11–20 of 50 posts
Short and to the point. Good stuff. Hey guys, in your opinion, what language should I learn first? I am new to this and I will be going to codecademy and other sites. What is the most useful language for web apps and such. For example, what if I wanted to build useful things like my own product hunt.
The semi-colon thing to me really drives home the point that when I'm faced with a problem, I just feel so very stupid, so very incompetent, and then when I have a breakthrough (usually by letting my subconscious work on the problem for a while), I completely forget that I ever had a problem at all, and completely forget all of the misery I suffered through while it was a problem.
Two other ways to have your breakthrough: take a walk, and rubber duck debugging: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging I've solved so, so many tough bugs while writing an email for help. I had to explain the problem with enough depth, and try all the things I know they'd say "have you tried X", before I sent it--and the solution appeared. That's RDD, essentially, with the fallback of getting help if you…
Many articles talk about that. It's when you defocus from a task (pause, shower, walk, talk) that your brain starts to get new insights.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pick one of PHP / Python / Ruby for the web. With ruby, use rails. With python, use django. With PHP, be wary! (but it's incredibly widespread, so it should still be included here). Learn javascript as well, as you can't avoid it entirely. Use codecademy for the bare essentials, explanation, and then jump to framework-specific tutorials. Build your knowledge from there by building new sites or new features on your ex…
> With ruby, use rails. I'd suggest Sinatra instead, and find some smaller ORM to go with it. There's _way_ too much magic going on in Rails to make for a good place to start.
I recommend rails mostly because of the incredible number of helpful resources. Also because you can use it as a beginner, ignore the magic while you don't understand it, and later try to understand it.
I committed rails code my first day on a new job with no prior ruby/rails experience, though I had used Django before. Pretty green there, as well.
A little over a decade later after finishing my time in the military I made a conscious decision to study and get into information security. I guess I was more confident by then. I've only been at it a few years, learning fundamentals, coding, actually not a ton of security stuff yet since that in itself is an advanced topic and I thought if I was going to aim for infosec I wanted get there the right way.
Now I'm working a contract job for a local guy, making him tools to automate his business and have been pestering a security company about a job as well (for the past few years in fact). My most recent correspondence with the technical lead at the security company yielded me a "maybe later this year".
I know I'm far behind many of my peers in knowledge but I've just taken that simply as more reason to work harder at it than them. I'm starting to see results I honestly never thought I would, and I am starting to get the impression that I can be good at this.
I was lucky enough to be born in a country where the biggest obstacle to my success is myself. Keep that in mind when you're doubting yourself.
About the frustration, programming involves many dimensions: syntax, paradigm, linguistic idioms. Some people can't think in a language, while they fly in another. Write your ideas down, try to refine them in logic/math, don't lose them, the programming language you use won't matter soon when you have a clear mechanic of your solution.
I think the most important thing for me was finding a mentor. I was fortunate enough to get an internship at a startup with little programming experience (possibly out of a sheer determination to learn).
The engineer I paired with was able to answer all of those early "roadblock" questions — the ones that you can't really Google since they seem so obvious to someone with experience that no one writes about them (this was before Codeacademy, etc.).
Anyway, finding a mentor can be tough, but I've generally found that friends who program are pretty eager to talk about it or willing to help out. I've been programming for a while and I'm still learning stuff all the time.
I learned how to program when I was 30. I actually found it really natural and easy. Now (one year later) I work fulltime as the programmer for a small games company. So age is certainly no barrier.