Turning into a hacker aged 27 • Hacker News Board

Re: Turning into a hacker aged 27

#61

Post by yaovi » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 1:46 AM UTC

naithemilkman wrote: post #19

keeptrying wrote: post #14

I saw a another post just like this on Quora. I wonder if its part of a larger trend?

I have definitely seen a few other guys on HN posting about this as well. I think one of the commenters in this thread is another such person.

I graduated from a college in Kenya with a Computer Science degree. I understand OOP and other programming concepts but I feel I do not know enough when compared to my friends in the United States or other European countries. In college we mostly coded basic applications in either Vb.Net or C#. I am trying to become a better hacker by learning JS, C and Python. I am however finding it difficult as I cannot find projects that have bugs small enough for me to fix. I will be glad if someone could point me in the right direction

Re: Turning into a hacker aged 27

#62

Post by naithemilkman » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 1:56 AM UTC

baberuth wrote: post #56

Nai: Congrats for taking the plunge. Getting a faux internship will be immensely helpful. 18 months ago I did the exact same thing, begged a startup to let me work for them for free. Having someone who is invested in your success, interested in making you better, available for you to turn around and ask questions makes the process way faster. 18 months later, I still suck, but most importantly, my mentors taught me h…

Bingo. It's in a way risk mitigation as well plus I think it makes it easily to speak the same language as your future cofounder.

Yeah, I'm starting off with bitesized problems. :)

Re: Turning into a hacker aged 27

#63

Post by naithemilkman » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 1:58 AM UTC

JohnAllen wrote: post #39

guynamedloren wrote: post #6

I have huge respect for your drive and ambition, but there's something I just don't get (and it applies to many aspiring hackers/entrepreneurs, not just you). Why do you need a mentor? Why "cold emailing startups"? Why do you need somebody to "take you in"? Why not just hit the books and start hacking away? This isn't meant to be a personal attack on you by any means. I've noticed a huge movement toward "mentorship"…

Tl; dr: Somethings will probably be learned quicker if coding with a team/more experienced developers. Architecture/security/design/layout stuff that just takes years of experience to get really good at, for example. I'm learning to code also but have been learning primarily on my own. Perhaps a combination thereof would be optimal. Thanks for this comment. I started coding about 8 months ago and am enjoying it thoro…

Gogogo!!

Then share your experiences with HN!

Re: Turning into a hacker aged 27

#64

Post by wtracy » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 2:01 AM UTC

guynamedloren wrote: post #6

I have huge respect for your drive and ambition, but there's something I just don't get (and it applies to many aspiring hackers/entrepreneurs, not just you). Why do you need a mentor? Why "cold emailing startups"? Why do you need somebody to "take you in"? Why not just hit the books and start hacking away? This isn't meant to be a personal attack on you by any means. I've noticed a huge movement toward "mentorship"…

You could also do this by contributing to an Open Source project rather than a for-profit organization.

Look up Google Summer of Code. You won't get into the program if you're not a student, but it's a great jumping-off point for finding communities that are willing to nurture newbies.

Re: Turning into a hacker aged 27

#65

Post by naithemilkman » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 2:01 AM UTC

calvinfroedge wrote: post #24

I really like the idea of looking for someone to apprentice with. It's awesome that he found someone to take him in. "look to the master, follow the master, walk with the master, see through the master, become the master." I started coding HTML/CSS/Javascript when I was 15. When I was 18 I was working on a $14M project doing HTML & jQuery. 19 and 20 rolled around and I thought I was hot shit and could get away withou…

I think that mindset just generally applies to everything in life. I've been greatly humbled by my personal experiences at my previous startup. I came away with one clear though: I know shit about what I thought I knew.

Being in a room with smarter/wiser people than you can only make you move forwards. And do that enough, I hope to actually join the club someday. Heh.

And yea, SO rocks but I think a lot of newbies are taking advantage of it and getting shot down advice to wannabe hackers: do your homework first or get flamed on SO!

Re: Turning into a hacker aged 27

#66

Post by naithemilkman » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 2:04 AM UTC

rokhayakebe wrote: post #27

Started 1 year ago, but more seriously last August and did a handful of projects from the ground up to learn. http://democratic.ly , http://contexium.com . I think my most interesting work is an email based knowledge base app which I haven't released. I also did 2 other email based group communication applications. Overall I doubt I will ever be a programmer, but at least now when I think of an idea, I do not think "…

Thats exactly what I am aiming to achieve. Not CTO status but enough to hack out a prototype and THEN get a CTO to mend later on.

But dare I say in most people's eyes (e.g mine), you're definitely a programmer.

Re: Turning into a hacker aged 27

#67

Post by FiddlerClamp » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 2:24 AM UTC

Do you think it's possible to become a programmer at age 43? I've always loved computers and have written programs in BASIC, VB, WordBasic, and the like, but never got into C or OO programming.

Would anyone hire a freshly-minted 43-year-old developer? Or is this a fool's errand?

Re: Turning into a hacker aged 27

#68

Post by Rariel » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 3:19 AM UTC

corruption wrote: post #59

Rariel wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can do that with a lot of reading I think...

Theory != practical. It takes picking up the phone and face-to-face meetings in my experience.

I meant on the web, personal stories/advice/what-not-to-dos of entrepreneurs in the startup realm. I wasn't suggesting picking up a text book. My background isn't business per say, but I've learned a great deal by reading and researching. I also took several business related classes in law school so maybe that makes it easier for me to grasp.

Re: Turning into a hacker aged 27

#69

Post by dmoney » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 4:05 AM UTC

JohnAllen wrote: post #39

guynamedloren wrote: post #6

I have huge respect for your drive and ambition, but there's something I just don't get (and it applies to many aspiring hackers/entrepreneurs, not just you). Why do you need a mentor? Why "cold emailing startups"? Why do you need somebody to "take you in"? Why not just hit the books and start hacking away? This isn't meant to be a personal attack on you by any means. I've noticed a huge movement toward "mentorship"…

Tl; dr: Somethings will probably be learned quicker if coding with a team/more experienced developers. Architecture/security/design/layout stuff that just takes years of experience to get really good at, for example. I'm learning to code also but have been learning primarily on my own. Perhaps a combination thereof would be optimal. Thanks for this comment. I started coding about 8 months ago and am enjoying it thoro…

I've done a lot of maintenance programming, and I think it's a horrible way to start and a difficult rut to get out of. Fixing someone else's bugs all day is demoralizing and creates all kinds of cognitive dissonance about whether or not you actually hate programming. Write your own code and learn from your own bugs. If you have to, get a non-programming day job and write code on the side. At least that's what I would do if I were starting over.

Why is it a difficult rut to get out of? Because when people build teams to build systems from scratch, they look for other people who have built things from scratch. Then when they need someone to maintain it, they look for someone who has maintained other piles of buggy crap.

Re: Turning into a hacker aged 27

#70

Post by sayemm » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 4:27 AM UTC

heed wrote: post #49

sayemm wrote: post #9

I'm 25 years old and I'm pretty much doing the same thing. Taking time off to work on my programming chops instead of jumping into another idea again as the "business guy". It sure beats spending six-figures getting an MBA or going to grad school these days... and I'm learning a ton. I'm absolutely loving it. I learned Python first, then learned how to use linux and emacs, played with firefox add-ons to learn Javascr…

25 here as well. Started with python, moved to Javascript (building chrome extensions), and currently have been getting into obj-c/iOS building iphone apps. I'm working full time right now, and find it a little difficult to progress because I'm so tired after after work. I'm really trying to push myself though. I want to move to webapps (django) at some point, but have to scratch a few itches on the iphone platform f…

Nice, I'd love to get into iphone apps sometime later on too. Yeah, I bet it is tough with a full-time job, which is why I'm so glad I'm taking time off to really focus on this while I still can at this age.

Keep it up!