Why Learning to Code Is So Damn Hard • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Learning to Code Is So Damn Hard

#31

Post by ThrustVectoring » Wed, Feb 04, 2015, 6:55 PM UTC

puranjay wrote: post #21

kcole16 wrote: post #8

For me, by far the hardest part was finding the time. Learning to code on nights and weekends, when you've spent your most productive and focused hours at your job, is a nightmare. It wasn't until I was actually hired as a dev that I started to hit a steep learning curve, and I attribute much of that to spending 50 of my best hours/week coding, rather than maybe 20 of my worst.

I have the same issue. I've set aside 10pm-2am every weekday to learn how to code, plus entire Saturdays and Sunday mornings. I can, at most, manage 20-25 hours, usually when I'm already bogged down. I've been toying with the idea of quitting everything and going all-in for 3-6 months. Would that be 100% retarded or just about 70% retarded? I can live with 70%.

You'd be an excellent candidate to get a lot out of a coding bootcamp. If you have like $10k in savings or money you can borrow, you'd be in an excellent position to try something like that.

PM me if you'd like to talk about my experience with one.

Re: Why Learning to Code Is So Damn Hard

#32

Post by eriktrautman » Wed, Feb 04, 2015, 6:59 PM UTC

austenallred wrote: post #19

The hard thing about learning to program is that to create anything even vaguely useful you have to learn a million things in parallel. Say you wanted to build the simplest of Rails apps - you're simultaneously learning not only what the terminal and a text editor is, but how unix commands work, what an MVC framework is, probably a little of HTML and CSS, database migrations (maybe some SQL), asset management/pipelin…

>I don't think you can ever truly learn to program without saying, "I don't care, I'm building this."

This is a great point because it's easy to get stuck in analysis paralysis. There's always a tension between needing to stretch out and build something just beyond your capabilities and then having to backfill some of the fundamental knowledge you missed along the way so next time you can reach further.

Re: Why Learning to Code Is So Damn Hard

#33

Post by sleazebreeze » Wed, Feb 04, 2015, 7:00 PM UTC

puranjay wrote: post #21

kcole16 wrote: post #8

For me, by far the hardest part was finding the time. Learning to code on nights and weekends, when you've spent your most productive and focused hours at your job, is a nightmare. It wasn't until I was actually hired as a dev that I started to hit a steep learning curve, and I attribute much of that to spending 50 of my best hours/week coding, rather than maybe 20 of my worst.

I have the same issue. I've set aside 10pm-2am every weekday to learn how to code, plus entire Saturdays and Sunday mornings. I can, at most, manage 20-25 hours, usually when I'm already bogged down. I've been toying with the idea of quitting everything and going all-in for 3-6 months. Would that be 100% retarded or just about 70% retarded? I can live with 70%.

I had the option to quit to work on learning to code for 3-6 months and I chose to bite the bullet and stay employed. I woke up at 4am to get in a few hours of coding before work and kept my working hours to a minimum so I could have a few hours after work to code. Weekends were 12+ hours of coding both days. It doesn't leave a lot of room for social life or other activities, but the job search was a lot less stressful knowing I still had a paycheck coming in instead of burning through my savings. YMMV!

Re: Why Learning to Code Is So Damn Hard

#34

Post by cturner » Wed, Feb 04, 2015, 7:02 PM UTC

"... was convinced that the seemingly normal programmers I ran into were actually sociopaths who had experienced, then repressed, the trauma of learning to code."

It's true. The saddest part is that we forget who we were before we crossed over, and lose the ability to sympathise with people who haven't been through it.

Re: Why Learning to Code Is So Damn Hard

#35

Post by cossatot » Wed, Feb 04, 2015, 7:02 PM UTC

In my experience, one thing that can make the path feel more progressive and monotonic is having a set of problems that need to be solved, with a wide range of difficulties. This provides consistent short-term gratification while also providing long-term gratification and utility.

For me, as an earth scientist, there have always been small calculations or simulations that are quite valuable, even though they are not overly difficult or complex. This provided the motivation to learn basic Matlab. As my skills and ambition grew, and I learned new languages and techniques, the class of problems that I wanted to solve grew in scope and complexity. I also learned to recognize new problems and their probable solutions as my tools developed. Programming changed the way I look at the earth, and at statistics, personal finance and a range of other things in which quantification is enlightening.

In contrast, I have had a hard time picking up new languages or programming paradigms when I don't have an immediate need. I've spent time mucking around on various 'learn to code' websites, and read and sometimes completed tutorials on databases or Haskell or whatever, but it feels very different: meandering, non-essential, hard to gauge in scope (how much do I need to know to be useful, how deep is the water really), hard to link up to the rest of my life. Programming for me is a powerful and enjoyable means to many ends, but not something that I am inclined to do for its own sake.

I think if I had said, "I want to learn to program so I can build web apps" without actually having a simple and truly useful web app that needed to be built, I would very quickly move on. If I had said, "I want to learn to program so I can find a new job that pays more money" I would stick with it for a bit longer but it would be incredibly frustrating, because it doesn't seem like there is a very straight path without formal guidance (such as going to school of some sort).

I suspect many people feel the same, but I don't necessarily know how smaller, less formal education systems can work on that. Students always need some amount of self-motivation, and useful results are a long ways off in some areas.

Re: Why Learning to Code Is So Damn Hard

#36

Post by ForHackernews » Wed, Feb 04, 2015, 7:04 PM UTC

pjbrunet wrote: post #29

It's only hard once you realize the commitment required, partly due to the pace of innovation, the depth and breadth of information available and the fact you're competing with the entire world, not just people in your city/state, and there's nobody regulating the influx of competition. A significant chunk of your life will be spent looking at a screen and there's a chance you could end up with a crippling case of ca…

C'mon, all of those things you listed (brain surgeon, rocket scientist, lawyer) are WAY harder and more expensive/time-intensive to get into than software engineering.

If you feel like your knowledge is getting flushed away with a new platform, then you've been learning the wrong things.

Re: Why Learning to Code Is So Damn Hard

#37

Post by aarant » Wed, Feb 04, 2015, 7:05 PM UTC

Haven't read the article so it might be just random rant.

I find most articles confuse 'code' (producing code) and 'program' (making programs).

I would argue the first one is relatively easy once you grasp concepts and turing-cturing-completness.

The later however takes years if not decades.

Re: Why Learning to Code Is So Damn Hard

#38

Post by aarant » Wed, Feb 04, 2015, 7:05 PM UTC

Haven't read the article so it might be just random rant.

I find most articles confuse 'code' (producing code) and 'program' (making programs).

I would argue the first one is relatively easy once you grasp concepts and turing-completness.

The later however takes years if not decades.

Re: Why Learning to Code Is So Damn Hard

#39

Post by Sakes » Wed, Feb 04, 2015, 7:06 PM UTC

puranjay wrote: post #21

kcole16 wrote: post #8

For me, by far the hardest part was finding the time. Learning to code on nights and weekends, when you've spent your most productive and focused hours at your job, is a nightmare. It wasn't until I was actually hired as a dev that I started to hit a steep learning curve, and I attribute much of that to spending 50 of my best hours/week coding, rather than maybe 20 of my worst.

I have the same issue. I've set aside 10pm-2am every weekday to learn how to code, plus entire Saturdays and Sunday mornings. I can, at most, manage 20-25 hours, usually when I'm already bogged down. I've been toying with the idea of quitting everything and going all-in for 3-6 months. Would that be 100% retarded or just about 70% retarded? I can live with 70%.

It depends. What are your goals, what is it you want to do with coding? i.e. Why are you teaching yourself to code?

Re: Why Learning to Code Is So Damn Hard

#40

Post by Spearchucker » Wed, Feb 04, 2015, 7:06 PM UTC

pjbrunet wrote: post #29

It's only hard once you realize the commitment required, partly due to the pace of innovation, the depth and breadth of information available and the fact you're competing with the entire world, not just people in your city/state, and there's nobody regulating the influx of competition. A significant chunk of your life will be spent looking at a screen and there's a chance you could end up with a crippling case of ca…

It was never hard for me. I started by typing BASIC game listings from magazines into a ZX Spectrum. Then learnt LOGO, BASIC and Pascal at school. And then taught myself QuickBasic in the army. Started a CS degree but dropped out after learning how depressing Z-routines in COBOL were. Got a job. Taught myself Assembly. Got a job writing tariffing engines for a cell phone billing system, learnt C, Informix and Visual Basic. Then Java, .Net, VB.Net and C#.

I loved every bit of it. And still do.