Software Development and Programming Careers (Official Discussion Thread)

[Duke Wy Lin]

Im goin thru a bootcamp now to learn. 100Devs, really cool. Just started learning backend(Node.js) stuff last week(only two "classes" a week via twitch).

How long have you been on it bro?

I have a law degree that I took, because I didn't know what else to do with my life lol. Terrible idea. I hated every minute of it, but kept going because I didn't want to be a flunky. Got into coding a few months back (currently learning JS) and I seem to enjoy it. Time flies when I'm working on problems etc.

I'm following curriculum from a boot camp, but it seems like most boot camps try to make you a full stack developer, and I've been told it's best to focus on the front end because it's easier to get your foot inside the door that way. Most companies won't allow a noob anywhere near their back end. Or so I've been told.

 

[EzekelRAGE]

How long have you been on it bro?

I have a law degree that I took, because I didn't know what else to do with my life lol. Terrible idea. I hated every minute of it, but kept going because I didn't want to be a flunky. Got into coding a few months back (currently learning JS) and I seem to enjoy it. Time flies when I'm working on problems etc.

I'm following curriculum from a boot camp, but it seems like most boot camps try to make you a full stack developer, and I've been told it's best to focus on the front end because it's easier to get your foot inside the door that way. Most companies won't allow a noob anywhere near their back end. Or so I've been told.

Been in since January, it's free btw. It is a bootcamp for Web Development and getting you a job. Just saw your post that you want to do web development/front end too, so maybe check some of the early yt/twitch vods. We literally just started backend last week. All time before was spent on frontend with HTML/CSS/JS, with JS taking the most time.

The dude running it, Leon specializes in this stuff. His real job(Resilient Coders) is training people in 20weeks to get hired. He is based in the Boston area and has been doing it for 10 years. He started this bootcamp/cohort #100Devs because he wanted to help ppl(specifically POC) get into Tech while at home.
I think this is like his third cohort since the pandemic hit, his couple other cohorts only had like 2-300 ppl, this one has thousands though.

I think what sets 100Devs apart from other bootcamps is the community. Currently like 3-5k ppl in this cohort, his biggest one yet. But the ppl helpful as hell.
Link to discord here: Join the Learn w/ Leon & Friends Discord Server!

Leon says that the difference between his stuff and other bootcamps is other bcs just have you do projects, they don't help you find a job.

Link to #100Devs good interview questions to know
Link to #100Devs professional checklist to help people get hired. With templates.
Class on getting a job. Mentions that networking can play a big role in getting a job in the tech industry.


I know you said you were doing JS now, he recently did a back JS review for us that started from the basics to covering DOM manipulation/objects
The link to that class is here(link to twitch vod), it's 8 hours, but it's a total review. If you join the discord, you can download the class materials he is using in the vod.

I also like it cuz he gets into his motivational bag sometimes. Started vid at timestamp im talking about.

 

[Duke Wy Lin]

^thanks a lot for the resources bro! Will definitely check it out. I heard about this boot camp a while back, but by then I had already started learning from Colt Steele's Udemy course (based on material from his boot camp), and I decided to just stick to what I was doing. So far it's been great. Will definitely look into 100devs tho!

 

[null]

JS is an abomination ... but it is the most popular language so i suppose

 

[Duke Wy Lin]

JS is an abomination ... but it is the most popular language so i suppose

It's essential for front end web development

 

[Rev Leon Lonnie Love]

Anyone here a self-taught developer? It seems like most of you studied CS.

I am. The only programming class I ever took was an "intro to computer science" elective I took back in 2009 for a semester and was taught in java. We used an IDE called JGRASP (jGRASP Home Page) for assignment submission. I was an Economics and Math major at the time so after that semester where I got a C for that class, I forgot everything I "learnt" and never touched anything related to programming until December 2016 when I watched a youtube video talking about the python language. I got curious and wanted to know a programming language to help me easily write code write for my research. I downloaded the MIT open courseware found here: A Gentle Introduction to Programming Using Python | Electrical Engineering and Computer Science | MIT OpenCourseWare, ploughed through it and then downloaded this Data Structures and Algorithms book online: https://github.com/ankuanand/Algori...ata Structures Using Python [Release 3.0].pdf

That 2 months learning python on my own, I quickly realized I always had an affinity for tech and computers. I just never had the opportunity to learn that about myself until I was already an adult. From then on I fell right into the rabbit hole and never looked back. Soon after, I discovered git and github via an internship I took. I wanted something to keep me coding outside of work so I can continue learning new things and that's how I got into open source software development. I got hooked and have been a contributor to some well known libraries ever since my first attempt got merged as a new feature to one of the most popular python libraries.

Fast forward to today, I make good money because someone randomly emailed me offering me a job because I contributed an important patch to a library their company uses. Never actually got that job, but they helped me get my current gig cause they believed in me that much


Its been an uphill battle with many bouts of feeling worthless, but looking back it was all worth that first step of scratching that itch and not being afraid to fail


I'd say if you are really interested, then go ahead and self-teach; maybe even register for some online course if you feel that is gonna help. I never paid a cent to earn this skill I have now, I just relied on pirated textbooks, free online resources and tons of practice while reading other highly respected people's code to learn how things are properly done in practice. I still do all that to this day because I can't ever allow myself to not stay hungry. I need to clear 500K salary by the time I retire from this field.

 

[Regular Developer]

JS is an abomination ... but it is the most popular language so i suppose

It's essential for front end web development

Facts and facts, lol. Which is why I got my ass out of web development when I had the chance. Its good to know, but I'm definitely a backend developer. And I hope I never have to see NodeJS powered backend again. Once I discovered python, I always learn towards that, with C# as my backup.

 

[EzekelRAGE]

I wanted something to keep me coding outside of work so I can continue learning new things and that's how I got into open source software development.

How do the open source software stuff work? The cohort I'm in wanted us to have a freelance client or do volunteer with open source stuff.
Looking at the open source route looked kinda intimidating. I aint want to fukk up other ppl's shyt

 

[Regular Developer]

... I wanted something to keep me coding outside of work so I can continue learning new things and that's how I got into open source software development. I got hooked and have been a contributor to some well known libraries ever since my first attempt got merged as a new feature to one of the most popular python libraries.

...

Shout out to you and other folks contributing to open source python libraries. Much appreciated. I'm definitely more of a end user work person. I don't think I'll ever have the mind for working on open source projects, but I really enjoy the talking with less technical people about their issues, and figuring out how to put the right libraries together to get them their solution.

 

[Rev Leon Lonnie Love]

How do the open source software stuff work? The cohort I'm in wanted us to have a freelance client or do volunteer with open source stuff.
Looking at the open source route looked kinda intimidating. I aint want to fukk up other ppl's shyt

What are you generally interested in when it comes to software development or science in general? Poke around online or github for popular software that is used in a field you are intrigued by. Read their code of conduct, they usually have guides for first-time potential contributers. Look at the issues they are having or things they would want help with (shyt like writing documentation for them goes a long way and can help you understand the internals of the software better than other people who use it daily, which in turn will make it much easier for you to contribute fixes and new features). Most software projects nowadays use git to coordinate development from various contributors so you must learn it (many free resources for this on youtube and the net). Get comfy with just sitting on your computer and reading other people's code in these libraries you are interested in contributing in. Trust me it will teach you much more than a textbook can as far practical development best practices.


I should note that open-source software development is about giving and learning software development for its own sake or because you want the world to use better software. Do not get into it as a way to find work because not everyone gets employed to write open-source software.

If you have specific questions then feel free to ask away, but I think this should give you an idea of what you need to get involved.

 

[Rev Leon Lonnie Love]

Shout out to you and other folks contributing to open source python libraries. Much appreciated. I'm definitely more of a end user work person. I don't think I'll ever have the mind for working on open source projects, but I really enjoy the talking with less technical people about their issues, and figuring out how to put the right libraries together to get them their solution.

I was an end user myself until I was frustrated by the poor perfomance of a function from a python library I was using for my research. I poked around to see how it was implemented and to my surprised realised it used an inefficient algorithm to do what I wanted when it could be optimized for my use-case and become MUCH faster (Luckily I had learnt about this particular algorithm in my grad school classes). I opened an issue pointing this out to the developers of the library, and after a couple of back and forths among them, they decided it was worth having an extra argument in the function to allow the user to choose an algorithm based on their usecase. I volunteered to implement this feature myself and they were happy to let me try.

I went ahead and did it and submitted my first pull request to an open source library. After many rounds of review and requests from the developers to re-write some logic in my code and watching them fight amongst themselves about whats the best approach to structuring my contribution, my PR finally got merged into the library at about the 3 month mark after submission.

To me 3 months was "super quick" for a contribution like that to be merged into the library as i'd seen people's pull requests sit there for years go through many rounds before finally getting merged. Most never even ended up getting finished. That confidence boost is all I needed to get hooked and I kept coming back and eventually expanded to contribute in other libraries.

Eventually I mustered up the courage to write my own libraries from scratch....one of which is doing well as a niche library and is one of the only 2 libraries that bring its kind of functionality in the python space (it is magnitudes of times faster than the other one and much easier to install too) . So im happy to just be able to contribute after i've used other people's software to make my academic life easier.

 

[EzekelRAGE]

What are you generally interested in when it comes to software development or science in general? Poke around online or github for popular software that is used in a field you are intrigued by. Read their code of conduct, they usually have guides for first-time potential contributers. Look at the issues they are having or things they would want help with (shyt like writing documentation for them goes a long way and can help you understand the internals of the software better than other people who use it daily, which in turn will make it much easier for you to contribute fixes and new features). Most software projects nowadays use git to coordinate development from various contributors so you must learn it (many free resources for this on youtube and the net). Get comfy with just sitting on your computer and reading other people's code in these libraries you are interested in contributing in. Trust me it will teach you much more than a textbook can as far practical development best practices.


I should note that open-source software development is about giving and learning software development for its own sake or because you want the world to use better software. Do not get into it as a way to find work because not everyone gets employed to write open-source software.

If you have specific questions then feel free to ask away, but I think this should give you an idea of what you need to get involved.

Thanks for the tips. Will look to get my feet wet in trying open source next week.

 

[Dr. Acula]

How do the open source software stuff work? The cohort I'm in wanted us to have a freelance client or do volunteer with open source stuff.
Looking at the open source route looked kinda intimidating. I aint want to fukk up other ppl's shyt

You can look for projects on Github looking for contributers. Look for a project in a language and tackling a project you're interested in. Then look at their open issues and see if you can fix it. Then submit it for review.

 

[F K]

I think I tanked the interview flopped the first trivia question then got into my own head.oh well, onwards and upwards

 

[null]

I think I tanked the interview flopped the first trivia question then got into my own head.oh well, onwards and upwards

what was the question?