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Ask HN: How many "self-taught" programmers and how did you do it?

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Re: Ask HN: How many "self-taught" programmers and how did you do it?

#41

Post by seabee »

bayesianhorse wrote: post #3

I believe any programming is self-taught. I know that I had some course in a community center when I was very young, probably like 10 or so, and while these courses probably got me interested and taught me the basics, I think most of my skills came from solitary practice and studying books. Moocs can be a better introduction to programming than mere books, but I haven't seen any evidence on how successful MOOCs are a…

> I believe any programming is self-taught

I think it is as self-taught as, say, carpentry, or playing an instrument.

That is to say, it is certainly possible to be excellent at what you do by putting in the hours, and you don't need anyone to achieve that, but it is wrong to think that only you can teach yourself. Learning from others can definitely accelerate your development.

Re: Ask HN: How many "self-taught" programmers and how did you do it?

#42

Post by ivan_gammel »

I'm self-taught, mostly. Started programming on Basic on handmade ZX Spectrum 64K, purchased by parents from classified ad in local newspaper, when I was 8 y.o., just to be able to write my own games.

Switched to Turbo Pascal (and to Tasm) in school, when I was in 6th grade (11 y.o.), after "inventing" bubble sort. By that time we were hacking good old computer games to get infinite lives and money. Primary role of my C.S. teacher by that time was to give me computer time and employ in school as part-time computer classes technician when I was 14.

When our class was 16, we were told that there is new cool language for web, called Java and we will have an exam on it by the end of the year. We happily dove into it. Our teachers were learning it together with us (they also were setting up Linux for the first time, but I and my friends were too busy playing funny game of hacking/counter-hacking the admin passwords to the Novell network we had in our school).

When I was 17, I graduated from school and moved to Moscow to study quantum physics and electronics in MIPT, but it was quite busy time to survive (1998), so I learned HTML and started developing web sites for money for beer. Few years later I've got my first full-time job as Java developer and from that time I've never gave up a hobby that one day had become my profession.

Forgot to note, that I was learning by books, not from Internet. When I was a MIPT student, my spending on books could be up to 50% of my income ($400/month or so).

Re: Ask HN: How many "self-taught" programmers and how did you do it?

#43

Post by V-2 »

TL;DR ahead ;)

(Born in 1981) at first I attended some programming language courses: Turbo Pascal, Visual Basic, Delphi, in my early teen years, that is in 90s. I even co-authored a series of articles on the subject to a nationwide magazine. (Poland, not USA).

Subsequently I lost interest in the IT, I went on to study political science and only turned back to programming in about 2007.

Starting from scratch, I picked up C#. I learned from books and by programming. I attended MCTS courses in college and got myself certified, but in retrospection I think it was a waste of money.

I had quite an inferiority complex regarding my lack of formal education and experience. I didn't even start looking for a job until 2011, when my girlfriend forced me to get up on my feet and start sending CVs out :) So it was like 4 years after I began, but I worked full-time and didn't learn very intensively.

Anyway, once I began looking for it, I landed a job quickly and needless to say, the moment I saw the code written by some of my predecessors in the years when I thought I wasn't ready to get paid for programming, some swear words left my mouth.

Re: Ask HN: How many "self-taught" programmers and how did you do it?

#44

Post by V-2 »

V-2 wrote: post #43

TL;DR ahead ;) (Born in 1981) at first I attended some programming language courses: Turbo Pascal, Visual Basic, Delphi, in my early teen years, that is in 90s. I even co-authored a series of articles on the subject to a nationwide magazine. (Poland, not USA). Subsequently I lost interest in the IT, I went on to study political science and only turned back to programming in about 2007. Starting from scratch, I picked…

"I learned from books and by programming" - I didn't even mention StackOverflow, it feels so obvious that it gets transparent :) but for the record, yes of course I used it

Re: Ask HN: How many "self-taught" programmers and how did you do it?

#45

Post by stickydink »

1) Totally self taught, no books, all online (Google and planetsourcecode.com!)

2) I started around 12 years old; began with HTML trying to replicate websites I liked, then Visual Basic, then to PHP/JavaScript, then to Java, then to C++, back to Java when Android came around in 2009. With competence in countless other languages along the way.

3) I freelanced with PHP from I was ~15, just tiny projects.

I made money writing bots for RuneScape (in Java) when I was 15.

I went to school for Physics, (age 18), no programming involved.

I published my own (paid, successful) games to Android when it was first around, in 2009 (age 19). I freelanced in Android projects at the same time.

I got a job offer from my main freelancing client a few months before graduating (age 21), and moved to the US. I'm still working for the same company, as the Lead Developer, and things are going great (age 24).

Re: Ask HN: How many "self-taught" programmers and how did you do it?

#46

Post by ikura »

sambeau wrote: post #10

I learned to program in C in the late 80s, before the web, and then went on to do a CS degree at university. Learning to code was very difficult in those days. 1. There were no free compilers outside of academia. 2. Compilers cost hundreds of dollars 3. Programming books cost $50 each I used to buy $5 shareware disks that claimed to have compilers and tutorials on them and they never had exactly what was advertised.…

I challenge you on #1/#2 since there was Personal C (PCC) around the mid/late 80s. The version I had didn't have a graphics library though, so I learnt 8086 assembler and CGA/EGA calls (memory is hazy here, but probably CGA) and made my own :)

I was lucky enough to be leant a good C book by a family friend (whoops... Still have it almost 30 years later!!).

But I agree with your overall point that it was much harder to self teach back then. On the flip side however is that now there is so much choice that getting started can be a challenge as there are so many routes to choose!

Re: Ask HN: How many "self-taught" programmers and how did you do it?

#47

Post by narag »

I first learned BASIC with a friend that owned a Spectrum. We made some funny programs: a naive game similar to Space Invaders, a tracker that I feeded with a Bach fugue, things like that.

Years later, I enrolled CS. But 90% of what I learned was at home with a 286 that another friend lent me. Materials: books from the university library and technical manuals for the languages. TurboPascal manual was excellent.

I guess they're outdated to recommend, but my favourites were Pascal and Data Structures by Dale & Lilly and File Structures: A Conceptual Toolkit by Michael J. Folk & Bill Zoellick. I wrote a B-Tree implementation that put Clipper's to shame.

When Delphi was released (95), I bought it, binge-read the manuals and did several personal projects. The rest, at work, facing difficult problems, reading a lot, consulting online forums... and specially answering others' questions.

Re: Ask HN: How many "self-taught" programmers and how did you do it?

#48

Post by duiker101 »

1) I often preffered to stay at home writing code than going out with people i wasn't interest in, I started with RPG Maker when i was about 15, then kept reading programs, trying stuff, no books or courses.

2) about 8 years ago with rpg maker xp. after that vb 6 and php

3) I left italy and found a developer job.

Re: Ask HN: How many "self-taught" programmers and how did you do it?

#50

Post by richardjdare »

I taught myself from the late eighties to mid nineties. I started with BASIC on the Amstrad CPC then Blitz Basic and 68000 assembly on the Amiga. Then got a PC and learned C++, then got into web development via Java (day job), now I'm doing indie games in C++/objective c. I was coding for a long time before I was able to make it a full-time job (2005) though I did a lot of small projects before this.

Although computers were simpler back then, learning to code was difficult as my main resource was computer magazines. I couldn't afford many books and had no access to any programming communities or academic culture. It wasn't until I got online in the late nineties that I was able to really flourish as a programmer. I feel a lot of regret about this as I believe I could have made it into game development in the Amiga era as a teen, if I'd had enough resources and confidence. I also had trouble keeping my computer up to date as I couldn't afford it. All this slowed me down.

Coming from a working class uk background, university wasn't even mentioned to me at school (unbelievable, right? The anger I have towards the education system is almost limitless), so I always focused on self-education as my way ahead.

Some people think that self-taught coders are lacking in terms of computer science theory, but that's ridiculous when anyone can download SICP and similar books. I've met plenty of CS graduates who slept through their algorithms class.

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