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My First Year of Coding

blog.jenniferdewalt.com

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Re: My First Year of Coding

#61

Post by ericabiz »

carrotleads wrote: post #42
ericabiz wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> deep down I know I'll never be as good/desirable as someone with a CS degree. I stopped working to write this comment--that's how important it is to me that you know this is a belief that will only hold you back. I could cite any one of thousands of articles that talk about dropouts who made it, but I suspect you know about those articles and it hasn't affected your belief. So I'll just say this: If I had graduated…

Now if this is true, that takes lots of balls... I mean the whole "-I've put all my chips in." burn the boats outlook. I quit my job to work on my startup ideas but have difficulty throwing all my savings in. Wife & kids is my excuse.

> Now if this is true, that takes lots of balls...

Yep, it really is. Not only have I turned down several huge income opportunities to work on MarketVibe, but I'd also sell just about everything I have to see this product come to market. We have a true game-changer of a product, and it's something I really believe in. We also have the right team to build it--I'm a target customer for this product, which is one reason I know the market needs it so badly. And it's a nice money-maker (SaaS).

But yeah. If I had to sell my car tomorrow to finance the startup, I'd do it with zero second thoughts. I'm in this 100%. Otherwise, why run a startup at all?

Re: My First Year of Coding

#62

Post by teacup50 »

stickperson wrote: post #33

I started to learn how to code back in August and got my first job as a developer at the end of February. I went through a bootcamp and didn't see anyone besides my girlfriend for 10 weeks. It's definitely tough not having a mentor, and I struggled a bit for a couple months after classes trying to figure out what I should spend my time learning. I still struggle with it when working on personal projects and often wor…

Great engineers aren't great because of a CS degree; they're great because every time they saw the mountain of stuff they didn't know, they climbed it. When they got to the top and saw another mountain, they kept on climbing.

If you keep going, there will be a point where you'll be excited to know that you always have more to learn.

Re: My First Year of Coding

#63

Post by jmcgough »

stickperson wrote: post #33

I started to learn how to code back in August and got my first job as a developer at the end of February. I went through a bootcamp and didn't see anyone besides my girlfriend for 10 weeks. It's definitely tough not having a mentor, and I struggled a bit for a couple months after classes trying to figure out what I should spend my time learning. I still struggle with it when working on personal projects and often wor…

I only did a minor in CS and struggled a lot with feelings of inadequacy at my first job. Don't let it get to you - as long as you're constantly improving your craft and learning, you'll find that you'll surpass the people with CS degrees who don't keep learning.

Try to find a senior engineer who can mentor you if possible, and ask other engineers to do code reviews of your pull requests (the criticism is invaluable as long as you're humble and welcome it).

Additionally, engineering is more than just knowing algorithms and syntax and design patterns. A lot of the really important lessons (how to talk to non-technical people, how to push back on requirements, how to prioritize issues) are things that only come with professional experience and really can't be taught in a classroom. In that regard, you're on a level playing field with people who have a CS degree.

Re: My First Year of Coding

#64

Post by nknighthb »

stickperson wrote: post #33

I started to learn how to code back in August and got my first job as a developer at the end of February. I went through a bootcamp and didn't see anyone besides my girlfriend for 10 weeks. It's definitely tough not having a mentor, and I struggled a bit for a couple months after classes trying to figure out what I should spend my time learning. I still struggle with it when working on personal projects and often wor…

There are people who really believe CS degrees make people better programmers. Avoid those people as much as possible. Once you're in the industry, experience and reputation matter much more.

Your most likely practical problem, if you don't have another STEM degree, would be math-related. Self-study or just taking individual classes can fix that, but honestly, the vast majority of development work these days doesn't care about anything past basic algebra, if even that.

Re: My First Year of Coding

#65

Post by danjayh »

hablahaha wrote: post #59
mb_72 wrote: post #51

"I’m still dealing with a bit of impostor syndrome and it still sounds weird when I tell people I’m a software engineer..." That's because you aren't a software engineer, and if you are saying so then the feelings of being an impostor are entirely warranted. 'Coding' is one thing, 'engineering' is something different altogether. I'm afraid this falls into the 'you don't know what you don't know category'.

I would agree that what she was doing in her 180 days project probably was not software engineering, but what about what she is doing with YumHacker? If that isn't considered software engineering, then a lot of us here are not software engineers.

It depends. If she's relying heavily upon frameworks and canned tools (which is actually a good thing, because re-inventing the wheel is bad), it's entirely possible to build a website without doing any 'engineering'. I typically consider engineering to be algorithms, data structures, performance analysis, etc. Hard computer-sciency stuff ... which definitely has its place on the web - database developers, browser developers, operating system developers ... they are engineers. Websites like Amazon and Facebook also employ engineers, which is why they are able to release new toolsets capable of pushing the envelop in some way. Or maybe I've got it wrong ... I don't really know. I work on hard real-time embedded stuff for my day job (avionics platforms), so my perspective on web stuff might be a bit uninformed.

Re: My First Year of Coding

#66

Post by hootener »

mb_72 wrote: post #51

"I’m still dealing with a bit of impostor syndrome and it still sounds weird when I tell people I’m a software engineer..." That's because you aren't a software engineer, and if you are saying so then the feelings of being an impostor are entirely warranted. 'Coding' is one thing, 'engineering' is something different altogether. I'm afraid this falls into the 'you don't know what you don't know category'.

"That's because you aren't a software engineer, and if you are saying so then the feelings of being an impostor are entirely warranted."

At face value this assessment feels very unfair. Where do you draw the line? Experience -- is a year not enough? Deliverables -- is YumHacker not enough? Education -- is it lack of formal training that separates the engineer from the coder?

Is it the ability to build non-trivial software systems that makes a software engineer? And we should rely on whose definition of "non-trivial" to assess her engineering ability in that case?

I'm not saying you're wrong in stating she isn't a software engineer, but I doubt you possess the knowledge of her ability required to make such an assessment with any degree of validity.

Re: My First Year of Coding

#67

Post by m_mueller »

sergiotapia wrote: post #14

My younger brother went from not knowing what a or tag was to hand-making this in 2 months: http://www.midepo.com/products/6150-venta-bolivia-non-enim-t... Responsive, built using Ruby on Rails, bootstrap, jquery, etc. Any questions he had he could ask me and I would nudge him along, but it was 90% his determination that got him to where he's at now. Having a mentor helps. I hope at least someone is inspired by jenni…

@curbenthusiasm: you seem to have been hell banned - I can't figure out why.

edit: Really? Could the downvoter explain to me what's wrong with this comment? Are we supposed to just leave banned accounts to rot now?

Re: My First Year of Coding

#68

Post by sAuronas »

hootener wrote: post #66
mb_72 wrote: post #51

"I’m still dealing with a bit of impostor syndrome and it still sounds weird when I tell people I’m a software engineer..." That's because you aren't a software engineer, and if you are saying so then the feelings of being an impostor are entirely warranted. 'Coding' is one thing, 'engineering' is something different altogether. I'm afraid this falls into the 'you don't know what you don't know category'.

"That's because you aren't a software engineer, and if you are saying so then the feelings of being an impostor are entirely warranted." At face value this assessment feels very unfair. Where do you draw the line? Experience -- is a year not enough? Deliverables -- is YumHacker not enough? Education -- is it lack of formal training that separates the engineer from the coder? Is it the ability to build non-trivial sof…

This is a interesting post to me because I also started programming a year and two months ago. I took a much different approach because I wanted to be considered an engineer not just a "coder". I can say that I did not feel like one after three months of digging into Codecademy Code Year (yes, in three months). I didn't know how to build outside of their sandbox.

Then I dug deeper in Javascript, reading every book I could find until I knew all the pitfalls of the language firstclass functions, global namespacing, scopes, etc...Still did not feel like an engineer.

Dug into Objective-C (that's right...I skipped C) and struggled for three months to build my first app and launch it in the App Store (mostly because re-wrote it over and over not understanding the Core Data model issues I was having. Was I an engineer yet...NOT.

That's right, I skipped C. So, I went back and got into the C book and everything I could find on design patterns, etc.

One year in, trying to really build an app that does not suck and really get close to the metal with some assembly (yes, I know, I have been working backwards!) And do I consider myself an engineer now...? Kind of. Not a good one if I am (despite being a "hellava engineer" graduate from GaTech).

I may not consider myself one for the rest of the year. But that's me. I wish I had her feel for what she is. She posted to HN and I didn't so I give her props for that.

Re: My First Year of Coding

#69

Post by pedrosorio »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #57
noonespecial wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much code must one coder write, before we call them engineer? Yes'n how many roads must a man walk down...

Its not code its algorithms, backus naur notation, software patterns, etc. The differences betweem an architect and an civil engineer is the math.

Yes, because civil engineer = architect + math, what a good analogy (hint: no, it's not, until people that have studied civil engineering and not architecture start winning the Pritzker regularly).

Do you also think the difference between a doctor and a biomedical engineer is math?

P.S.: I agree with your first point, but the analogy you chose is really bad. Self-taught coder isn't to a software engineer what an architect is to a civil engineer.

Re: My First Year of Coding

#70

Post by dang »

samstave wrote: post #58
kevrone wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 I've been coding professionally for 6 years and I am inspired by this. To me this is not a story about programming or gender, it's a story about grit.

Gwit. Twue gwit ithz wut gathwers us here twoday.

Sam, come on. No crap comments on HN, please.

(I edited this to make it less harsh.)

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