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Ask HN: I am 35 years old with no degree – can I still program?

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Re: Ask HN: I am 35 years old with no degree – can I still program?

#61

Post by adrow »

Go for it, I was in exactly the same situation. I can't call myself a programmer yet, but I work alongside them and I'm on the ladder in an industry where I can attempt that move in time if I think it's right for me.

I was stuck in an office admin career at 32, hadn't been to Uni, and my employer had no real interest in my attempts to develop my skills. I took some online courses, hosted and created my own sites, where I blogged about things I knew.

Everything I did I put on a CV geared towards showing my technical skills and how I was trying to develop them.

Eventually my CV was passed to a tech company looking for a graduate. I was able to show that the 10 years of office experience I already had was just as valuable as a degree, and my CV showed a willingness to learn and better myself through my own efforts. I was doing this because I really wanted to make a change in my life, and they could see that.

In the three months I've been here I have learned even more about web development and can already see many opportunities for advancement down the line.

My main regret is that I didn't do it sooner, I spent a good few years moaning about getting a new job but not really putting any real effort into it.

Re: Ask HN: I am 35 years old with no degree – can I still program?

#62

Post by rouan »

talmir wrote: post #58
rouan wrote: post #46

I think you should learn processing and arduino, possibly before starting into web. There are already a lot of web developers, and not enough visual/electronic opensource devs. To get started download and run http://processing.org/ Paste in this code and click run. Start messing around and start learning if, while, functions etc. -------------------------------------------- void setup() { size(640,480); background(15…

I would rather point him in the direction of a pic microcontroller, straight AVR (without the arduino middleman) or maybe even one of the cortex boards out there. Arduino has been made too "fool proof" with external libraries and hand-holding to be any more valuable for learning programming than the average hello world programming tutorial.

I respect your view, and cannot compare it to PIC as I have no experience with it. You comment makes me angry though, because I've seen this view before from others and I think it is false. Arduino has been immensely empowering tool to learn, a joy to work with and the community is incredibly helpful and supportive.

To back up this claim I am making, here is an arduino 3D printer I've developed from scratch. I mean we milled the parts we needed based off a reprap frame, I couldnt get the idiotic firmwares and code available to work so I started with an arduino and a stepper motor and figured it out.

https://github.com/fluentart/arrowprint I'm a self taught artist that got interested in code so I don't claim to be good at it, as I really have no base to compare my quality of code to others except for the end result and the process of it for me personally.

Please tell me how a pic would be better? I am eager to learn.

Re: Ask HN: I am 35 years old with no degree – can I still program?

#63

Post by opinali »

flojito wrote: post #43

Yes, you can. Just go for it! I got it when I was 30 years old and you know what? I use the programming skills I have now plus the knowledge aquired in my previous job. The result is a programmer who also is a specialist in X or a X specialist who can develop software in this field.

Super +1 for that, the dual-field advantage can easily compensate the belated entry into a new market. For an easy example, if your current career is in anything related to finance / banking, there's a ton of jobs for developers who also have deep understanding of this business. Indeed, you can find yourself in advantage over younger, better-trained hackers whose single expertise is with programming.

Re: Ask HN: I am 35 years old with no degree – can I still program?

#64

Post by hga »

Lots of terrific advice here, and I myself am mostly a self-taught programmer, I've only taken 3 formal courses, all introductory. I'd only add:

"Maybe I would be confident in my skills to apply to some tech jobs. Or do some freelance work"

Don't expect to get "normal" tech jobs by the time you're good enough unless you can disguise your age, age discrimination is fierce in this field. But as noted by you and many others, there are many options.

I'd also add that at some point unless you've forgotten all your math and don't want to refresh it try Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (SICP) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structure_and_Interpretation_of..., http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-comput...), everything you need is free and online. If it's a good enough fit for you it will teach you some foundational things that'll make you a better all around programmer and system designer. E.g. one way or another learn big O notation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_O_notation) and its significance.

Over time, get some breath. In my book that means try to learn the basics of these languages and concepts and their typical environments: Lisp and recursion (see SICP above, or alternatives on the Wikpedia page plus http://www.amazon.com/The-Little-Schemer-4th-Edition/dp/0262... specifically for recursion), C and pointers, HTML, Javascript and browser programming, and some database work, SQL/RDBMS preferred, I recommend PostgreSQL over any of the MySQL variants, but a simple key/value store or embedded SQL database would also get your feet wet. If you learn recursion and pointers you'll be way ahead of most people who believe themselves to be programmers.

Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: I am 35 years old with no degree – can I still program?

#67

Post by alexcsm »

Hi!

I've been a software developer for almost 6 years now, and I have a friend in the same boat. You can definitely switch, and you don't necessarily need a degree.

Check out my reply and the tips I had for him. Hope you find it useful!

http://alexanderle.com/blog/2013/mail-how-become-software-de...

Re: Ask HN: I am 35 years old with no degree – can I still program?

#68

Post by bingodingo »

Well, I received lots of good information here. I appreciate everyone's opinions on this matter. I have been busy bookmarking the sites people here pointed me toward, and copying email addresses. Also just to clarify, I am not necessarily looking to be a "web developer" I figured it was a place to start with HTML/CSS on into Python, Ruby, jQuery etc. I figured it wouldn't hurt. But with your help and links like learncodethehardway.org, I have some good places to go and dig in.

Thanks again.

No Halo tonight...

Re: Ask HN: I am 35 years old with no degree – can I still program?

#69

Post by jacknews »

Are you prepared for an enjoyable hobby to turn into a daily grind? Programming is great when the you're just toying around, learning new things, or you're working on something interesting. Debugging some corporate accounting app or pet-care website is much less so.

Re: Ask HN: I am 35 years old with no degree – can I still program?

#70

Post by shire »

sfscs wrote: post #20

Absolutely! I'm 29, college drop out. Always liked computers, but never really programmed. Didn't do much for years, then just dove into php about two years ago. A year and a half ago, I got my first tech job making web site updates. That's when I really started learning a lot. After a year, the guy above me quit and now I'm the department head (though small department, lol). It feels like once I got my foot in the d…

Just curious how much you make as a PHP developer? maybe there is still some hope out there for PHP programmers to make good salary.
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