programming
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Yes bro. In short, he wanted to say he has been coding since half of the CP Members were in nappies. :laugh:
Sucess is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
That's probably true.
I have CDO, it's OCD with the letters in the right order; just as they ruddy well should be
Forgive your enemies - it messes with their heads
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Christian, what you mentioned is really inspirational. However, the same way may not work for many. Especially, in my homeland, where we have huge number of Software Engineers virtually unemployed, no one would pay attention to a self learned or non-degree holder. I am in this industry for a small time (4.5 years), however, I have seen some extremely talented designers and contractors struggled for years. Many of them are highly paid at this point, however, it took them years to get that recognition, whereas, if you are graduated from a reputed university the entry point becomes lot simpler to you. I have written this based on my experience in India and this case may not be same in western countries.
Sucess is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
Sushant Joshi wrote:
Christian, what you mentioned is really inspirational. However, the same way may not work for many. Especially, in my homeland, where we have huge number of Software Engineers virtually unemployed, no one would pay attention to a self learned or non-degree holder. I am in this industry for a small time (4.5 years), however, I have seen some extremely talented designers and contractors struggled for years. Many of them are highly paid at this point, however, it took them years to get that recognition, whereas, if you are graduated from a reputed university the entry point becomes lot simpler to you. I have written this based on my experience in India and this case may not be same in western countries.
good one:thumbsup:
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I've been a programmer without school training for 3 years now and I cannot even imagine where to start. Is there anybody out there that can help me get started, other than going to some stupid school for training(I'm already at school and they hardly teach crap about programming in a vast way but in a watered-down version). I've created a command-prompt based game where it asks you trivia questions at random of which I wrote to print messages to the screen if they were right or wrong and then continue to the next question. It took me about an hour to come up with some questions and then compiled it, ran it, and tested it. It runs fine. If anybody wants to see the code, I can email it to your email address if you want. If you have any questions or would like codes from me, email me at computerman.hosey@yahoo.com or jerseydude23@hotmail.com don't worry I'm not a fisher that will steal any pertinent information from you. All I want is some recognition from programming, that's all I ask.
Timothy Hosey wrote:
All I want is some recognition from programming
I speak for myself here; don't know if anyone else agrees with me. Timothy, don't get into programming just for the recognition...you will never get it, it can be a very thankless job. We program because we love it and love doing it whether someone gives a shit whether or not we pulled an "all-nighter" to get the job done.
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Yes bro. In short, he wanted to say he has been coding since half of the CP Members were in nappies. :laugh:
Sucess is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
... another half of them will probably be wearing nappies again in a couple of years time!
.\\axxx
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Let's straighten this confusion up right now. I'm a self-taught programmer from books from Barnes and Nobles, took only one class at Tidewater Community College in C++ programming and C programming in UNIX/LINUX into one class. I'm currently in Axia College and all they teach is a bunch of classes that consume your time and money in believing somebody is getting a career when most of the credits apply to academics instead of the intended major(programming, is what I am getting at here. What I've seen in these classes are some good and some bad things. Some good things that the programming class in C++ taught some very good items about classes and other basic things, but that' all. I just don't call myself a programmer unless I can prove that I can program. I guess that I am an intermediate programmer that is self-taught and have been writing codes for some time now since my arrival in Virginia from 2066. I started to program during 2008 until now. I intend to produce a game or something that is useful for the media, and thus getting some advice from other people out there are in the same field as me. I know, I expect more if I am paying some cash for this class. From the UNIX class I learned a few things, other than the operating system UNIX/LINUX, such as a hello world program(it is useless unless it's made for beginner's)and taught some things about opening and closing a file with fopen and fclose functions, which was neat and all but those were the simplest of things that some employers would laugh at. The reason why I want somebody to email me is to get people across the globe to acknowledge what I'm going instead of in a small geographic area, which is useless and wouldn't get me far. I basically don't want anybody to debug this program, but to provide a portfolio the media instead of blabbing about what I can and cannot do to random people but people with some experience, that can give me pointers how to make it better or what would the public want in these codes for a game or an application.
One of the most important things that I look for when hiring anyone, programmers or not, is the ability to communicate clearly and intelligently. I would suggest you start there.
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Timothy Hosey wrote:
All I want is some recognition from programming
I speak for myself here; don't know if anyone else agrees with me. Timothy, don't get into programming just for the recognition...you will never get it, it can be a very thankless job. We program because we love it and love doing it whether someone gives a shit whether or not we pulled an "all-nighter" to get the job done.
Recognition comes with experience: The more you do, the more you know, the more you know, the more opinionated you become, the more opinionated you become, the more knowledgeable you become, and then after that, you become recognized. In South Africa - if everything works out perfectly - you can become a doctor at the age of 26: - Start studying at 18 - Finish your BSc degree at 21 (3 year course) - Finish your Hons degree at 22 (1 year course) - Finish your Masters degree at 24 (2 years) - Finish your PhD degree at 26 (2 year course - if everything goes perfectly) But, you still won't get recognition until you have gained the sufficient amount of experience, which might take between 10 and 20 years. I'm at university, studying BSc IT, a nice course since they teach you not only computer science, but also a bit of math and business aspects, which gives a well rounded IT degree. I must admit, about 80 - 90% of what I know about programming is self taught, the rest comes from university. A waste of money? No, it gives you good exposure of what happens in the IT industry and *forces* you to do some research in the field. I wrote a couple of stuff throughout my years (my first programming done in Pascal way back in 2003), but I know that I still have a lot more to learn. When you start with your first big project - like the one I am busy with now as part of the course I am studying, you learn a lot of stuff very quickly, since time is not a lot, and your fighting to pass and get distinctions. If I were you, I would find a school that would keep me motivated and interested. Worried about the money? Don't be, get a loan - I'm speaking with SA knowledge - and study. Luckily IT is a well paying field, so you will pay of you debt in about 2 to 3 years.
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I've been a programmer without school training for 3 years now and I cannot even imagine where to start. Is there anybody out there that can help me get started, other than going to some stupid school for training(I'm already at school and they hardly teach crap about programming in a vast way but in a watered-down version). I've created a command-prompt based game where it asks you trivia questions at random of which I wrote to print messages to the screen if they were right or wrong and then continue to the next question. It took me about an hour to come up with some questions and then compiled it, ran it, and tested it. It runs fine. If anybody wants to see the code, I can email it to your email address if you want. If you have any questions or would like codes from me, email me at computerman.hosey@yahoo.com or jerseydude23@hotmail.com don't worry I'm not a fisher that will steal any pertinent information from you. All I want is some recognition from programming, that's all I ask.
These days you don't have to go to just one school. MIT, Stanford, and others have courses online. You don't get the degree, but you can get the degree from one school and augment with courses online. You can start here: http://www.apple.com/education/guidedtours/itunesu.html But look directly on the Stanford and MIT sites and do a little Googling and you should be able to turn up their links. Sorry I don't have them, off-hand.
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I've been a programmer without school training for 3 years now and I cannot even imagine where to start. Is there anybody out there that can help me get started, other than going to some stupid school for training(I'm already at school and they hardly teach crap about programming in a vast way but in a watered-down version). I've created a command-prompt based game where it asks you trivia questions at random of which I wrote to print messages to the screen if they were right or wrong and then continue to the next question. It took me about an hour to come up with some questions and then compiled it, ran it, and tested it. It runs fine. If anybody wants to see the code, I can email it to your email address if you want. If you have any questions or would like codes from me, email me at computerman.hosey@yahoo.com or jerseydude23@hotmail.com don't worry I'm not a fisher that will steal any pertinent information from you. All I want is some recognition from programming, that's all I ask.
Despite years of experience writing software (noted in the next paragraph), I couldn't get any interest from employers (as a programmer) until I was given a break (because I'd worked cheap). Once I had a job that was 'really' programming (as in job title), things changed. Basically, no one wants to be the first to gamble on you. As for the application you described. Consider what I brought to the table: instrument automation and real-time data acquisition; Monte-Carlo models of nearest-neighbor surface phenomena (which I proved experimentally, as well), and even an offer from the publisher Marcel-Decker to author or edit a book on 'computers in chemistry'. I also created the PC version of a practice game for the Cray Research/US Dept of Energy sponsored National Science Bowl. You'd think that would do it for experience? Well, all of the above were done with a job title that was basically 'research chemist'. So no one was interested. Times may have changed, but with the outsourcing of coding to low-cost labor markets, I don't think the change was for the better. Edit in note: all programmers in my current location are self-taught. It's that foot in the door that'll kill ya'
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek dissappointment. If you are searching for perfection in yourself, then you seek failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
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I've been a programmer without school training for 3 years now and I cannot even imagine where to start. Is there anybody out there that can help me get started, other than going to some stupid school for training(I'm already at school and they hardly teach crap about programming in a vast way but in a watered-down version). I've created a command-prompt based game where it asks you trivia questions at random of which I wrote to print messages to the screen if they were right or wrong and then continue to the next question. It took me about an hour to come up with some questions and then compiled it, ran it, and tested it. It runs fine. If anybody wants to see the code, I can email it to your email address if you want. If you have any questions or would like codes from me, email me at computerman.hosey@yahoo.com or jerseydude23@hotmail.com don't worry I'm not a fisher that will steal any pertinent information from you. All I want is some recognition from programming, that's all I ask.
I'm self taught and my first job was an internship with a very low salary. Start it this way. When you get recognized you get better payment plus you'll have proven experience. If you want recognition, you need to show you're work, even if you're working for free. Just do it.
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Yes, I am. Did you see my videos on You Tube with the Trivia Mania series I've created. It is quite simple, don't you think? I could add more to it, but it would be a fricking headache. What did you think about the little games I've created on my spare time? Maybe somebody may want it? Would it actually be worth anything in the gaming market, other than XBOX 360 games I mean?
Timothy Hosey wrote:
I could add more to it, but it would be a fricking headache
erm if you want to create something that people will really want it will be more than a headache, look at ANY of the articles on here and think if the writers didn't have a headache, that they solved, and then posted to the world
Timothy Hosey wrote:
Would it actually be worth anything in the gaming market, other than XBOX 360 games I mean
???
Three types of people in this world, those that can count and those that can't www.casserlyprogramming.com
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Most of the older guys here are self-taught. I learned by finding something I wanted to do with software, and writing the code to do that thing. I also went o trade school, but that was exclusively mainframe coding (COBOL, RPG-2, PL/1, IBM 360 Assembly Language, etc. The fanciest personal computers around only had 4K of RAM and you had to store your programs on a cassette tape. The IBM PC was still 3 years from becoming reality. My first real PC program was for the Turbo Pascal 2.0 editor/compiler (written with Turbo Pascal), and allowed you to change the colors of various parts of the editor. I wrote it because someone said it couldn't be done. You have to develop a similar attitude and work ethic. Oh yeah, here's some bad news - if you don't already have 20+ years in the business, you're probably going to need a degree to get your foot in the door for more interesting (and more lucrative) work.
.45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly
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"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"The staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - J. Jystad, 2001John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
Most of the older guys here are self-taught. I learned by finding something I wanted to do with software, and writing the code to do that thing. I also went o trade school, but that was exclusively mainframe coding (COBOL, RPG-2, PL/1, IBM 360 Assembly Language, etc. The fanciest personal computers around only had 4K of RAM and you had to store your programs on a cassette tape. The IBM PC was still 3 years from becoming reality.
Looks like we came into this at about the same time. :-)
John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
My first real PC program was for the Turbo Pascal 2.0 editor/compiler (written with Turbo Pascal), and allowed you to change the colors of various parts of the editor. I wrote it because someone said it couldn't be done.
My first "real" program for the PC was a text editor. Using EDLIN (DOS 1.1) I wrote it in BASICA. When I reached a certain point with it I used it to continue development of it. A real "bootstrap" kind of effort. I had more fun writing that thing. Still runs in an XP DOS box, too. Won't run in the Win7 one though. Oh well ... it only lived 32 years!
John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
You have to develop a similar attitude and work ethic. Oh yeah, here's some bad news - if you don't already have 20+ years in the business, you're probably going to need a degree to get your foot in the door for more interesting (and more lucrative) work.
I think you're right about this. I think about how us guys that got started back when the PC's were in their infancy. Many of us were working full-time doing something else and coming home to write assembly code at night. In my case I had managed to land a programming job so I was getting experience from both sides. I've often thought about the kids that are starting in this field now ... could they start out in the same way we did? I really don't think so. The programming industry was not particularly mature (especially in MicroComputers) back in the early 80's. Though there were DP (that's what IT used to be called) degrees to be had, there were no degrees yet available that would really help you to develop code to the newly emerging micros. When I was working at Quadram writing device drivers there was no Google, no manuals on device drivers, often just hacked-together notes from IBM or MS on
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Timothy Hosey wrote:
All I want is some recognition from programming
I speak for myself here; don't know if anyone else agrees with me. Timothy, don't get into programming just for the recognition...you will never get it, it can be a very thankless job. We program because we love it and love doing it whether someone gives a shit whether or not we pulled an "all-nighter" to get the job done.
Slacker007 wrote:
I speak for myself here; don't know if anyone else agrees with me. Timothy, don't get into programming just for the recognition...you will never get it, it can be a very thankless job. We program because we love it and love doing it whether someone gives a sh*t whether or not we pulled an "all-nighter" to get the job done.
Absolutely. If you're in it for: A) Money B) Recognition ... then go do something else. In fact, A) and B) are poor reasons to get into ANYTHING. I think you'll find the majority of people who are successful in any pursuit including programming got into it for the love of the craft. Money and recognition are side-effects of a passion, not to be confused with the passion itself. -Max
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Slacker007 wrote:
I speak for myself here; don't know if anyone else agrees with me. Timothy, don't get into programming just for the recognition...you will never get it, it can be a very thankless job. We program because we love it and love doing it whether someone gives a sh*t whether or not we pulled an "all-nighter" to get the job done.
Absolutely. If you're in it for: A) Money B) Recognition ... then go do something else. In fact, A) and B) are poor reasons to get into ANYTHING. I think you'll find the majority of people who are successful in any pursuit including programming got into it for the love of the craft. Money and recognition are side-effects of a passion, not to be confused with the passion itself. -Max
Max Peck wrote:
Absolutely. If you're in it for: A) Money B) Recognition ... then go do something else. In fact, A) and B) are poor reasons to get into ANYTHING. I think you'll find the majority of people who are successful in any pursuit including programming got into it for the love of the craft. Money and recognition are side-effects of a passion, not to be confused with the passion itself.
Best point I've seen in this yet! Thanks Max! Recognition comes from people in the field, not from your friends and family, and you won't get that from writing a whiney follow-up to a confusing post.
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I've been a programmer without school training for 3 years now and I cannot even imagine where to start. Is there anybody out there that can help me get started, other than going to some stupid school for training(I'm already at school and they hardly teach crap about programming in a vast way but in a watered-down version). I've created a command-prompt based game where it asks you trivia questions at random of which I wrote to print messages to the screen if they were right or wrong and then continue to the next question. It took me about an hour to come up with some questions and then compiled it, ran it, and tested it. It runs fine. If anybody wants to see the code, I can email it to your email address if you want. If you have any questions or would like codes from me, email me at computerman.hosey@yahoo.com or jerseydude23@hotmail.com don't worry I'm not a fisher that will steal any pertinent information from you. All I want is some recognition from programming, that's all I ask.
Everything is everything. If you wanted to be a concert violinist, or let’s say a professional golfer, you would practice 8 maybe 10 hours a day AND you would seek out the best teachers that you could find. You would seek instruction in order to shorten your learning curve, so as not to be tempted into reinventing the wheel on a daily basis, and also to have someone standing by to help you avoid embedding bad habits into your technique. Fifteen years ago, no, better make that twenty years ago, the path that you have chosen, the self-taught path, the path straight up the side of the mountain rather than following the trail, would not have been quite so daunting. The acceleration of progress in all aspects of the craft of programming, the rate of change that we all experience today, makes your attempt admirable and also a little sad. To quote Glennis, Chuck Yeager’s wife, “It can’t be done”. I am sure you know what Chuck did then….
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One of the most important things that I look for when hiring anyone, programmers or not, is the ability to communicate clearly and intelligently. I would suggest you start there.
I agree with this statement. How can a programmer gather requirements or create documentation without the ability to communicate in a manner that gets the message across? A note to the original author of this thread...Writing a game based in the command prompt will never sell. If you would like to try out your programming skills in the real world, get a job at some some Mom/Pop store and offer your skills as a programmer to them. There's a lot of room for automation at resale stores. I personally worked at a reconnect phone company that resold phone lines to those with bad credit. We would get phone bills from some major phone company in text format that they had to manually add to the customer's bills. I made an application to automate that process saving hundreds of hours of work each month. After a few years of experience helping out their shop, I got a professional job at the DOT because of the experience I had in the private sector. Let me tell you, it's not the same working for some private company as it is working in a professional environment. They expect you to know OOP and design patterns. Fortunately, I was able to catch on quickly, but I would suggest reading up on that.
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I've been a programmer without school training for 3 years now and I cannot even imagine where to start. Is there anybody out there that can help me get started, other than going to some stupid school for training(I'm already at school and they hardly teach crap about programming in a vast way but in a watered-down version). I've created a command-prompt based game where it asks you trivia questions at random of which I wrote to print messages to the screen if they were right or wrong and then continue to the next question. It took me about an hour to come up with some questions and then compiled it, ran it, and tested it. It runs fine. If anybody wants to see the code, I can email it to your email address if you want. If you have any questions or would like codes from me, email me at computerman.hosey@yahoo.com or jerseydude23@hotmail.com don't worry I'm not a fisher that will steal any pertinent information from you. All I want is some recognition from programming, that's all I ask.
Playing around writing programs for three years hardly makes you employable as a programmer. Perhaps I have miss understood, but to me the application you describe sounds like one step up from "hello world". Hardly an application anyone would pay you to write. As many have pointed out a degree is more than learning to code. A university degree only gives you the lowest common denominator skill set necessary for a given field. More importantly it also provides communication skills, the ability to evaluate problems, teaches you how to learn independently and how to manage time. Those are the real skills an employer wants. He already knows that just about anyone can code at some level, what he really wants is someone who can grow into a valuable employee. A new employee generally reduces the productivity of existing staff as they bring him up to speed. It takes an average six months or so before a new employee actually contributes. A degree gives the employer some minimal assurance he is not wasting his time on you. Most large companies have a degree as a requirement for hiring any professional staff. This is especially true for any company doing business with a government agency, which frequently make a degree a requirement for people assigned to work done for the government. (One of the best programmers I have ever seen was denied work in the aerospace industry because he did not have a degree). So my suggestion is the same as others - suck it up, go to school and learn how much you don't know. If you want to write code on the side, ask your instructors for opportunities. If you are good enough they will steer work to you. Good Luck
Melting Away www.deals-house.com www.innovative--concepts.com
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The point of a college degree anymore is to show that you have the will to stay with something for a long time. It shows that you can accomplish tasks and are well rounded. If the classes are easy for you and boring that leaves more time for :beer: and :jig: While at college you can get an internship which would give you the experience you're looking for. Sure it costs money but it's also a lot more fun than a 9 to 5 job if you can afford it :-D
------------------------------------- Do not do what has already been done. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.. but it ROCKS absolutely, too.
Doctor Nick wrote:
The point of a college degree anymore is to show that you have the will to stay with something for a long time.
Where as working for a company for, oh 13 years as a software engineer shows... what? Nothing? Because that's what happened to me. At about 13½ years they told me "thanks, we don't need you anymore" and hired a college graduate to replace me. And it's next to impossible to get another full time job without a college degree even though I have 13 years experience in the industry with a ton of real life experience and knowledge.
Mike Poz
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I've been a programmer without school training for 3 years now and I cannot even imagine where to start. Is there anybody out there that can help me get started, other than going to some stupid school for training(I'm already at school and they hardly teach crap about programming in a vast way but in a watered-down version). I've created a command-prompt based game where it asks you trivia questions at random of which I wrote to print messages to the screen if they were right or wrong and then continue to the next question. It took me about an hour to come up with some questions and then compiled it, ran it, and tested it. It runs fine. If anybody wants to see the code, I can email it to your email address if you want. If you have any questions or would like codes from me, email me at computerman.hosey@yahoo.com or jerseydude23@hotmail.com don't worry I'm not a fisher that will steal any pertinent information from you. All I want is some recognition from programming, that's all I ask.
Timothy Hosey wrote:
I've created a command-prompt based game..
Not to be rude, but this sounds like the kind of basic programming assignment I had my (non college) students do back when I taught.. before we moved on to more interesting topics and fancier things that one could make a computer do. Most programmers could whip up something fitting this description in an afternoon or less. People who can write code are a dime a dozen. People who can write code and already have applicable domain knowledge are a lot harder to find. Pick a domain and center your efforts on it -- write CP articles showing new and cool things that can be done in that domain, join an open source project doing interesting things in that domain and make some significant contributions to it. In short, try to get knowledge and experience over some domain, and with luck some name recogonition.. then go interview for positions that apply that domain knowledge. If you have the domain knowledge they need, and can demonstrate that you're a capable programmer, you have a chance.
patbob
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The point of a college degree anymore is to show that you have the will to stay with something for a long time. It shows that you can accomplish tasks and are well rounded. If the classes are easy for you and boring that leaves more time for :beer: and :jig: While at college you can get an internship which would give you the experience you're looking for. Sure it costs money but it's also a lot more fun than a 9 to 5 job if you can afford it :-D
------------------------------------- Do not do what has already been done. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.. but it ROCKS absolutely, too.
"The point of a college degree anymore is to show that you have the will to stay with something for a long time" And spend a lot of money in the process that might not ever get justified or paid back...
Know way too many languages... master of none!
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If you want recognition, then write an decent article and post it. If you don't want to go to some 'stupid' school, then you will have to self teach. Get some books, do some reading, and get coding...... I'm currently doing BSC Hons with the Open University (Course B29), and the course is anything but stupid.
Dave Find Me On: Web|Facebook|Twitter|LinkedIn CPRepWatcher now available as Packaged Chrome Extension, visit my articles for link.
I agree - depends on the school... MIT is a good choice :)
Know way too many languages... master of none!