Software Development and Programming Careers (Official Discussion Thread)

[Spin]

Thanks for the recommendation. I'll have to put it on my list of books to read. I'm always interested in the best ways to sort through information to get the essentials, because there is just so much information these days that you can waste a ton of time on frivolous things.

Nice to see you guys still sticking with the coding. I admit in the past two months I have gone in and out. One thing that has me excited again is Wordpress. I took a class and now see how I can at least get some projects done while still learning. It does require some basic PHP, but since learning Javascript it makes sense for the most part already.

I too got caught up in trying to memorize everything and it just made me frustrated and not productive. BTW Codecademy has added two new website projects that I'm going to check out. Once is making a basic version of the Airbnb site. I feel the projects really help bring everything together.

 

[kevm3]

Nice to see you guys still sticking with the coding. I admit in the past two months I have gone in and out. One thing that has me excited again is Wordpress. I took a class and now see how I can at least get some projects done while still learning. It does require some basic PHP, but since learning Javascript it makes sense for the most part already.

I too got caught up in trying to memorize everything and it just made me frustrated and not productive. BTW Codecademy has added two new website projects that I'm going to check out. Once is making a basic version of the Airbnb site. I feel the projects really help bring everything together.

Learning PHP shouldn't be too hard for you after learning Javascript. Larry Ullman makes some great PHP books. That actually brought up a very interesting point. I hear all kinds of programmers deriding PHP and saying how PHP is evil and yada yada, but it brings me back to the point that at the end of the day, people want something that works. Facebook was created with PHP and cdbaby, which was a site for indie artists to sell their music, was created using it. It wasn't some super elegant solution using one of the preferable languages like C#, etc. I actually think I will go forward and pick up some PHP because it shouldn't be too hard to learn after Javascript, and I'll also need it if I want to do AJAX. I could use Node.js, but node.js is quite new and not the easiest thing to learn... I'll still learn node, but I think adding php would open up my job opportunities even wider. I considered ruby, but I'm not overly fond of how in Ruby you can do things like use variables without declaring them. That's a bad habit to transfer to a language like Javascript.

 

[kevm3]

I don't want to fill up the IT careers with programming talk, so time to get back in here and post various observations, especially on me learning Javascript and the DOM. Lately, I've been going through the DOM, which is the document-object model. In essence, it's the API that allows you to interact with the web browser using Javascript. Figuring this thing out is a pain, as it has very little logical flow. Everything is essentially a set of node objects, but the way to access and manipulate the nodes is quite unpleasant. For example, if you want to insert a paragraph element with some text into the document, here is one way to do it:

//create paragraph node
var paragraph = document.createElement("p");

// create text node
var textnode = document.createTextNode("testing 1,2,3);

//append the textnode to the paragraph node
paragraph.appendChild(textnode);

//append the paragraph to a section in the html document with an id of main
document.getElementById("main").appendChild(paragraph);

As you can see, text is it's 'own' node, which you have to append to the paragraph element. There's another way to do it, but then again that way is more performance heavy. All that did was insert a paragraph element with the text "testing 1, 2, 3" into the document. It's a bit of typing, so it's easy to see why jQuery is so popular, since that shortens the process and makes element selections easier.

 

[Sane]

Congrats. Have you made anything though?

 

[kevm3]

Congrats. Have you made anything though?

yeah

 

[kevm3]

Something I've found useful while programming is to stop worrying about the 'ultimate language' that you have to learn. There is no such thing as a perfect language, and if you really make this a career, you will most likely end up learning numerous ones, and any additional language will be easier to learn than your first one. You can waste a lot of time reading up on the 'perfect language' to learn, but when it's said and done, programming languages are just like anything else in life. Some people will love a particular language, and a group will hate that additional language. It's similar to food. You won't know what you like until you start trying it for yourself. Start experimenting with different languages and see which one clicks with you. I heard a ton of bad things about Javascript, but when I tried it, it was the one that clicked with me, and I've been running with it ever since. Spend less time reading other people's opinions on what is the best language and get out and start experimenting with different ones and start trying to figure out what you want to do.

Figuring out what you want to do is the hard part, but once you start figuring that out, you can begin the process of whittling away the inessentials. Through my journey, I wanted to learn Javascript, PHP, C#, SQL, Ruby, etc. It took me a while to really start whittling down what was the best for me at this particular moment. Right now, I'm doing Javascript, and I'm even further learning to specialize now. I find that I prefer the server-side over the client side, so I've been spending my recent time learning node.js. It took time to find exactly what I want to do.

Another aspect that is very important, and I would go as far to say as one of the most important traits you can have while learning programming is persistence. At first, everything will seem like a bunch of gibberish, but slowly you will start picking up on concepts here and there and things will make more and more sense.

 

[kevm3]

Another observation I'd like to make is something that I find quite an annoyance. There's this trend going on that 'everyone needs to learn to code' and they have books out on learn such and such language in 24 hours or a month. I'm sorry, but that's a bunch of nonsense. Everyone isn't built for programming, and you have to dedicate time to it. Programming needs to be treated with the respect accorded to any other career. Would you believe a book that said, "Learn to be a CPA in 24 hours?" or "Learn accounting inside out in a month"? How about "Master Engineering in 48 hours"? With those, you expect to dedicate at least a couple of years if not more time just learning about the craft, and that's before you even do anything job-related. Programming is not a 'hustle.' If you're going to do it, dedicate some serious time to it and expect years of effort towards really getting skilled.

This leads me to another point. If you are looking towards programming to pursue as a career, stop being cheap. Stop looking for 'free' resources everywhere online. You got dudes that will have no hesitation on dropping 200 on a pair of Jordans, but want to look for 'free tutorials' or download some books off of a piracy site when it comes to something that could make them a living. Be willing to drop money and buy the best resources you can. Spend the $30 and get the top-rated books on whatever language you are learning instead of reading scattered blog posts. Don't cheap out on your education and also, give the authors some money who are spending time writing these books or making these videos to teach you how to do something.

 

[kevm3]

Something you will hear a lot in programming circles is 'spaghetti code.' Here is a nice blog post on what spaghetti code actually is:
https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/08/15/what-is-spaghetti-code/

Great read.

 

[keepemup]

Another observation I'd like to make is something that I find quite an annoyance. There's this trend going on that 'everyone needs to learn to code' and they have books out on learn such and such language in 24 hours or a month. I'm sorry, but that's a bunch of nonsense. Everyone isn't built for programming, and you have to dedicate time to it. Programming needs to be treated with the respect accorded to any other career. Would you believe a book that said, "Learn to be a CPA in 24 hours?" or "Learn accounting inside out in a month"? How about "Master Engineering in 48 hours"? With those, you expect to dedicate at least a couple of years if not more time just learning about the craft, and that's before you even do anything job-related. Programming is not a 'hustle.' If you're going to do it, dedicate some serious time to it and expect years of effort towards really getting skilled.

This leads me to another point. If you are looking towards programming to pursue as a career, stop being cheap. Stop looking for 'free' resources everywhere online. You got dudes that will have no hesitation on dropping 200 on a pair of Jordans, but want to look for 'free tutorials' or download some books off of a piracy site when it comes to something that could make them a living. Be willing to drop money and buy the best resources you can. Spend the $30 and get the top-rated books on whatever language you are learning instead of reading scattered blog posts. Don't cheap out on your education and also, give the authors some money who are spending time writing these books or making these videos to teach you how to do something.

I totally disagree.
And as a matter of fact, some European countries have added coding to the curriculum for students as old as 5 and upward. There will undoubtedly be people who prefer programming vs others and succeed accordingly (just like any other subject), but I think it's a wonderful idea to introduce everyone to programming.

 

[Type Username Here]

I totally disagree.
And as a matter of fact, some European countries have added coding to the curriculum for students as old as 5 and upward. There will undoubtedly be people who prefer programming vs others and succeed accordingly (just like any other subject), but I think it's a wonderful idea to introduce everyone to programming.

Just start teaching them the logic and concepts behind it early. That's a net gain from the start, whether or not they pursue coding. Introduce the language(s) during their early teens. Here in the US, we don't need Auto Shop, Typing, Wood Shop, Latin or Home Ec electives anymore. The world has changed.

 

[Regular Developer]

Just start teaching them the logic and concepts behind it early. That's a net gain from the start, whether or not they pursue coding. Introduce the language(s) during their early teens. Here in the US, we don't need Auto Shop, Typing, Wood Shop, Latin or Home Ec electives anymore. The world has changed.

OMG, typing as a class is such a horrible idea.

 

[Type Username Here]

OMG, typing as a class is such a horrible idea.

It's a horrible idea if it's done late, such as middle school or high school. In my opinion, there is no reason why a child needs to spend time learning how to write in cursive. Replace that with typing lessons in elementary. It's the year 2014.

 

[Regular Developer]

It's a horrible idea if it's done late, such as middle school or high school. In my opinion, there is no reason why a child needs to spend time learning how to write in cursive. Replace that with typing lessons in elementary. It's the year 2014.

Yes, I guess learning typing earlier would be cool, but I dunno, I think they'd have to make the class more engaging or just add it as part of a "computer" class. In elementary school, we we're messing with ms-dos programs (playing, not modding), which was way more fun than learning to type.

My typing class was basically "aaa space aaa space" repeated for every character. I mainly memorized the keyboard from online chat and games,

 

[Type Username Here]

Yes, I guess learning typing earlier would be cool, but I dunno, I think they'd have to make the class more engaging or just add it as part of a "computer" class. In elementary school, we we're messing with ms-dos programs (playing, not modding), which was way more fun than learning to type.

My typing class was basically "aaa space aaa space" repeated for every character. I mainly memorized the keyboard from online chat and games,

I understand where you're coming from. But there are also better ways to type. Having a kid go through a few weeks of familiarizing them with two handed, non-look typing only helps. Just throw that cursive shyt out the window.

 

[Regular Developer]

Any of you guys do work on UI/UX ?