How long does it take to become a self-taught programmer (and is it possible)? Are there programmers on incels.is?
It's easier than beocming a physicist. You need a fukcing PhD in physics for that which is why I quit the job
Finished vocational technical high school for computer science (link) but I still think it's not enough, you have to be self taught passionate.
It depends on what you want to learn, and what you expect to get. A couple of months to a year to have a basic understanding.
I'm a programmer. Been doing it for almost two decades. You can definitely learn it yourself but the important thing is to know the difference between syntax and algorithms. If you pick up a book on Java, you're mostly going to learn the syntax of Java, and frankly, that wont make you a good programmer.
Algorithms are how you actually solve the problem that you're being paid to solve. So, after you learn the syntax of a language, pick up a book on data structures and algorithms, and a book on "patterns" - those are more important than the specific syntax.
Once you've learned some stuff, the hard part is getting a job without that university degree. For that, my next advice is to have a lot of personal projects that people can look at that proves you're able to code.
Lastly, there's the question of whether you'll actually like it, or if you'll burn out. In many ways, it's a good career for an autist. There are long stretches where you don't have to talk to people (though this varies by company - some companies to "pair programming" where you literally have to talk to someone the whole time - fuck that!) Also, you can get on some tiny, difficult problem that requires you to hammer on it as though you were grinding XP in a game.
I've seen people fail on both of those accounts. I've seen people who weren't "geeks" but they thought programming would let them make money, but they hated it because they didn't get to talk enough. I've also seen people who will get assigned to run down a bug or something, and they just wont have the tenacity really dig in and go line-by-line and understand the issue.
Thank you for the comprehensive answer!
I'm not starting to learn programming from scratch, I studied at the university for more than six months, where we wrote in C, then switched to C ++, but I have to leave the university (this is not related to programming). Now I want to switch to python and learn by myself.
That's definitely an important one to learn, but you should know in advance that the job market for languages like python and javascript are heavily saturated. Everybody knows python. Everybody knows javascript. You're competing with the entire world whenever you interview for one of those.
I think the best career advice is to find a niche language that's used by certain industries. People will laugh at you if you tell them you're learning COBOL unironically, but when some megabank is looking for a COBOL programmer, you'll be one of the very few out there.
I work for a government agency doing database programming in PL/SQL. We have real trouble finding people who are competent. My manager worked for Grumman, coding in Ada. Who has even heard of Ada?? But they have code out there that they're still trying to maintain.
I would recommend you search hacker news for threads with advice about what languages to learn, and see what they say about the job market for each one.
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It's certainly possible, but how long it takes has no fixed answer. It depends on your motivation, aptitude, perseverance, and tolerance for punishment. When code doesn't compile or when there's a bug you just can't, for the life of you, fix without breaking everything else, it will truly test your patience and determination.
@genma 's suggestion to learn an obscure language is not bad, but it will depend on your job market and available prospects. It's going to take decades to rewrite millions of lines of legacy code for important systems in languages no longer commonly used, and that's only if there's even a decision made to migrate the code into a more commonly used language. Most of the time it's going to be a whole lot more cost-effective to hire someone to maintain the code and patch/update as necessary.
@genma 's suggestion to learn an obscure language is not bad, but it will depend on your job market and available prospects. It's going to take decades to rewrite millions of lines of legacy code for important systems in languages no longer commonly used, and that's only if there's even a decision made to migrate the code into a more commonly used language. Most of the time it's going to be a whole lot more cost-effective to hire someone to maintain the code and patch/update as necessary.
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Most jobs I see want javascript or some other popular language though. I took a class where we used Fortran, Ada, and cobol. Seemed useless tbh, how often you really going to see an opening for one of those
I would imagine pretty easy since it's a solitary activity. It's pretty expected if you are an incel too since the early 90's. Only downside is that it requires a good amount of intelligence to make a career out of it.
That's true, but totally misses the point.
Imagine there are five job openings. Four of them each have 100 people qualified to do them. The fifth one has only 3 qualified people.
My advice here was, "make yourself a contender for that fifth job" and your reply is, "b...but most jobs aren like the other four!"
There's always one or two.
Look, you do what you want - I code in js sometimes too, on a project right now for it, and I also know what js interviews are like and it sounds to me like bullshit. 99% of it is, "are you familiar with WIZBANGNODEMODULE that just came out 2 days ago??" and when I talk to js developers, it seems to me they barely even understand js. I had to expose one fucking endpoint and a "senior" js dev told me I did it wrong because I didn't use express. Fuck off! I don't need a whole fucking framework to answer up a get request with one goddamn param!
By contrast, I know the more esoteric languages that I work with in and out and frankly, I never have any errors. And if I had to go to an interview, they could ask me low-level shit and I would know it. I would rather wait a month for an interview I would ace, than get in line behind 200 js developers and know that the one who gets hired is the one who studied buzzwords and can't even code. And know that even if I got the job, they would think of me as an easily replaceable cog.
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Too late for me to switch to something else tbh. I’m about to graduate and I spent the last several months learning node, react, postgres, python.
I'm a self taught programmer. If youre a high iqcel it only takes a couple years to learn the basics. There's lots of online courses and tutorials, youtube is filled with them. Then you can start doing the LeetCode and grind those out for a while. Also maybe consider a hacker camp course. Having a degree is a lot better. I'm constantly turned down for jobs right on the spot because I dropped out.
Programming is for piece of shit normies
Programming is retarded I hope all programmers die painful deaths
@Caesercel
What grade did you get in your data structures course? Also, how'd you like discrete math? I'd say those are more important questions than any particular language. Those classes are where you really learned how to program.Too late for me to switch to something else tbh. I’m about to graduate and I spent the last several months learning node, react, postgres, python.
Just keep my advice in mind, and if you hit the job market and see yourself competing with with a billion mediocre js kids and you want out, consider picking an esoteric language used by some business sector - that can be your escape.
As to postgres, how did you like your database theory class? Can you normalize a database? Can you explain why that's important? Those are more important skills than knowing the syntax of postgres, or oracle, or whatever.
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Data structures was alright. Would F# be an esoteric language? That one seemed interesting to me. COBOL is
Yes, of-course. Programming is simply a method to manipulate data. It is possible for anyone of decent intelligence to learn.
Let me compile...now:
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