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My GF learned to code in 3 months. This is what she came up with.

nukaco.la

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Re: My GF learned to code in 3 months. This is what she came up with.

#41

Post by nwienert »

aliz wrote: post #32
nwienert wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like it, but in 3 months she got 2/5 in rails, 2/5 in javascript and 2/5 in git? I doubt thats even possible... I've been working with each of those for ~6 years and I'd still only put myself at a 4 and if I was being generous. It's funny the longer you work with something the more you realize how little you understand it. I probably would have put myself at a 2/5 in those categories 5 years ago, but looking back,…

Well, I didn't know there was a standard... for me it just felt "I know more Javascript than Haskell etc" so I put one more black square. So maybe I should change it to 2 out of 7 or whatever. :/

Aliz, I guess I was responding to the OP comment about resume's more than anything and didn't mean to offend. I really like your use of a scale, and your project is very impressive!

Re: My GF learned to code in 3 months. This is what she came up with.

#43

Post by tikhonj »

FuzzyDunlop wrote: post #37
Homunculiheaded wrote: post #10

I really like the skills section http://nukaco.la/skills.html I wish this was standard practice for resumes, even though it's subjective assessment it's really easy to compare relative strengths and weaknesses, for example it's very easy to see "dabbled in haskell, very proficient in garage band" just by glancing

I disagree, because of the subjectivity. For some things, it's fine, but for others, I don't think it's an accurate reflection. For example, what actually quantifies 1/5 of Ruby? And does a 5/5 rating mean you know absolutely everything about it? Is 1/5 of Ruby the same as 1/5 of Python, or soldering, or speaking Icelandic? There's also no improvement from 5/5, but even a master of their craft will know there is alwa…

Another approach could be to normalize everything against your best skill. So rather than saying "I'm this good at X", you're saying "I'm about half as good at X as I am at Y."

I think the tricky bit would be making your intentions obvious.

I actually took a similar approach on my résumé: I broke my skills up into categories relative to each other rather than vying for some absolute quantification.

Re: My GF learned to code in 3 months. This is what she came up with.

#44

Post by acoyfellow »

mntmn wrote: post #15
feverishaaron wrote: post #7

Can you ask her to outline the process she used to learn to code this tool?

Basically, for ruby and javascript we had (very informal) coaching sessions together roughly once a week (around 2 hours each). I would walk her through core syntax problems (how to use functions, objects, arrays) and give her some hints of what APIs to look for. And then she went and researched and tried a lot of stuff (sometimes more than 8 hours a day) and would ask me when she got totally stuck. I would then try…

I wish I had a buddy like you!

Re: My GF learned to code in 3 months. This is what she came up with.

#46

Post by Hominem »

nwienert wrote: post #26
Homunculiheaded wrote: post #10

I really like the skills section http://nukaco.la/skills.html I wish this was standard practice for resumes, even though it's subjective assessment it's really easy to compare relative strengths and weaknesses, for example it's very easy to see "dabbled in haskell, very proficient in garage band" just by glancing

I like it, but in 3 months she got 2/5 in rails, 2/5 in javascript and 2/5 in git? I doubt thats even possible... I've been working with each of those for ~6 years and I'd still only put myself at a 4 and if I was being generous. It's funny the longer you work with something the more you realize how little you understand it. I probably would have put myself at a 2/5 in those categories 5 years ago, but looking back,…

I had an interview that asked me to rate various skills on a 1-5 scale. I think I gave myself a 1 in t-SQL and a 2 in C# even though I had been programming professionally in C# since the .NET beta SDK. I was worried they would pull out some crazy trivia questions and and try to trip me up if I rated myself too high. After I rated myself so low they almost didn't want to continue the interview.

I think most places are not like google where if you say 4 it means you invented the language.

Re: My GF learned to code in 3 months. This is what she came up with.

#48

Post by tikhonj »

law wrote: post #40
moolcool wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to be reasonable about the scale. A 4/5 in English by your standards would also imply a deep understanding of root languages, old English, literature etc...

Becoming "fluent" in a programming language is vastly different from becoming "fluent" in a natural language. I hate when people make that comparison. How often does one ask for the etymology of the "if" statement and to what extent is such an understanding required for programming language mastery?

Actually, I think knowing the history and theory behind a language (as appropriate) is very helpful.

Particularly, if you're using a language like Haskell or Ocaml, it helps to have at least a vague idea of what a functor actually is and where the idea comes from. (I actually only realized that functors were actually similar ideas in both languages a couple days back.)

On the other hand, if you're using a language like JavaScript, understanding the history (especially the languages that influenced it) makes understanding some of the "quirks" much simpler. When you see the influence of Scheme, the scoping suddenly makes much more sense, for example.

So, over all, I think understanding the background of a language really helps for complete mastery.

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