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I'm a loser and I want to change that - now

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Re: I'm a loser and I want to change that - now

#181

Post by omfgitsbacon »

omfgitsbacon wrote: post #107

I want to give you hope but to be blunt, if your 30 an not an established coder your not going to be. I started coding when I was 11 (dumb stuff of course, but actual coding), went to university and got a CS degree, now I'm in my late 30s and I have been coding for a good ~25 years, ~12 professionally (as in day job). You have to compete with people like me, people who enjoy coding, people who go to work then come ho…

I try to give honest advice from something I know a lot about and sure enough, dead bottom. Like the old saying goes, truth hurts the most.

I'm done with HN, I'm done arguing with idiots who think hacking means copy&pasting code into wordpress, I'm mad my profession has been overrun with hipster, opinionated douches. It took a while, but I get it now, I'm through commenting on here...

Re: I'm a loser and I want to change that - now

#182

Post by AlexDanger »

Please consider this extraordinary advice:

If you want an average successful life, it doesn’t take much planning. Just stay out of trouble, go to school, and apply for jobs you might like. But if you want something extraordinary, you have two paths:

1. Become the best at one specific thing.

2. Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things.

The first strategy is difficult to the point of near impossibility. The second strategy is fairly easy.[0]

I used to do 1.) and now I focus on 2.). Its been very effective for my career and general happiness. I consider myself a dreamer and this philosophy leads me to generate very actionable ideas. If you can read code and understand what code does - you're well on your way to being in the top 25% of people working in IT. Getting into the top 25% of programmers is probably easier than you think.[1] There are so many careers where even a basic understanding of coding will give you a huge advantage. You'll be a superhero if you take these skills to a job where you're surrounded by non-programmers. Seriously.

One more thing: C++ is not a wise choice for a first language. Its fucking hard. Python is considered a good choice to learn programming.

[0] http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/07/care...

[1] http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/02/why-cant-programmer...

Re: I'm a loser and I want to change that - now

#183

Post by HiroProtaganist »

omfgitsbacon wrote: post #107

I want to give you hope but to be blunt, if your 30 an not an established coder your not going to be. I started coding when I was 11 (dumb stuff of course, but actual coding), went to university and got a CS degree, now I'm in my late 30s and I have been coding for a good ~25 years, ~12 professionally (as in day job). You have to compete with people like me, people who enjoy coding, people who go to work then come ho…

Why does he have to compete with you? What if his goal isn't to work a 9-5, making a middling salary like most programmers? (hint: he never stated what his actual goals are). You do not need to be a smug programmer to make something that turns into a multi-million dollar business.

Re: I'm a loser and I want to change that - now

#185

Post by throwawayG9 »

AlexDanger wrote: post #182

Please consider this extraordinary advice: If you want an average successful life, it doesn’t take much planning. Just stay out of trouble, go to school, and apply for jobs you might like. But if you want something extraordinary, you have two paths: 1. Become the best at one specific thing. 2. Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things. The first strategy is difficult to the point of near impossibility. The sec…

So what are you good at? Programming and what else?

Re: I'm a loser and I want to change that - now

#187

Post by derekp7 »

AlexDanger wrote: post #182

Please consider this extraordinary advice: If you want an average successful life, it doesn’t take much planning. Just stay out of trouble, go to school, and apply for jobs you might like. But if you want something extraordinary, you have two paths: 1. Become the best at one specific thing. 2. Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things. The first strategy is difficult to the point of near impossibility. The sec…

What you say about being surrounded by non-programmers is spot on. The way I got my start (and initial boost of self confidence), I was the only one who knew programming in a small business (about 200 employees). And what I was doing wasn't much, mostly just writing report generator programs using Awk and shell scripts). But it got so much attention that it was like lighting a rocket under my self esteem, enough so that I went on to be proficient enough in C (this is before C++ was mainstream) to code up some fairly interesting projects.

Re: I'm a loser and I want to change that - now

#188

Post by stopcyring »

omfgitsbacon wrote: post #107

I want to give you hope but to be blunt, if your 30 an not an established coder your not going to be. I started coding when I was 11 (dumb stuff of course, but actual coding), went to university and got a CS degree, now I'm in my late 30s and I have been coding for a good ~25 years, ~12 professionally (as in day job). You have to compete with people like me, people who enjoy coding, people who go to work then come ho…

Almost 200 bs comments and your's the only reasonable one. Nice ratio. But it always was like this here in HN. People engulf themselves with all this media hype of success and the 'i am a precious-jewel that just needs to try to be successful' attitude they actually start to believe it. Only later to be mind blown when reality sinks in.

Re: I'm a loser and I want to change that - now

#189

Post by vamonos »

I could say pretty much the same thing as you did - I'm 40, always wanted to do something great, but its just never happened.

I'm still working on it one brick at a time, and have a couple of pieces of software out there, but no-one really using them as far as I know. Haven't even had any feedback.

http://photo-sorter.appspot.com/ http://vs-console.appspot.com/ http://www.globalmartialartsdirectory.com/ http://www.mydailyactivity.com/

I like the LEAN movement, whereby you validate your market first, do the minimal amount of work possible, and launch ASAP - then respond to feedback. They say, if you aren't embarrassed by your first release, you did too much!

See: Start small, Stay small http://bit.ly/YIP5tu The Lean Startup http://amzn.to/XjbdYO

This podcast is brilliant too for many reasons, one of which is that you don't have to do the programming yourself! See http://automatemysmallbusiness.com/podcast-subscribe/

But: Don't get distracted Validate you have a market before you start building Figure out how to market it so people find it START

(All easier said than done).

Good luck, and all the best!

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