I’m 37 year old wanting to unlearn computer science, let’s make a deal.
A 37-year-old wanting to learn computer science
91–100 of 190 posts
Re: A 37-year-old wanting to learn computer science
#92Honestly if i were to pivot from computers to anything else it would be a skilled trade. Electrician , Mason, Plumber in that order . My father was a electrical engineer but all of his older family/ cousins were Taylors , carpenters and in the general garment business selling clothes, Its not easy work but i toil on cs stuff and have nothing to look at, for a sense of accomplishment.
Re: A 37-year-old wanting to learn computer science
#93The things described as the goal of the OP are not Computer Science, they're mostly Software Engineering/Development. Even though there is overlap Computer Science is mostly math, completely irrelevant to setting up static blogs or web servers and somewhat relevant to developing applications. A more accurate title would have been "wanting to learn software development and the relevant bits of computer science which h…
Was surprised to not see this mentioned earlier in this HN post. Author seems to be conflating software development with computer science. Making a bunch of apps isn't going to provide a solid foundation in CS which usu. includes topics such as linear algebra, discrete mathematics, calc (at a minimum differential and integral), data structures, algorithms, etc.
What's surprising to me is that I've received downvotes for mentioning this.
Re: A 37-year-old wanting to learn computer science
#94Do you want to learn computer science or do you just want to get a job in tech? Because those are two very different things.
Learning CS means starting with the math, particularly for folks long out of school (the famous quote, "Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes"). If that doesn't sound fun then you probably just want to spend your time with coding tutorials instead. CS is... a science. Software is engineering.
Re: A 37-year-old wanting to learn computer science
#95What I took away from your post was not that you want to learn computer science but that you want to build things with software. If so, now is a really exciting time because it's never been easier for people without a CS background to go from idea to working software.
As a UX designer, I've worked with developers for a long time, so I've picked up knowledge along the way. I've read some books and merged some PRs at work but nothing that would qualify me as a developer.
What am I'm having a lot fun with right now though is building with LLMs. If I have an idea, I'll just throw it into Replit or Claude Code to see what it comes up with and then decide if I want to pursue it further.
My 2 cents: learn by building. Start working down your list of ideas and dig deeper into questions and topics that come up. Will probably keep things more interesting than slogging through a course.
Re: A 37-year-old wanting to learn computer science
#96It sounds like you want to learn computer science but aren't planning to become a software developer. I think of this as similar to "I want to learn to play the guitar, but don't want to be professional musician"...to which I say - hell yes, go for it!
We are similar in a few ways. I love to build things and I also spent the early part of my career as a mathematics / computer science teacher (mostly web development...HMTL, CSS, JS). After teaching for six years, I transitioned into business (marketing) and now I'm employed as a website manager where my understanding of high level coding concepts allows me to communicate with our development team, but I'm not actually writing the code (though in most simple situations, I probably could).
To satisfy my need to build things and write code, I work on small, side projects. I recently built a near pixel perfect clone of Frogger with Pygame to better understand game design best practices and leverage ChatGPT for the first time (though, to be clear, none of the code was written by ChatGPT).
My advice to you would be as follows...
1. Try to have a narrow focus so you aren't overwhelmed. Don't go into this with a "I'm going to learn EVERYTHING!" attitude. Have a specific focus.
2. There are a lot of fundamental "best practices" that need to be automatic. Build lots of smaller projects and doing so with a language like Python (so you aren't also wrestling with the idiosyncrasies of the language) is a good approach.
3. Of course continue working. If you aren't planning to be a professional software developer, is there another choice?
4. Use AI, but NOT to write your code. Rather, use AI to critique your work bearing in mind the responses you get aren't always perfect. And sometimes you won't realize that until a month or two later and that's ok.
5. Find others with similar aspirations to partner with so you can hold each other accountable. Going on such a journey alone has always doomed me. With life, family, work, etc, I've never been able to sustain my enthusiasm.
6. Writing some crappy, novice coded little nothing project thing is infinitely better than writing nothing. Movement is critical. Just keep coding. There will be good days and bad days, but don't stop moving.
Feel free to reach out if you want to chat about my experience. As I said, I see a number of parallels. Best of luck!
Re: A 37-year-old wanting to learn computer science
#97Early 40's and just made a switch from ChemEng to DevOps 4 years ago, after having been nerd-sniped into the field constantly while I wore "multiple hats" at Former Employer's (scope creep applies to job functions as well, huh?).
I've been meaning to do a write-up or something, but there's never a right time. I'd write more, but I'm at a festival r/n. Hit me up if you want some (hopefully useful tips).
Re: A 37-year-old wanting to learn computer science
#98I've been re-learning CS (programmed as a kid, then missed getting a minor in CS in college after the service by one 300-level course which wasn't being re-offered when I needed it) and then just did (La)TeX and AppleScript for my day job, but am now trying to create a tool for CNC which is quite different from those which have existed previously, and one thing which has helped a lot is MIT OCW: - the Python courses…
Thank you for sharing these valuable resources. I am already on to the OCW Python course and SICP textbook. How did you start on these resources? Did you start reading them because you needed them in your current project Or did you read them because you thought they will be useful for your project?
Also, install chicken as the scheme interpreter, but do the classical SICP.
After you got it installed, run:
chicken-install srfi-203
chicken-install srfi-216
(import scheme) (import (srfi 203)) (import (srfi 216))
Re: A 37-year-old wanting to learn computer science
#99If you want the most job opportunities I would bet on the web and database backend. Almost all mid to upper size businesses has some custom made web solutions which stores to an SQL Database. There are lots of sub-areas within this domain like cloud, security, different databases, scalability, authenticatin, front end and the list goes on
I'd say focus on databases, especially as someone nearing middle age.
Front end/web work is a treadmill. Web frameworks come and go. SQL and relational databases have been a foundation for applications since the 1980 and that is still the case today. The investment you make in learning something like Postgres won't be something you have to throw away in 5 years when the next hype cycle around a new framework comes around. Basically after 30+ years in software, the one thing that is still relevant and that I can still do well today is work with relational databases. I got tired of running the web framework treadmill and am now years behind whatever people are using these days.
Edit: also linux/unix shell utilities. Awk, sed, grep, xargs, and others form a surprisingly capable toolbox for filtering and shaping data, and they all date back many decades. I've never had to throw away my experience using these tools.
Re: A 37-year-old wanting to learn computer science
#100If you wanted to work on rebuilding engines or modding cars, would you go get your phd in physics?
The answer actually is, maybe, depending on what you want to do.
You’d certainly want to understand and have a strong intuition for physics, but knowing how to solve a differential equation isn’t going to necessarily make you a better mechanic. Understanding the concepts of what you’re solving might, but the raw technical calculus skill will most likely not
I’m not saying this to discourage you, simply throwing it out there for you to keep in mind as you embark on your journey. A lot of the coding that happens day to day is SV is more akin to a mechanic working in the ship than a physicist in the laboratory (or in front of the chalkboard) and I guess it’s just my way of saying to stay vigilant that what you’re studying will enable you to achieve your goals.
Only you know them and you very well may need extra physics for the type of work you want to do - definitely not saying that’s not possible
A lot of people in the valley make people feel like if they don’t have a cs degree they aren’t real coders and shouldn’t be allowed within 50 miles of contributing code. Just so you know this is bullshit :)
I’ve come across all types of devs - from high school drop outs to egghead Phds and I’ve seen awesome and terrible work from both camps