We asked 15,000 people how they're learning to program • Hacker News Board

Re: We asked 15,000 people how they're learning to program

#71

Post by quincyla » Thu, May 05, 2016, 7:52 AM UTC

gjkood wrote: post #34

In the Demographics and Socioeconomics section, I see 1% of respondents speak Chinese, and no data shown for China in country of citizenship. Also it says 8% have served in the military and a picture showing what I presume are soldiers in the Chinese military (I could be wrong). Is it that there are few survey respondents from China? Is the survey accessible from China or blocked by the great firewall? Just curious s…

The survey was accessible behind the great firewall.

We had 88 responses from Chinese nationals. 137 respondents were native Chinese speakers.

We're still working on building a sandbox for the dataset, so I can't answer your questions at the moment, but you're welcome to dive in to the data. Or you could create a GitHub issue asking this and we'll try to create a visualization: https://github.com/FreeCodeCamp/2016-new-coder-survey/issues...

Re: We asked 15,000 people how they're learning to program

#72

Post by cm2187 » Thu, May 05, 2016, 7:52 AM UTC

chlee wrote: post #20

hunterwerlla wrote: post #3

I know code camps are usually web focused, but I'm really surprised about the lack of any lower level, desktop, or non web back end options for "which roll are you most interested in". Coming from a CS background I was also surprised that more people were interested in front end web development than back end web development, because most of the people I interact with hate front end web development with a passion.

Front-end programming is very visual. You can immediately see/sense/feel what you have developed/program, so there is a expedited positive feedback loop. This can appeal to beginner programmers because it gives a immediate sense of satisfaction and accomplishment vs. backend programming where you see lines of output spit back to you in a terminal.

I may agree in term of first experience, but after a while (when you pass the "first time I..."), UI programming is a lot more tedious than back end. It requires so much boiler plate code to just achieve little things, having to worry about weird CSS behaviours, fighting winforms that do not do exactly what we want, obscure WPF syntax, etc. I feel that backend you only focus on your problem and get to an "ideal" solution quicker, which is more gratifying.

Re: We asked 15,000 people how they're learning to program

#73

Post by quincyla » Thu, May 05, 2016, 7:56 AM UTC

forrestthewoods wrote: post #63

I Wish their data set wasn't so biased. 72% of respondents found freecodecamp helpful? Well that answers almost everything about who they're talking to! Doesn't seem like a fair representation of people who are learning to code. There are 40,000 computer science graduates per year. So perhaps 160k to 200k CS majors at any given moment. Those people learning program doesn't seem to be represented at all in this survey…

These are all things you can filter for in the data. 13% of respondents, for example, were computer science grads, so filter just for them and you still have what will be statistically significant dataset for most questions.

Re: We asked 15,000 people how they're learning to program

#74

Post by honua » Thu, May 05, 2016, 8:02 AM UTC

chlee wrote: post #22

On a tangential note. I've spoken to a few hiring managers who have expressed disappointment with some of the hires that they have made straight out of bootcamps (w/o prior CS knowledge or fundamentals). Specifically, the bootcamp graduate are smart, motivated, and know their specific toolsets well. However, they tend to struggle a bit if you place them outside their comfort zone. Is this a sentiment that others have…

Well, they don't have a lot of experience yet.. given time I imagine that they'd grow their zone of comfort

Re: We asked 15,000 people how they're learning to program

#75

Post by epa » Thu, May 05, 2016, 8:24 AM UTC

cgriswald wrote: post #51

MollyR wrote: post #23

It's funny. I'm seeing this, while I'm thinking about dropping out of this career. I don't want to be one of those girl dropout stats, but lately I'm feeling a desire to start a family. fwiw I just passed 32 and I don't know if I want to do programming/software engineering jobs anymore. I'm hoping its just a phase.

I had a little bit of a career, had a kid, and became a stay-at-home dad. After working from home for a bit, I ended up letting the career slide and ultimately end. Along the way I realized I didn't really care for it. Now I'm back in school in an unrelated field and realizing that coding can be an asset in the field. I'm working on a personal coding project as a way to get back into things. My physics prof believes…

In the context of a small shovel, not that impressive. Put that into context of a large diesel earth mover used to efficiently mine earth, it sounds different. Its all relative.

Re: We asked 15,000 people how they're learning to program

#76

Post by rifung » Thu, May 05, 2016, 8:42 AM UTC

wc_cs wrote: post #35

> 58% have earned at least a 4-year college degree. In the UK (possibly other countries), you can get a Bachelor's degree in 3 years.

Actually you can do this in the US too, but they are still called 4 year colleges here.

Re: We asked 15,000 people how they're learning to program

#77

Post by marincounty » Thu, May 05, 2016, 8:50 AM UTC

MollyR wrote: post #23

It's funny. I'm seeing this, while I'm thinking about dropping out of this career. I don't want to be one of those girl dropout stats, but lately I'm feeling a desire to start a family. fwiw I just passed 32 and I don't know if I want to do programming/software engineering jobs anymore. I'm hoping its just a phase.

If you can pull it off, I think it's great. When I was your age, I couldn't imagine sitting in front of a computer. I couldn't imagine sitting. (I know a lot of you love it--I'm just talking about my preferences.)

As I've aged, its gotten tolerable. I put up small websites. Never considered myself a Programmer.

I have found I am interested in a lot of things, but never found any career I loved. My father never understood me. He literally loved being a union electrician. He would talk shop on his days off. I never understood why. He used to be interested in so many things, but once he got that comfortable, union job--it was all about being a electrician. I'm definitely not my father.

Good luck!

Re: We asked 15,000 people how they're learning to program

#78

Post by frequent » Thu, May 05, 2016, 8:56 AM UTC

MollyR wrote: post #23

It's funny. I'm seeing this, while I'm thinking about dropping out of this career. I don't want to be one of those girl dropout stats, but lately I'm feeling a desire to start a family. fwiw I just passed 32 and I don't know if I want to do programming/software engineering jobs anymore. I'm hoping its just a phase.

life can be in phases - http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2722

Re: We asked 15,000 people how they're learning to program

#79

Post by ciaranm » Thu, May 05, 2016, 9:13 AM UTC

wc_cs wrote: post #35

> 58% have earned at least a 4-year college degree. In the UK (possibly other countries), you can get a Bachelor's degree in 3 years.

In Scotland, most* Degrees are 4-year courses.

*technically, the 4th is an 'honours' year, and you can graduate without honours after 3 years. This isn't that common for people who aren't struggling.

Re: We asked 15,000 people how they're learning to program

#80

Post by kraftman » Thu, May 05, 2016, 9:24 AM UTC

PavlovsCat wrote: post #26

By wanting to do something, then finding out how I need to do it. I never learned anything just to learn it, it was always for direct use. Once I made a bunch of Renoise plugins in LUA. Never had used LUA before, never used it since, I don't know any LUA. I know what I use while I use it, so to speak. So I don't really know if I ever "learned programming", I probably wouldn't call myself "programmer" and surely not d…

It's 'Lua' btw.