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Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years (1998)

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Re: Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years (1998)

#61

Post by chaorace »

calibas wrote: post #28

> The key is deliberative practice: not just doing it again and again, but challenging yourself with a task that is just beyond your current ability, trying it, analyzing your performance while and after doing it, and correcting any mistakes. Then repeat. And repeat again. I think this is the really important part, you have to challenge yourself and go outside of your comfort zones to keep learning.

This is true, but I think it's better put this way: The key is making it a hobby.

Expertise comes with experience and experience will only come if you keep coming back. Some people can force themselves to toil endlessly, but here's some wisdom for mere mortals: start by searching for a part of software that you can truly love, then cultivate it.

Re: Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years (1998)

#62

Post by jesse__ »

syndicatedjelly wrote: post #2

Great article. At 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week - 10,000 hours of practice will take 250 work weeks to achieve. That’s about 5 years of nearly non-stop programming. Realistically, it takes closer to 10 years to achieve that goal.

Realistically, it depends how much you enjoy programming. If you program a lot, you can easily hit 3k hours a year..

Most days I program 12 hours a day, most weeks 6 or 7 days a week. On a day I'm feeling very motivated I'll program for 18 hours. I've been doing this for close to 10 years. Occasionally I'll take a month 'off' and gear down to 3-4 days a week, still long days. By my conservative estimates, I hit about 3500h/year.

I work this much because I fucking love programming, and there's nothing I'd rather do ( other than my daily surf in the mornings, of course :)

Re: Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years (1998)

#63

Post by dasil003 »

bee_rider wrote: post #38
ricardo81 wrote: post #10

I can't source the video that I watched 5-6 years ago [0] but it made a point about the increasing numbers of programmers and how the majority had less than 5 years of experience. It made sense in the context of IT/web continually having a larger involvement in our lives. [0] https://youtu.be/ecIWPzGEbFc?si=A4qBR2YdX-0CV2bM thanks to comment by wild_egg Can safely say after 20 years that there's maybe a bunch of info…

It is a rapidly advancing field because it is young, so it makes sense that we’d accumulate a lot of ephemeral information. It feels like we’re still in the alchemist days. Eventually the chemists will come along. They’ll systemize our ad-hoc observations and jettison a ton of them. Until then… Neuton was an alchemist and he still made some pretty big contributions.

I agree with the first part, but not sure about the second. I believe software is much more engineering than science. The challenge is in organizing the bits. Most of the things learn, debate and design in software are more less arbitrary structures created to facilitate our own cognition. The hard science behind computers is much more cleanly abstracted away, compared to, for example, chemical engineering. For that reason, I don't believe software advances in the same way that natural sciences do. It's much more social in the sense that groups rally around different ideas and implementations, and wherever that energy goes also shapes the new ideas to bloom on top.

Put another way: I think almost everything in software is arbitrary. Certainly some ideas are better than others, but on balance everything is a tradeoff, and I don't really expect for some powerful new discoveries or ideas to reshape the industry towards more structure and efficiency. I think it's more likely that AI replaces human programming entirely (although I dont think that's likely either).

Re: Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years (1998)

#64

Post by smogcutter »

calibas wrote: post #28

> The key is deliberative practice: not just doing it again and again, but challenging yourself with a task that is just beyond your current ability, trying it, analyzing your performance while and after doing it, and correcting any mistakes. Then repeat. And repeat again. I think this is the really important part, you have to challenge yourself and go outside of your comfort zones to keep learning.

In education theory this is known as the “zone of proximal development”.

Re: Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years (1998)

#66

Post by brigadier132 »

calibas wrote: post #28

> The key is deliberative practice: not just doing it again and again, but challenging yourself with a task that is just beyond your current ability, trying it, analyzing your performance while and after doing it, and correcting any mistakes. Then repeat. And repeat again. I think this is the really important part, you have to challenge yourself and go outside of your comfort zones to keep learning.

This seems to be true of all human development. Running, lifting weights, learning. It's all about progressive overload.

Re: Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years (1998)

#67

Post by [deleted] »

calibas wrote: post #28

> The key is deliberative practice: not just doing it again and again, but challenging yourself with a task that is just beyond your current ability, trying it, analyzing your performance while and after doing it, and correcting any mistakes. Then repeat. And repeat again. I think this is the really important part, you have to challenge yourself and go outside of your comfort zones to keep learning.

[deleted]

Re: Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years (1998)

#68

Post by joseda-hg »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #17
teaearlgraycold wrote: post #13

I’ve had a number of people approach me, at work and elsewhere, asking how they too can get one of those programming jobs. I always mention the timeline I was on, having started learning as a kid, making it a major hobby, getting a CS degree, internships, etc. and people are surprised and disappointed there’s no quick path. Or is there? Has anyone here done one of those 0 to 1 bootcamps with success?

Haven't done one, but have hired out of them. Limited data conclusion: just like traditionally trained developers it's hit or miss. Best results: some other "classic training" (like physics or chemistry or engineering) with a desired career change == advanced junior with an accelerated learning curve. If you want to add motivated newbies to the parts of your software where pure programming is not as critical they can…

Did a 2-year, there's people that graduated there that to this day can't answer FizzBuzz, in that same group, there was a marine biologist that was looking for a change, I'm saddened that the former will probably be what people think when they see our diploma

Re: Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years (1998)

#69

Post by avgcorrection »

teaearlgraycold wrote: post #13

I’ve had a number of people approach me, at work and elsewhere, asking how they too can get one of those programming jobs. I always mention the timeline I was on, having started learning as a kid, making it a major hobby, getting a CS degree, internships, etc. and people are surprised and disappointed there’s no quick path. Or is there? Has anyone here done one of those 0 to 1 bootcamps with success?

You tell people who honestly want to get into professional programming that you have done this your whole life with the implication that this is the way? That anything less is “bootcamp” delusion? No wonder they get deflated. Of course they can’t go back in freaking time to when they were kids and get subliminal Programming Pearls from their wet nurse.

And it’s also just wrong. People get into professional programming with... less experience than that. You might have never met anyone in your particular bubble but they do exist.

Re: Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years (1998)

#70

Post by syndicatedjelly »

jesse__ wrote: post #62
syndicatedjelly wrote: post #2

Great article. At 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week - 10,000 hours of practice will take 250 work weeks to achieve. That’s about 5 years of nearly non-stop programming. Realistically, it takes closer to 10 years to achieve that goal.

Realistically, it depends how much you enjoy programming. If you program a lot, you can easily hit 3k hours a year.. Most days I program 12 hours a day, most weeks 6 or 7 days a week. On a day I'm feeling very motivated I'll program for 18 hours. I've been doing this for close to 10 years. Occasionally I'll take a month 'off' and gear down to 3-4 days a week, still long days. By my conservative estimates, I hit about…

That’s great to hear. I said “realistically” because most people don’t program for 12 hours a day. I love programming, but I love other hobbies too. Everyone has the same 24 hours in a day :)
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