Learning to Hack: the Tipping Point

Wow.Straight from Game Maker to C? Sort of happened the same to me. Up until uni I only knew Java, Game Maker and basic PHP/MySQL then started with C in freshman year. Although I mostly do web development these days, I liked working with pointers and memory management in C (once again delving down deeper).

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that for me it wasn't that there was "something I wanted to do and I used a programming language", but rather that I wanted to use a programming language so I found something to do. For me it was about the (self-guided) achievements and challenges: I wasn't "hacking a way to a solution," and would often return to the same problem and solve it again and again, never "falling back to really hacky solutions to get things done." It's a bit fuzzy (things do get done either way), but I think there is a distinction in approach.

Dude. Honestly, you have all the tools that you need to be fairly good at coding. I can already tell.

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What you're really fearing is the unknown, so think of it this way...

Coding is a bunch of logical expressions thrown in to essentially one lump which ends up making a computer do a bunch of things. That's basically it. Now we have patterns, best practices, algorithms, classes, etc., but those can be learned as you go. Don't worry about it, you have all the tools.

How do I know?

You were able to make a post on HN. That is, your mind has mastered (to some extent) the coupling of language and logic.

You already know logic... Your sentence structures have the basics going [subject verb object]. You know that in most cases, your sentence will not make sense if you omit any part of the basics. Same with a program. If you omit something in the logical arrangement, your program will not work.

--------- You already know flow... Your post goes from the top down. A lot of programs does that. That is, the tasks are processed from the top of the program until you get to the end. Now, we do skip around, but that's because during the flow from top to bottom we call other functions for help. Think of functions as an extension of the flow (just in another location) and you'll get what I'm talking about.

   Now we do have events as well. Think of when you're clicking a button, something happens. In that something, it also uses a top down approach. 

--------- You already know conditions... You've created basic guidelines for getting your paragraphs to work to your liking. I've noticed a few if/else conditions that you're using... 1) IF I explain this part of my coding history THEN the readers will realize how badly I want guidance help... 2) IF I use a general/cliched phrase THEN I'll put quotations around it (e.g. "Hello, world!" or "how do I turn code in a text editor into something" ELSE no quotes will be added around the word/phrase

--------- You already know abstraction... Your using paragraphs to abstract topics/themes to be separate from one another. In CS we use functions and classes.

--------- You already know how to utilize classes... You're using a combination of letters to form what we call words. With those words, you have created sentence. Your mind has already figured out that if you utilize these words and sentences in a certain order, it will return something useful.

--------- Now why did I go through all of this to convince you that you know more that what you think? Because I'm insane. No, that's not it. I hear a lot of people say that they aren't smart enough to code. Yet, these same people can memorize entire albums and television episodes. Memorization uses a lot of CS tools if you think about it. You're using logic, flow, conditions, abstractions, classes, etc. You just don't know that you're doing it.

I have a friend that, for the past 3 years, explained to me that he wasn't smart enough to code. I ended up giving him a run down of all the basic things needed to make a basic web app. It confused him, but it gave him exposure.

After a couple of months He called me and said he had a "great" idea for a site for his wife. He spent about a month working on it before I took a look at it. The site was functional. It wasn't great, but it was functional and dynamic. I gave him some pointers, but a lot of the work came from him seeing what he wanted to do and running with it. Yes, with good ol' Google. All he needed was the basic guideline. All he needed was some exposure.

I think that's all you really want/need. I can help you out if you'd like. Here's my tools... HTML - text and boxes on the page CSS - making things look pretty JavaScript(JQuery) - making things move Asp.net (or PHP) - server back end (mostly a communication tool with the data base) SQL Server (or mySQL) - the database (stores a bunch of data)

That's about it. Those 5 things. You can do a lot of really cool things with that. If you need help, don't be afraid to ask.

>"Dude. Honestly, you have all the tools that you need to be fairly good at coding. I can already tell."

Good to hear!

Like I said --and how the original article struck me-- I'm just waiting for that feeling of getting it. We've all had it. I've felt it with thousands of things in my life, from Calculus to playing Street Fighter 2. Up to this point every introductory text/course says, "Look! You're programming!" and I sort of think, "Am I, really?"

At the end of the day, I realize that learning anything is a function of time, and I certainly haven't paid my dues there yet.

>"All he needed was some exposure."

Another good point, which causes me a bit of internal strife. There's a wealth of information out there. In fact (first world problem alert), there's almost too much. Try typing "learn to program" or "introductory python" into Google. It's exhausting. I'm looking for the next incremental step in this learning process, but both my problem and the solution revolve around defining what it is I'm looking for. But, as you and others have suggested, I think the answer will come from looking at other's code and plugging away.

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

A lot of people don't like the "discomforts of exploration".

Folks have mentioned that creating solutions to your own problems helps a lot. Well it does, but it takes some out-of-the-box thinking to realize that you do have a problem to solve.

Programming is like using an Erector set. You get a lot of pieces and can place them together quite easily. But when push comes to shove, how many are going to (or willing to) build a baseball launcher so they can avoid "pickling the Beast" (Sandlot reference)?

That's where imagination and subdivision comes in. Yes, you can learn all the theories and syntax that you'd want, but if you don't use your imagination and divide-n-conquer methods, you'll never make it.

Once you'd get past all of that, the sky's the limit. I'm proof of that. I hear of all of these miracle languages and frameworks, but I stick to what I know. Why, because it had solved so many problems before. And its because I have a vivid imagination and know what it takes to get the task completed.