On finally learning to program at the age of 40 • Hacker News Board

Re: On finally learning to program at the age of 40

#71

Post by rimliu » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 10:52 AM UTC

ajuc wrote: post #59

I think Turbo Pascal was the perfect language to learn programming. It has a simple core, a static type system without much bells and whistles but that's more solid than the C crazyness, it doesn't force the student to learn 10 different concepts at the same time before writing HelloWorld (unlike Java and other OO languages), but it teaches thinking about types and not only values (unlike scripting languages). Sadly…

and it had an amazing IDE for the times. My first useful programs were written in TP in the late 90-ties.

Re: On finally learning to program at the age of 40

#72

Post by jholman » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 11:01 AM UTC

mirekrusin wrote: post #19

mlindner wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that's quite an interesting take. This is the first time I've seen someone come into programming with their first real learned language being Rust. I'll be awesome to see more of this in the future. It gives me encouragement to properly learn Rust as well (my problem with learning languages is that I never actually want to write anything in any language so I can't actually learn the language without finding a us…

Write those things top to bottom https://projecteuler.net/archives

Project Euler is so wildly overrated. Not everyone loves number theory, almost nothing in programming is number theory, and yet a large portion of those problems are number theory.

IMO, adventofcode.com/ is much more well-rounded.

Re: On finally learning to program at the age of 40

#73

Post by thepicklestork » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 11:13 AM UTC

swyx wrote: post #61

darkteflon wrote: post #12

I'm in this boat. Finally started programming in 2018 at age 38 after a lifetime of playing around with computers as a hobby (thanks, dad!) and a first career in a completely unrelated field, as an attorney. The linked article is about learning for pleasure, but there are also challenges associated with trying to enter the field as a second career. The technical complexity, of course, and the scale of what needs to b…

learned to code at 30 here after a previous life in finance. doing well 4 years on. if i can help anyone in this thread just reply!

Please elaborate! I just turned 30 and made it a goal to attempt a serious career change. Currently I’m 4 months in clocking 3+/hrs a day of (html,css,js) study. How long did it take before you felt comfortable throwing your hat into the career ring? I have tons of questions, but I would love to hear your story first. Thanks!

Re: On finally learning to program at the age of 40

#74

Post by joelbluminator » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 11:27 AM UTC

throwaway17_17 wrote: post #23

darkteflon wrote: post #12

I'm in this boat. Finally started programming in 2018 at age 38 after a lifetime of playing around with computers as a hobby (thanks, dad!) and a first career in a completely unrelated field, as an attorney. The linked article is about learning for pleasure, but there are also challenges associated with trying to enter the field as a second career. The technical complexity, of course, and the scale of what needs to b…

I thought for a moment I blacked out and posted to HN without knowing it. I too am a 38 years old attorney who learned CS/Programming late in life. I haven’t had any success in finding relevant job openings for my particular coding knowledge, but I keep looking. Just knowing you exist gives me hope I may still be able to break into tech, at some level. And given that Hurricane Laura just decimated my city ( and my ho…

If you're capable of becoming a lawyer you're capable of becoming a programmer. 38 ain't that old. But why drop being attorney?

Re: On finally learning to program at the age of 40

#75

Post by throwaway883399 » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 11:41 AM UTC

darkteflon wrote: post #12

I'm in this boat. Finally started programming in 2018 at age 38 after a lifetime of playing around with computers as a hobby (thanks, dad!) and a first career in a completely unrelated field, as an attorney. The linked article is about learning for pleasure, but there are also challenges associated with trying to enter the field as a second career. The technical complexity, of course, and the scale of what needs to b…

I'm studying law now and considering this path. I would be really appreciative to hear your advice on moving from law to computer science. If you could send me an email to the address in my profile, I would be very grateful. Thanks!

Re: On finally learning to program at the age of 40

#76

Post by interestica » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 11:48 AM UTC

Stratoscope wrote: post #22

This story was rather poignant for me, as I am, let's just say quite a bit over 40. I learned to program when I was in high school and noticed a Teletype 33 ASR in a corner of the math classroom. I knew about Teletypes from being a ham radio operator, but I thought they were just for sending and receiving text over the air or over a phone line to another Teletype. You could either connect to the other Teletype and ty…

Thanks for this!

Re: On finally learning to program at the age of 40

#77

Post by mcv » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 11:53 AM UTC

throwaway17_17 wrote: post #23

darkteflon wrote: post #12

I'm in this boat. Finally started programming in 2018 at age 38 after a lifetime of playing around with computers as a hobby (thanks, dad!) and a first career in a completely unrelated field, as an attorney. The linked article is about learning for pleasure, but there are also challenges associated with trying to enter the field as a second career. The technical complexity, of course, and the scale of what needs to b…

I thought for a moment I blacked out and posted to HN without knowing it. I too am a 38 years old attorney who learned CS/Programming late in life. I haven’t had any success in finding relevant job openings for my particular coding knowledge, but I keep looking. Just knowing you exist gives me hope I may still be able to break into tech, at some level. And given that Hurricane Laura just decimated my city ( and my ho…

I think there's a lot of room for programmers with deep domain knowledge about some topic. If writing software for lawyers or law-related issues, I'm pretty sure experience as a lawyer can be very useful.

Re: On finally learning to program at the age of 40

#78

Post by iamericfletcher » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 11:59 AM UTC

Here I am, 30 years old learning to program for the first time. Specifically, the R and Python languages. I love it, but can't help and think how I would have got on it much earlier in my life if it wasn't for an alcoholic household and the abundance of veiled criticisms I received from my family for trying to use computing as an escape from the toxicity. Never too late!

Re: On finally learning to program at the age of 40

#79

Post by jamesbfb » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 12:02 PM UTC

Hey, another another person who started “later” in life checking in. I’m 36 but started when I was around 29. The common theme here seems to be “grew up around computers but fell into a different career”

My start was working for a company in a developing country who were struggling to find a way to escape spreadsheet hell. I was a business analyst but decided it surely couldn’t be that hard to program and create some kind of system myself! A month or 2 studying “Head First PHP” and I started work on a system to help the company manage their import, export and container yard operations. A few months later I was done. To my knowledge (and absolute horror), they are still using it to this day.

I’m back in Australia 3 years ago, happily working as a senior dev, but reading some of the posts here really brings back memories of the excitement I would get when those “ah ha!” moments would strike during those initial first months.

Re: On finally learning to program at the age of 40

#80

Post by mathattack » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 12:03 PM UTC

darkteflon wrote: post #12

I'm in this boat. Finally started programming in 2018 at age 38 after a lifetime of playing around with computers as a hobby (thanks, dad!) and a first career in a completely unrelated field, as an attorney. The linked article is about learning for pleasure, but there are also challenges associated with trying to enter the field as a second career. The technical complexity, of course, and the scale of what needs to b…

Knowing the problems to solve is HUGE. If you know enough programming to identify 10X developers and point them in the right direction, you can create a ton of value.