Post in this thread if you are a programmer or want to learn how to program. I am a successful employed programmer and I want to give back to my Jow Forums brethren, so I'm here to answer coding questions if you got 'em.
Hell, I'll even give homework help, I don't care.
How would you suggest getting started for somebody who's intimidated by coding? I've only ever done html for a class and it seemed a pain, but everybody says it's viable.
How much money do you make a year and in what position are you employed as ?
I wan't to make the big developer $
Suggestions for beginning with Python programming?
Remember robots u will never have time for lookmaxing if u code
I'm a year out of school with a BS in CS. I wrote a tiny compiler but have no internships or anything other than that. Can I get a job? How? Should I apply using a job aggregation site?
It depends on what you're interested in. HTML + JS is not too difficult, and it's easy to make something visual which is rewarding. If you want to make command line utilities Python is pretty easy too. To begin with, the easiest way to learn is to take a working example and modify it a bit to figure out how things work.
Junior Dev, $90k/year
this is Jow Forums not reddit, thanks
what are some things i should code first? i'm learning python and i want ideas for what to start with
>Junior Dev, $90k/year
Are you satisfied with this amount?
Do you think there is a way to substantially increase that amount?
*sniff*
hue-ridge-anal
get a good language
Hey.. you gonna finish those doritos?
See I think the easiest way is to find a utility you can make that helps you out. But modifying existing code will give you a working product pretty quick
The most important thing is get your foot in the door. Sign up on LinkedIn and start applying to as many places as you can.
If you're just starting out do like Hello World, then FizzBuzz, then maybe some kind of file renaming utility, then maybe a text based adventure
Yeah since I'm only two years out of school and in a low income area. I keep getting raises so I assume it'll keep going up.
As a student in college right now, around when should I begin looking for a job so I can secure one out of school.
Also where do you think would be a good place to move (outside of california cause fuck their overpriced everything) to get a good pay.
Any other tips, like what languages to learn, what things to aim for on my resume, etc?
Will they care that I haven't done anything except practice for a year?
I unfortunately don't have anything to show for it since my hard drive failed, except for one ~3000 semicolon C++ program.
You need to start looking for a job as soon as possible, get internships if you can. The great thing is you can literally go anywhere. Any city will pay you well relative to the area.
Well, can you answer interview questions? If you can FizzBuzz you're more qualified than >90% of applicants. Not joking.
>Junior Dev, $90k/year
These numbers just remind me how stingy my employer is, $55k in a place I've been at for 4 years
I'm at a point where I'm seriously considering leaving for a job out in a coastal city since living in flyover country sucks, how do you break into the job market in a big city?
How did you get a job, and did you go to university, if so what's your major?
Thanks for the advice user.
>Gay ass bot muted me for two seconds I hate it some times. Fucking robots aren't even here anymore
Alright, thanks for the advice on getting started. What interested you in programming?
You have to keep moving jobs. You will not get raises unless you jump ship. 4 years is plenty long enough.
Yes I went to university, bachelor's degree, and by applying. However my school sucked for CS. If you want to learn and do well you need to study outside of class.
No problem user, keep on truckin'
I'm planning on doing compsci in college. I have a tiny bit experience messing around with java tutorials on youtube, and some experience doing simplified javascript in some meme computer science class at school. Should I learn Java or javascript and HTML? I already own a java textbook, but I'd like to make something functional soon instead of just writing text and adding numbers in the console.
What project are you most proud of my dude?
How do you sell yourself to employers when you're just out of school. My resume can't fill a page.
learn web dev in your free time. your uni courses will likely be java.
>web dev
So, HTML and javascript?
yes, and while you're at it you will pick up css too. it's a breeze once you're familiar with javascript and HTML.
Alright. Thank you for your advice, user. Now I have an excuse to spend less time on this site.
Yeah, good luck user! I think it just scratched a puzzle solving itch and I love being able to write my own utilities and games. I've been at it for 10 years now as a hobby.
Learn JS, it's hot right now. Once you know programming in general learning other languages is easier.
I rewrote an Android video call app in two months for a company I worked for and it got glowing reviews. I also made a multiplayer online card game as a hobby project. That was fun. Not linking it cause it's connected to my name irl
List your coursework, hobby projects, education, and known skills. And list any jobs you've had even if it's McDonald's.
At this point I know I'd like to go in a direction that's more technically challenging, I did some hobby stuff with reverse engineering binaries a few years ago but I've always held off putting it on my resume since I figured 90% of places would have some uptight HR person who sees "reverse engineered copyrighted games" and immediately toss it in the trash (though my projects weren't to break the copy protection or cheat in MP games or anything) and the other 10% of places that would put those skills to use would expect someone who's already able to do that stuff at a professional level while I was mostly just dicking around and learning as I go; at this point I have no idea how to translate that stuff into a job where I'd get to do stuff that actually interests me more than staying the current course of writing mediocre business software that nobody cares about
Would it be too weird to ask my coworkers for references?
Are there any books or videos that helped you learn better to code than school did?
np have fun user!
Alright. Thank you user. I'll start ASAP. Are HelloWorld and FizzBuzz free, or should I just use youtube tutorials if I don't want to spend money?
i've always read o'reilly books, they're pretty alright (but seasoned programmers may disagree)
I think you could put it on your resume, you just have to word it differently. Like "Versed in reverse engineering and decompiling software." And no, just make sure you don't ask someone who will rat you out that you're looking for a new job.
Books never helped me too much, I did learn originally from "C++ for Dummies" back in the day. Recently I liked "Learn you a Haskell for Great Good" but I don't know if I'd recommend Haskell if you're just starting learning.
FizzBuzz and hello world are free to learn. It's more of a problem description you have to solve than a tutorial.
Alright. Thanks, user. I'll start learnin ASAP. Are there any youtube tutorials you'd recommend?
CS50 is a decent introduction, only use it to get an idea.
I would always start learning C. For me, its fucking absurd to be a "developer" and dont have basic notions in C.
And this is more personal, a lot of people are right now in the web developer wave. Maybe look at other things, ive working a couple years now with basically databases (SQL) and it can be quite interesting (and really well paid in Europe). Just look further than HTML and Javascript
I obviously wouldn't say "copyrighted!!" right up front but someone's bound to point it out sooner or later, I'm also not sure if presenting that sort of stuff and showing my work in an interview just comes off too dorky and nerdy to a point where it would hurt my chances more than helping
I'm starting to feel like my only options are making a Hail Mary move to one of the coasts with no professional network there to act as my "in" or just settle for the mediocrity and frankly shitty development practices I've been dealing with the last few years since I at least know I have something
Really the best thing to do is just look up tutorials when you're stuck on something.
I really don't think it would be that bad, user. I don't think they would even question what you're doing with the software there. Just start applying to places and I'm sure you'll ace the technical interview.
Programming student here.
How much experience do you need before you can get an internship? I'm finishing up my freshman year of uni and I want to get a new job ASAP
Alright then. I'll do that. I was planning on using information from tutorials to do my own projects, though, instead of just solving whatever problems fizzbuzz gives me.
Followup, will the skills someone gets from their degree generally be enough for employers, or are you expected to know more languages than you learn at school?
where are good resources to learn more abt socket programming and the likes in c++, also do you have any tips that could help when using files in object oriented programming in c++?
Networking is far more important than your hard skills. That said, it's generally expected that you pick up skills outside of the classroom.
>socket programming
beej.us
Can I get a general idea of the kind of work a programmer does? It's too late for me to switch majors and I'm doing decently well, but I just don't feel like I have enough passion to continue, especially with everyone I know going into business.
Codecademy.com. became fluent in python very quickly between this and personal projects.
thank you user, in an original way of course
Just keep looking. Most students get an internship their Junior or Senior year. I didn't, but the ones I know who did are making more money than I am.
Learning more outside of class will definitely help you. Find something about programming you think is fun and do that.
This user knows.
I do different things every day. Most of my time is spent writing code in several different languages across several different platforms.
I agree with this too.
As another user said, web development is a great place to start. I learned JavaScript in the fourth grade via codecademy, and simply moved on from there. Follow these steps and you will probably /makeit/.
Learn a good back-end language. You can't go wrong with Java/C#, and Python is in demand as well.
Learn some variant of SQL.
Learn basic terminal skills.
Learn basic Git usage.
You MUST network if you want to be successful, and develop your soft skills in parallel with your hard skills.
Would it be worth going back for a master's/PhD or getting a second degree in something like math if you've already been in the industry a few years? Are online programs/night schools an acceptable option or does the "prestige factor" of a traditional school make a significant difference? How can one manage to afford going back for grad school?
You don't have to be a codemonkey. I know plenty of developers who became sysadmins, went into information security/cybersecurity on both offensive and defensive sides, became project managers or business analysts, etc. Your degree in CS doesn't tie you down the way other degrees do.
>security
How do you make the jump from doing regular development to something like this?
Adding my approval of this. All good stuff. JavaScript is the most popular language right now though, so consider learning that.
Depends on what you want. I doubt it'd get you more money.
start with clojure, nothing easier
Clojure makes me happy cause we're finally getting a Lisp-based language we can use in production even if they kind of bastardized the Lisp idea a bit
Last time I used it was back when 1.2 was current, how much has it changed since?
i can't fucking find a job for shit
i have 5 years of work experience on my resume as a full stack web dev. applying 9 months: literally nothing. my degree is unrelated to the field
what i have years experience doing:
>php
>mysql
>javascript (especially jquery)
>html and css, obviously
i have experience with wordpress, but absolutely hate it
seems like every job asks for something different
i was thinking of getting a job in something different, but it seems like i'm not qualified for anything at all. i do want to do something in coding because it just comes so easily to me, i'm naturally good at it (i guess due to my minor aspergers)
fuck this shit, honestly
are you looking in the right places?
your experience is in shit that is way outdated. There are definitely still jobs, but it'll be maintaining older web stack shit.
If you want to stick with web stuff you can always learn react or angular and python/ruby for some well roundedness.
I haven't actually touched Clojure. I'm always wanting to try new languages though, recently I've been toying with Lisp and Erlang.
Your resume might just look unprofessional. I'd work on improving the language and wording. And tailor each application to the job posting. So if a job posting is asking about WordPress and PHP make sure you embellish those.
Also this, make sure you try and mention as much modern shit you know that you can. For instance I really haven't done *too* much shit with Angular and React but you bet that that is going on my resume cause it's hot right now.
>are you looking in the right places?
the entire state of florida
>your experience is in shit that is way outdated. There are definitely still jobs, but it'll be maintaining older web stack shit.
hmm, so people don't use PHP anymore?
>If you want to stick with web stuff you can always learn react or angular and python/ruby for some well roundedness.
react and angular. ok, i guess
and what purpose would i have to use these things?
People who work in development write shit that looks too complicated for me
I'm sure I could reach that level if I actually had a relevant job but right now I'm at uni doing comparatively easy projects for a bioinformatics degree
Is there anything I could do in my spare time to reach a high level of competence when I can't think of any personal projects to work on? It seems like the only people getting good at programming are beginners because it's fun and fast initially, people who have a career in programming, or people who are so passionate they do shit like hackathons
Maybe I shouldn't really be worried
I just hate feeling insecure around people who are obviously better than me
I started on 1.6 so can't say from 1.2. most recent feature i was waiting for was readable exceptions desu. Like any Lisp it has it's pros/cons. It's quick to develop, but a pain to debug when you work in a large team. I am not a fan of -> abuse, and too many devs are.
(You still have to define your own string to int fonction).
Erlang is fine. Give Clojure a chance tho. Get a quick and simple Lein tutorial and you'll be started in a matter of minutes.
PHP is definitely still used. But it's not going to be the kind of job that looks good on a resume. The reason you want to learn React or Angular is because it'll only take you like a couple weeks to get productive in it if you're competent and they're hot technologies right now
My mid-tier programming experience came from modding games. Look into that if it interests you.
did you miss the entire point of my post on purpose? By "right places" I mean "places that actually use your mid 2000s tech stack." No modern web dev shop is choosing to use PHP or jquery in 2019. Facebook isn't a valid counter example because it started in the mid 2000s and by now they've forked and use Hack anyway.
>and what purpose would i have to use these things?
to get a job?
>tfw trying to get a programming job
fucking sucks bro
thanks
I guess I could do something autistic like Minecraft mods to practice Java
A friend recommend I help with bug fixes for ss13 but when I looked into it it was a language I couldn't even identify
It was still a high-level scripting language similar to Python or something but I got scared and gave up anyway
fuck
He said he did a lot of it
Who employs JavaScript programmers, and what skill level do you need to convince them to employ you?
well i use the job websites, and i search by keyword. so "php developer" is generally what i focus on
>No modern web dev shop is choosing to use PHP or jquery in 2019
what use then?
PHP works perfectly fine for me. can't imagine what i would need otherwise
That does sound interesting. How should I get started into security?
i think languages are easier than code for me, even chinese/japanese have been easier for me.
do i need to a degree to get a webdev job?
Take an info tech class, fuck around with your own servers, try and hack into things (with permission, of course) and learn about how the internet works. I'm in InfraSec/DevOps, so I work closely with pure security people and am competent enough but nothing seriously brilliant. Maybe learn some pen testing tools? I find that stuff interesting and fun.
damn dude that's nice as fuck, assuming you aren't in the bay area lol
Is there a good searchable catalogue of freely available programs (ideally python but could be any language)? I have a feeling most of what I want to do has been done already and I'd rather not reinvent the wheel.
It's only autistic if you tell other people. Just do something you're having fun with.
Lots of people. All three of my programming gigs out of school have involved JS. 2/3 of them have involved Java. FizzBuzz is sometimes as good as you need to be.
>PHP and jQuery
You're showing your age a bit user. What I see nowadays is Node, Django, and Rails in the backend and Angular, React, and Vue in the front end. It isn't about what works for you, it's about what's hot right now. Be adaptable.
Probably. It's stupid, but probably. Worth a shot to try without one anyway.
With programming languages it's 90% grammar (syntax) and you only need need a tiny amount of vocabulary that you reuse over and over to achieve most of what you want. All of them are also in English so it's not like you need to memorise anything really complicated. For loops use "for", if statements use "if, else ifs are "else if" or "elif", variables are "var", constants are "const" etc.
With languages even if you know all the grammar you need to memorise hundreds or thousands of words to reach conversational fluency and then if you don't reuse them all regularly (meaning you have to be exposed to different situations constantly) you forget all of them
I used to live abroad a lot and speak some other languages fluently but now I've forgotten them almost completely and it SUCKS
I feel like grammar sticks around in your head a lot longer than specific vocabulary so programming is a lot easier to retain for me. When you have to learn the specific syntax for a language like putting a semicolon after a statement or using curly brackets/4-space indentation around blocks you use it one million times and it's impossible to forget. With actual languages you need to learn vocabulary for ordering food, travel etc. that you might use a few times in your life and then it's gone. Without immersion it feels impossible to remember
How much should I know of a certain language? I know it's best to know as much as I can, but say if you were trying to learn multiple languages at once like Angular and React + Node. What is say is your general stopping point for not mastery, but acceptable knowledge of a certain language?
so what should i learn besides this shit:
w3schools.com
learn-angular.org
Angular, React, and Node are not languages. Angular and React are frameworks and Node is a runtime. Learn JavaScript and it will bring you towards all three. Acceptable knowledge to me is, can you be productive in that language and perform tasks in that language if assigned them. Once you know general programming paradigms, nothing used in the work force is gonna look too alien.
Learn JS and Node and you'll be highly employable. Python is nice but jobs are scarcer. There are a lot of Java jobs out there too but the language is starting to show its age like PHP.
Different person
I already understand JavaScript since I had to pick it up for my project at uni
Is learning this "Node" thing easy after that?
I could google what frameworks and runtimes are but let me know if you wanna
I'm really lazy right now
>Learn JS and Node
JS as in javascript? or react or angular? i know basic javascript and jquery
i wish i had a reason to do this shit
back when i learned php, i was in high school just trying to make my own websites. then i got a job doing it, so i was paid
This is kind of autistic but I want to learn whatever the language is to make my own imageboard for a niche subject. I like learning shit and I know basic HTML and CSS, but not the actual programming. I assume I would have to learn PHP as well as some more HTML, is this correct? And what is the best online course for learning this? I don't mind if I have to pay a bit as long as it is quality for what I'm getting. Would probably still pirate though.
Node just lets you run JS in your command line like Python scripts.
If you know basic JavaScript then go ahead and move on to React and Angular. It really sounds like you're not passionate about this so it probably isn't gonna work out. If you wanna improve or learn you need to find something you're passionate about learning. You could even focus on learning modern PHP, an MVC framework like Laravel and brushing up on your SQL skills.
You could make an imageboard in just about any language I imagine, but I think imageboard softwares already exist. Still, if you want to make your own you could learn Python and Django or JS and Express or Ruby and Rails or PHP. (You'll have a lot of learning to do before you can make a Jow Forums clone but it'll be fun working towards that)
I'm a 19 yr old Java developer working in a large a corporation in a tiny city. And I make $75,000 a year. I dropped out of college after a year and went through an alternate route to employment.
My recommendation is that networking with potential employers and looking like you got passion or stupid shit like that is more important than actual coding skills when starting out at a junior position. They can train you how to code starting out but they can't un-sperg you.
>If you know basic JavaScript then go ahead and move on to React and Angular. It really sounds like you're not passionate about this so it probably isn't gonna work out. If you wanna improve or learn you need to find something you're passionate about learning. You could even focus on learning modern PHP, an MVC framework like Laravel and brushing up on your SQL skills.
i'm not passionate about anything that has to do with wageslaving, honestly. i quit my web dev job of 5 years because it made me miserable as fuck. i can't think of a single job that would be any less unenjoyable though.
thanks for the advice though, i guess. nobody else suggested that shit, they just kept saying "you must have a shitty resume" or whatever
might actually go through the same route like you
what languages do you use what resources did you use to learn them?
t. 20 year old college student debating on dropping out
4 years + a masters is too long for me to get into the workforce. I'm afraid everything I'd learn in college would become irrelevant by the time I'd graduate; let alone being stuck with a bunch of debt.
Yeah, the expectation of most college grads is that they can't even code. Just act charismatic and like you care and that'll get you pretty far.
Don't drop out but don't get a master's. A master's degree is not needed to get a job programming.
Thanks for the answer. What exactly are the general programming paradigms though? I've taken Javascript and C++ classes (and also python and C, but they didn't go in depth) and the topics usually stop at around trees, stacks, and queues. Is it just important to learn all the ADTs? Is something like creating a gui in JS also core to being proficient in that language?
I got into bioinformatics because I felt like they wouldn't trust me if I came out of biology saying I had experience coding
Was it useless? fug
To the person pushing react and angular, also add vue to your list. it's easier for someone that does vanilla js to jump to using a framework.
The main programming paradigms you'll encounter these days are procedural (think C), object-oriented (C++, Java), functional (Haskell, Lisp) and declarative (Prolog, XSLT), most modern languages like JS facilitate some degree of "mix-and-match" between these paradigms to suit your problem space and your programming style
You should try to at least get familiar with a wide variety of ADTs and know the operations they support along with the typical big-O runtimes of those operations, sometimes the difference between a program that runs efficiently and one that crawls while turning your computer into a room heater is as simple as appropriate choice of data structures and algorithms
The most common use of JS is to add interactivity to Web pages so you'll want to learn HTML at the least so you can have a page to add interactivity to in the first place
opinion on computer science as a major?
i have programming experience already a little because i'm a massive fucking autist. i wouldn't say i'm good at it but i've made some sorting algorithm visualizers, fft visualizers, etc in some beginner languages
i guess my only feat with compsci is that it's too general. without a specific area of expertise your skills might be hard to market to anyone with half a brain cell
vue is easy to pick up if you're already familiar with the paradigm, but I think it's pretty confusing for new programmers. In fact, I think most new web devs shouldn't learn a web framework (Angular, React, etc.) at all until they understand the basics of JS/HTML/CS. Unless you're writing a semi-complex webapp with dynamic data, you're not going to need one of these frameworks.
You could probably write a semi-decent Jow Forums clone pretty easily with only JS/HTML/CSS
CS as a major is nothing like a software engineering job. You're going to be learning a lot of theoretical material, which is mostly useless out in the field. Now, that's not to say you shouldn't do CS...you'll be learning things like Database normalization, runtime analysis, boolean logic, discrete math, computer architecture, etc. While 99.9% of programmers won't ever be using this stuff it's still very good to know generally, and personally I think anybody going into the field should be interested in these topics to some extent.
>t. software engineer @ Google
How did you get in at Google? At this point I'm strongly tempted to jump ship from where I am now since I've realized there is no way my career will move forward if I stay here
Here's a A.S. Computer Science at my local college
>Physics - Electromagnetism
>Mathematics - Calculus II, Discrete Mathematics
>Computer Architecture [Logic and Assembly]
>Data Structures & Algorithms
>Object Oriented Programming
imo the non-CS stuff is mostly irrelevant to programming
Thanks for this helpful thread user .
Paul Graham's "ANSI Common Lisp" was an eye-opener for me in college, I read it outside of class but it gave me a taste of what programming in a functional style can look like though now I'm bummed out that most developers (myself included) will never get the privilege of using a proper Lisp at their workplace