You should definitely have some sort of paid tier! The demo on the homepage is great. btw, minor bug, it's not possible to back out of the login page :p

Thanks, I am planning to use the posthog / calcom business model, by making an awesome product which is free to use. But charge money for enterprise features or support. I created an issue for that bug: https://github.com/Tablane/tablane/issues/15

This is really impressive work. I’m the founder of posthog - James at you can guess it dot com. If you decide to get a dev job, and you think you’d learn a lot here, happy to chat!

Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years building Tablane as a 17-year-old

#150

Post by elvis10ten »

sureglymop wrote: post #138
elvis10ten wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn’t go to college due to circumstances. I don’t regret and will make the same choice given the same circumstances. But if you can, I think it’s the safest decision to go. People in this thread give a bunch of reasons, which I challenge: 1. Immigration: I’m 25 from a shithole country. I have lived and worked in Asia, Europe and America. A bit more difficulty, but nothing major. Surely with a German passport this…

You're 25... You could still go to college. If you're in Europe I would recommend it (if you wanted to).

Thanks. I’m in Berlin. Why do you recommend? If you have experience going to college as an adult I would love to hear it also.
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