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.
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!
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Weird post. That you'd give your email addresses in a public forum makes me think you're young and generally inexperienced in life. I am not worried that you're a spammer, but I'm sure you will get spam. I taught myself to code, and talked my way in to a job, within 6 months. Is it work that you're asking about ? The path for me was self taught, get a job, then when I worked with people who were university trained, I'd pay attention to what they'd discuss, and when they'd mention something I did not understand, I'd buy a book and work through it, so that I did understand it. School is not a bad thing, but if you know some stuff already and you're in a class for beginners, that school is obviously catering to the other students and ignoring what you already know. I taught myself b/c I was mature age and it suited me to keep working and paying my mortgage while I learned.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. Read my blog to find out how I've worked around bugs in Microsoft tools and frameworks.
Well Done; well said!
Know way too many languages... master of none!
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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
Furthermore the point of getting a degree is that many, if not all companies expect worker to move up in position. At that point a simple knowledge of programming will not suffice; this is where college comes in. Having a degree proves that you have been trained in other aspects business/professional life. Of course you can gain this knowledge outside of a university, but it is difficult to prove, especially to employer you have just met.
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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" 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!
So - if you're going to spend the money (and I agree with others that 'you want a job and the jobs want you to have the college degree, get the degree, then') on college degree - go to a college and study a program that you'll enjoy, even if it doesn't later directly pay off. I've a BSc in Electronic & Computer Engineering - and today I probably use nothing of what I learned in the classes at college. Does that make it a waste of time and money? No - because it got me on the first rung of the ladder of my career. (Although I'm still glad of what I did learn because it's mighty interesting, and gives a good background for my day-to-day work programming computers.) Consider the cost of college as the price of the ticket to enter the world of corporate employment, not the price of useful information. And if you do learn something useful, consider it a bonus prize.
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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.
Remember that when you go to a school, you are thrown in with people that have never programmed a single bit. The course of a beginning class (of necessity) will be rudimentary. What will be more valuable will be the courses that you will take about data handling and algorithms. If you don't know these things, you're placed in the position of having to either learn on-the-fly, or to re-invent something that you should already know. However, a sheepskin will get your resume read instead of being placed in the round-file. With a degree, you don't have to constantly prove yourself every time that you wish to find a new job. Take this as the voice of experience from someone who worked his way through college. Finding high-paying jobs got a lot easier after graduation.
Fletcher Glenn
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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.
Timothy Hosey wrote:
since my arrival in Virginia from 2066
Hey - if you've got time travel, why the heck are you wanting to be a programmer? :rolleyes:
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Weird post. That you'd give your email addresses in a public forum makes me think you're young and generally inexperienced in life. I am not worried that you're a spammer, but I'm sure you will get spam. I taught myself to code, and talked my way in to a job, within 6 months. Is it work that you're asking about ? The path for me was self taught, get a job, then when I worked with people who were university trained, I'd pay attention to what they'd discuss, and when they'd mention something I did not understand, I'd buy a book and work through it, so that I did understand it. School is not a bad thing, but if you know some stuff already and you're in a class for beginners, that school is obviously catering to the other students and ignoring what you already know. I taught myself b/c I was mature age and it suited me to keep working and paying my mortgage while I learned.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. Read my blog to find out how I've worked around bugs in Microsoft tools and frameworks.
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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.
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So - if you're going to spend the money (and I agree with others that 'you want a job and the jobs want you to have the college degree, get the degree, then') on college degree - go to a college and study a program that you'll enjoy, even if it doesn't later directly pay off. I've a BSc in Electronic & Computer Engineering - and today I probably use nothing of what I learned in the classes at college. Does that make it a waste of time and money? No - because it got me on the first rung of the ladder of my career. (Although I'm still glad of what I did learn because it's mighty interesting, and gives a good background for my day-to-day work programming computers.) Consider the cost of college as the price of the ticket to enter the world of corporate employment, not the price of useful information. And if you do learn something useful, consider it a bonus prize.
Whatever works for you! Depends on your career goals, how disciplined you are at self study. Like Want to be an Electrical Engineer? Doctor? Better go to school! Developer? There is a big range of jobs developing systems... and skill sets... the more you know the better... with or without school. Got talent too? Hope so or school means nothing!
Know way too many languages... master of none!
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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 can't speak for your college (nor mine really, things have changed). But college isn't about learning "real programming". You want real programming, pick up a book on .NET or Java and start coding. Solve an issue. Make a web site / application. It'll suck, but you'll learn more about "real programming" from that than you will in college. Then you look at your application/web site and you start asking "why does it suck?" Identify the issues - start addressing them. Oh look, changes the objects causes hours of work because we didn't use a ORM tool. Find one, pick it up and implement in your project. Repeat as necessary. College isn't about the latest programming fad (or it shouldn't be). Understanding the difference between DFA-NFAs/CFG/Turning machines is traditional comp sci. Not programming in .NET/Java/C++/whatever. Why is college important? Try to solve the Travelling Salesman problem.
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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.