programming
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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 was in the same boat so many years ago. The suggestions given are all valid. Go to a good school. Get that degree in computer science. I started in electronics engineering because I told myself I already "knew" how to do computers. However, when I made it to the robotics lab, I found that I was actually pretty good at programming the robot and so changed my major to computer science. I did very well. As was said, some of it was very easy, though I was never the party type I had time left over. I actually did learn stuff I didn't know. My processes became better refined and I understood a great deal more about the internal workings of machines that I already knew. In addition, I became what was stated above as well rounded. Also, getting that degree will open doors. I can't promise you'll get a dream job from it, but stick it out. As for getting a job, aside from having that degree to differentiate you from the 300 other applicants. Being in the right place at the right time will help.
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I actually did read a lot of books from C programming and C++ programming by interesting authors who paid professional writers to publish their works over the years. I obtained this information from Barnes and Nobles and pretty much taught myself from Michael Dawson, Johnathon Harbour, and Jesse Liberty. They're really good at what they do. I went to this one class that only taught a few things about classes, objects, and many other programmer jargon. Maybe I did choose the wrong school or none of these schools really build up what I want them to that makes the entire experience ridiculous to stay in. You had some good points.
Not to be too picky here, but you are not really "self-taught" if you have been taught by books. You might be a "self-guided" learner, but self-taught is to just play with code and learn from the results. Like back in the old BASIC days where: 10 Print "Hello World" Produced a VERY exciting result! :P Anyway, just my 2 cents worth :)
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Not to be too picky here, but you are not really "self-taught" if you have been taught by books. You might be a "self-guided" learner, but self-taught is to just play with code and learn from the results. Like back in the old BASIC days where: 10 Print "Hello World" Produced a VERY exciting result! :P Anyway, just my 2 cents worth :)
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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.
I completely agree with offering your programming skills to a small company you already work for. In my case, I was already the office manager in a large Honda & Yamaha motorcycle dealership. Out of necessity (and just being the one who understood it the easiest) I wound up dealing with the outside computer support when things went wrong. This led to me being summoned when just about anything went wrong with any of our 23 computers... At this point, I have 13 years of business management experience and 8+ years dealing with hardware and program support for our computers... This has also given me the opportunity to be the one who was in charge of getting our website up and running 4 years ago... I've learned a lot through my experiences.... ASP.NET/MySQL/ODBC vs .NET connectors/CSS/SEO.... and so much more, but it was while I was writing a program for my cashiers to be able to create, print, and keep track of gift certificates, as well as validate that they hadn't been used before, that I found myself stuck. I wrote for help on the boards and no one seemed to be able to help... It was that frustration which caused me to decide to go back to school (I finally got my Assoc. in Bus. Mgmt last year at 34 years old). Finding a degree program that actually was oriented specifically towards programming wasn't easy. Many colleges tell you that they offer some degree in computers, but most are about computers in general, not programming specifically. In the state of Georgia, USA, only Georgia State University and DeVry University offered a bachelors in computer programming. Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia have computer degrees, but not what I was looking for. Even though I feel like I'm buying a car with what I'm paying, the choice of going to DeVry that I made back in May has made me very happy. I'm in my fourth class and am so happy to be finally going to school for what I love. The teachers I have had are all wonderful and caring as well as extremely well experienced in the industry. I also found that the programming logic class I took got me straightened out on all most of the bad habits I had picked up. As far as the classes I took before DeVry, and my business experience, they are invaluable. I approach my programming with an outlook towards the future because I am already aware of what problems could arise in the real world environment. My calculus class has also proven valuable in easily understanding how to program complicated math problems. DeVry a
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I completely agree with offering your programming skills to a small company you already work for. In my case, I was already the office manager in a large Honda & Yamaha motorcycle dealership. Out of necessity (and just being the one who understood it the easiest) I wound up dealing with the outside computer support when things went wrong. This led to me being summoned when just about anything went wrong with any of our 23 computers... At this point, I have 13 years of business management experience and 8+ years dealing with hardware and program support for our computers... This has also given me the opportunity to be the one who was in charge of getting our website up and running 4 years ago... I've learned a lot through my experiences.... ASP.NET/MySQL/ODBC vs .NET connectors/CSS/SEO.... and so much more, but it was while I was writing a program for my cashiers to be able to create, print, and keep track of gift certificates, as well as validate that they hadn't been used before, that I found myself stuck. I wrote for help on the boards and no one seemed to be able to help... It was that frustration which caused me to decide to go back to school (I finally got my Assoc. in Bus. Mgmt last year at 34 years old). Finding a degree program that actually was oriented specifically towards programming wasn't easy. Many colleges tell you that they offer some degree in computers, but most are about computers in general, not programming specifically. In the state of Georgia, USA, only Georgia State University and DeVry University offered a bachelors in computer programming. Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia have computer degrees, but not what I was looking for. Even though I feel like I'm buying a car with what I'm paying, the choice of going to DeVry that I made back in May has made me very happy. I'm in my fourth class and am so happy to be finally going to school for what I love. The teachers I have had are all wonderful and caring as well as extremely well experienced in the industry. I also found that the programming logic class I took got me straightened out on all most of the bad habits I had picked up. As far as the classes I took before DeVry, and my business experience, they are invaluable. I approach my programming with an outlook towards the future because I am already aware of what problems could arise in the real world environment. My calculus class has also proven valuable in easily understanding how to program complicated math problems. DeVry a
LHYWebDesigner wrote:
you get out of school what you put into it
You could have saved us all a lot of time and just said that. 5 :)
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LHYWebDesigner wrote:
you get out of school what you put into it
You could have saved us all a lot of time and just said that. 5 :)
Re: programming DaveAuld 16:25 27 Sep '10 I take it you are also NightHawk5380 then? Dave If you noticed this post, you may have realized that this guy is using the name of a Honda motorcycle in his handle. Maybe it means something else, but I thought my experience might help him.... Sorry if reading hurts your brain.
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Re: programming DaveAuld 16:25 27 Sep '10 I take it you are also NightHawk5380 then? Dave If you noticed this post, you may have realized that this guy is using the name of a Honda motorcycle in his handle. Maybe it means something else, but I thought my experience might help him.... Sorry if reading hurts your brain.
I appreciated your post and the time it must have taken you to write it. Hence the vote of 5. :)
LHYWebDesigner wrote:
this guy is using the name of a Honda motorcycle in his handle
I don't understand the relevance. Nor do I know if that "handle" pun was intended. Guess my brain was just not meant to understand you. :)
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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.
There are more opportunities than ever for self-learning. Get some books, free dev software, web space with DB(s) (ms sql, mysql, etc) and start developing pages... I'd focus on data-driven tasks (view data, modify data, delete data, insert data, reporting)... As an alternative, build a cheap server and do it at home. Start simple. You will learn and develop a portfolio at the same time.
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Not to be too picky here, but you are not really "self-taught" if you have been taught by books. You might be a "self-guided" learner, but self-taught is to just play with code and learn from the results. Like back in the old BASIC days where: 10 Print "Hello World" Produced a VERY exciting result! :P Anyway, just my 2 cents worth :)
Ok, I guess that makes me a self-guided learner. I have come across many companies that give you tests. One even mentioned topology and asked me to write a chess program. I asked a couple pro. programming buddies of mine, they thought this company was a bit unfair. One thought they wanted me to write stubs. I told him, I think they wanted me to write the whole program ! I never got the job anyways..
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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.
You could try applying to my company http://www.accenture.com/[^] but you're not likely to be programming on your first project or even your second regardless of what your job title might say, but you will get paid and get experience that may help you get a real programming job. But I would suggest you read my posts VERY carefully first before you decide to apply. And please note you might have to travel alot depending on what project you get on. However, they will hire people in some cases without any degree or a semi related degree like mechanical engineering. The reason is that they have you take a number of tests and you have to go through a training program where you basically try out for your job, so they do a pretty good job of weeding people out. And even after you're hired they have a policy of firing a certain percentage of low performing empolyees every year or people who have gone more than a couple of years without getting a promotion (they call this the up or out policy). I think you mentioned something about being in Virginia and I think that is a place where they need people especially if you can pass a security clearence. I don't have time to read your code but one suggestion as someone who was originally a self taught programmer and then went to college and got a degree, just because your code works doesn't always mean it is well written. For instance when I first started programming I used global variable all the time and rarely passed argument. I figured it was a waste of time. Then I tried writing a really big program and found out why that's a bad idea. Now I'm very religous about modularization. You may not have this problem but I'm just using this as an example. You might want to read a book like code complete to learn about some of this type of stuff.
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I actually did read a lot of books from C programming and C++ programming by interesting authors who paid professional writers to publish their works over the years. I obtained this information from Barnes and Nobles and pretty much taught myself from Michael Dawson, Johnathon Harbour, and Jesse Liberty. They're really good at what they do. I went to this one class that only taught a few things about classes, objects, and many other programmer jargon. Maybe I did choose the wrong school or none of these schools really build up what I want them to that makes the entire experience ridiculous to stay in. You had some good points.
If you goto a school that gives credit for classes that simply teach a programming language (any language) then you are not at the right school. Most (if not all) good schools teach the concepts the course is trying to impart and you are expected to learn the language as an aside to the course. At best they'll spend a week on the language itself. My school also had language only courses, but we got no credit for them. Learning a language is trivial, mastering the idioms and proper use takes years of full-time practice (e.g. a full-time job).
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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.
Three books have worked for me. "Programming Windows 3.1 3rd edition" by Charles Petzold, "Programming Windows 5th edition" by Charles Petzold, and "Programming Windows with MFC 2nd edition" by Jeff Prosise.