Learn to Code, It's Harder Than You Think • Hacker News Board

Re: Learn to Code, It's Harder Than You Think

#151

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 5:25 PM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #109

lloyd-christmas wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I hate to be THAT cynical... my father is a doctor, and they've had issues with patients not understanding their paperwork. They had done studies to figure out the median reading level of their patients. It turned out to be an 8th grade level, so they adapted their paperwork. The patients still didn't understand it. It turned out that they were capable of reading at an 8th grade level, but their reading COMPREH…

"More than 300 studies indicate that health-related materials far exceed the average reading ability of U.S. adults." "90 million adults with limited health literacy cannot fully benefit from much that the health and health-care system have to offer." "A two-year-old is diagnosed with an inner ear infection and prescribed an antibiotic. Her mother understands that her daughter should take the prescribed medication tw…

[deleted]

Re: Learn to Code, It's Harder Than You Think

#152

Post by chad_strategic » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 5:26 PM UTC

TLDR:

I'm a self taught coder, due in part to the recession of 08. I would encourage anybody that has a desire an passion to learn, don't let anybody discourage you as there are a lot of "negative nellies" floating around out there.

If your long term career goal is to be CTO at a big company, then you should probably go school. Other wise there is plenty of room in the market for all types of developers/codes.

http://www.businessinsider.com/jack-dorsey-on-programmers-20...

Re: Learn to Code, It's Harder Than You Think

#153

Post by Alex3917 » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 5:29 PM UTC

bovermyer wrote: post #146

Alex3917 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd love to see the source you base that claim on. Like the government's official data on adult literacy? http://nces.ed.gov/NAAL/PDF/2006470.PDF After 1994 they got rid of the 'advanced' literacy ability category, corresponding to roughly the level academic journal articles are written at, because not enough Americans qualified. So currently the top literacy level is 'proficient', which is roughly the minimum leve…

First, thank you for providing a credible source. However, linguistic constructs in most programming languages are not what I'd consider advanced English. A C++ program is hardly written in Shakespearean style, for example. And many words in programming languages do not exist in English per se; e.g., "def" from Python is not a word. So, programming requires a more basic understanding of written English than you seem…

Sure. But the most advanced level of literacy they're measuring is just being able to read a newspaper written at an 8th-grade reading level. And that's actually below the level of most programming tutorials. E.g. even reading the Django documentation, which is known for being unusually clear and well written, is still much more difficult than reading an NYT editorial.

Re: Learn to Code, It's Harder Than You Think

#154

Post by vonmoltke » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 5:38 PM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #137

vonmoltke wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are overstating how easy it is to get interviews for development positions. From what I have seen, someone without some demonstrated coding experience, professional or hobby, won't even get the time of day from companies looking to hire developers. They will never get to the take-home assignment phase.

I think you're correct for tech startups and large companies, but not for dev shops or family businesses.

I think it holds true for dev shops that are not simply body shops as well.

As for family businesses, they rarely if ever hire software developers. They hire someone for a different role who can code, such as the "help wanted" sign I saw last week in Santa Fe looking for a sales clerk who could also maintain a small website front to back.

Re: Learn to Code, It's Harder Than You Think

#155

Post by dragonwriter » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 5:41 PM UTC

serge2k wrote: post #111

panglott wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excatly. There's a huge difference between "everybody needs to learn to become a professional software developer" and "everyone needs a higher level of software literacy, including basic coding skills" Lots and lots of office jobs involve stuff like updating content on a Django app or shoestringing together Excel VBA and Access stuff. There's all kinds of tasks where scripts and low-level automation would be useful.…

I would argue that neither of those statements is true. I think this idea that coding is some sort of silver bullet is ridiculous.

> I think this idea that coding is some sort of silver bullet is ridiculous.

Its not a silver bullet, but it is as a core component of developing of computer literacy, a broadly applicable foundational skill for non-menial jobs in the modern world, even if programming itself isn't a central duty of the job.

(In the right context -- though its possible to learn programming without developing much of this -- its also a valuable way, and perhaps the most accessible in terms of providing concrete feedback, to develop technology-neutral systems literacy, which is an even more broadly applicable, foundational skill.)

Re: Learn to Code, It's Harder Than You Think

#156

Post by lloyd-christmas » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 5:42 PM UTC

bovermyer wrote: post #146

Alex3917 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd love to see the source you base that claim on. Like the government's official data on adult literacy? http://nces.ed.gov/NAAL/PDF/2006470.PDF After 1994 they got rid of the 'advanced' literacy ability category, corresponding to roughly the level academic journal articles are written at, because not enough Americans qualified. So currently the top literacy level is 'proficient', which is roughly the minimum leve…

First, thank you for providing a credible source. However, linguistic constructs in most programming languages are not what I'd consider advanced English. A C++ program is hardly written in Shakespearean style, for example. And many words in programming languages do not exist in English per se; e.g., "def" from Python is not a word. So, programming requires a more basic understanding of written English than you seem…

I have to seize the opportunity:

http://stanford.edu/~mkagen/codepoetryslam/

Re: Learn to Code, It's Harder Than You Think

#157

Post by galfarragem » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 5:46 PM UTC

sbov wrote: post #78

mattmanser wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Err, yeah, you could work as a professional programmer if you wanted to. You can code. The whole point the article is trying to get across is that a lot of people are simply unable to learn how to code. You've learnt. You CAN become a professional. You just don't realize it. The step you've taken is the hard one. In fact, there's another big dirty secret in programming. A load of professional programmers aren't able…

There's a dirtier secret: A load of professional programmers are not able to make new programs. A load of professional programmers are not able to modify existing programs. And a load of professional programmers are not able to finish programs. Almost no-one is good at all 3. Most are extremely bad at least one of these. Lots of people who are "good" at making new programs are actually pretty bad.

Does HR know this? I'm afraid not.

Re: Learn to Code, It's Harder Than You Think

#158

Post by bdcravens » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 5:46 PM UTC

Cshelton wrote: post #37

I think a large number of your 'self-taught' results come from the fact that developing software is a profession where you always have to be learning, or you won't be good. I have not met any programmer who has said competently (and who actually are) I know everything about X. There is always learning to do in this world, and in most cases, you are either learning as a group, on the job training, or self taught. To a…

Many "professional" educations require continued learning to maintain your license. While I don't think a "programmer license" is a good thing, a voluntary way of demonstrating this would be good

Re: Learn to Code, It's Harder Than You Think

#159

Post by lloyd-christmas » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 5:52 PM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #137

vonmoltke wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are overstating how easy it is to get interviews for development positions. From what I have seen, someone without some demonstrated coding experience, professional or hobby, won't even get the time of day from companies looking to hire developers. They will never get to the take-home assignment phase.

I think you're correct for tech startups and large companies, but not for dev shops or family businesses.

I disagree slightly in that vast majority of tech startups don't have any money. They need people they don't have to pay. What better way than to give everyone who walks by a flyer? Comparatively, dev shops need to be able to get another customer, so they need to produce something that does at least work regardless of whether or not it scales. They need people who can build something right out of the gate or the clients don't pay the invoice. They don't have the time to spend training someone.

Re: Learn to Code, It's Harder Than You Think

#160

Post by acconrad » Fri, Dec 04, 2015, 5:53 PM UTC

vinceguidry wrote: post #42

acconrad wrote: post #17

Hard programming is harder than you think. Coding schools are mostly teaching CRUD web development and a watered-down version of data science aimed at business analysts, which isn't that hard. You're not going to get folks lining up to take an embedded systems, graphics, or compiler bootcamp.

Web development (it's more than just CRUD) is hard. Even with the best web development framework, the state of the art in tooling, you're looking at at least a year of focused study before really being able to take a job. It doesn't require hard math, but it's still hard in that the sheer number of languages, tools, best practices, technologies is daunting. And they keep changing. My father is an electrician, after l…

I can appreciate the difficulty - I'm a full stack web developer by trade, and I've built multiple full stack web app side projects (everything from setting up and deploying S3 on CloudFlare, issuing IAM Amazon permissions, to writing React, all the way to Elixir modules calling C scripts). As @lukaslalinsky pointed out, it's a different kind of hard.

And still, given all of that, my head spins about the idea of building a compiler from scratch or writing MIPS.