Want to get back into programming

3 22 Feb 2019 06:30 by u/mudbear

I did a year long course in web development from circa 2013 (back when we were still doing backwards compatibility for IE6 because of the fucking chinese) and another 1y study at uni focusing mostly on C# and software development.

so i've been out for a little and didnt keep in contact with anyone i studied with (because im antisocial and they weren't Goats) and nobody in my social circles are even remotely interested in programming so i havent been keeping up to date with current trends and the like.

What i would like to know is where to even begin to update my skills and what direction to move into. where is the demand and where is the oversupply etc. Even just some casual shit talk with fellow goats where i dont have to guard what i say for fear of being called a racist or whatever.

thanks for any replies.

44 comments

0 u/Morbo 22 Feb 2019 06:32

LEARN TO JOURNALIST

0 u/ThatsSoJewish 22 Feb 2019 07:27

Am I doing this right?

0 u/dangerous_ai 22 Feb 2019 07:41

100%

0 u/Morbo 22 Feb 2019 13:27

It should be more like this. Why'd you make it complicated?

0 u/ThatsSoJewish 22 Feb 2019 14:26

throw new PrivilegeNotHeldException("Mansplaining");

0 u/justlogin 22 Feb 2019 17:15

Carmack's inverse square root is not a fair comparison to instructional code... And then they opened their mouth. They deserve this.

0 u/obvious-throwaway- 23 Feb 2019 17:36

Orange Man Bad

You wanted a better future for your children. You thought ending endless mass immigration would help. You thought a wall would help. When a man said he would build a wall, ending mass immigration and providing a better future for your children, you voted for him. But, did you even know at the time that he peed on a Russian hooker and colluded with Russia? No, so know that you know these absolute facts, you must realize that you no longer want a wall and no longer want a better future for your children and it was wrong of you to ever want these things, because Orange Man Bad. -All (((Journalists)))

Am I doing Journalist right?

0 u/BlueDrache 22 Feb 2019 06:39

I'd say python it up for a bit.

0 u/jollux 22 Feb 2019 06:45

https://voat.co/v/Showerthoughts/3002797/16464363

0 u/badkangaroo 22 Feb 2019 07:13

what sort of C# stuff did you do, maybe into Unity game dev?

0 u/karaz 22 Feb 2019 07:17

I know i'll catch a ton of shit, but go with javascript. It's one of those jack of all trades languages that's easy to pick up and can do a lot of shit. Not to mention that these days it's fkin everywhere and there's no shortage of jobs.

It's a great language to fuck around with and learn, but being a jack of all trades, if you have a project in mind there's certainly a language that would be much better for the specific thing.

0 u/dangerous_ai 22 Feb 2019 07:48

I agree with this post, especially if OP is going to continue with web dev, but even if not. Node is hot and working full stack in a single language means less LEARN ALL THE THINGS learning curve. Like any language, Javascript has its own silly corners.

https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat

0 u/SquarebobSpongebutt 22 Feb 2019 12:38

Add some Python and PHP and you will always have some work.

0 u/antistatist 22 Feb 2019 07:24

I started here:
https://www.cprogramming.com/tutorial/c++-tutorial.html

0 u/matthew-- 22 Feb 2019 07:32

I studied it a bit, and the scripting + vbs with excel came in handy.

I think the best way to get back into it is to get a project and learn as you go. I learnt more with making a shitty, rudimentary web scraper using Python than I did with any other study.

0 u/mudbear [OP] 23 Feb 2019 07:12

Yeah learning through making is great advice, replicating what you are told lets you repeat one thing, but making something from scratch allows you to create anything.

0 u/justlogin 23 Feb 2019 19:46

do both

0 u/Sire 22 Feb 2019 07:34

If you’ve got some experience or interest in more complex programming, go for Java. 1. Install Eclipse/IntelliJ/Vim or another IDE 2. Look up tutorials (for example Simon Allerdice, from Lynda.com) 3. Lots of practice. Learn new concepts, and how to implement them. Don’t learn all the details yet, go for the general pcicture.

0 u/mudbear [OP] 23 Feb 2019 07:10

yeah i have a little experience, Java is looking VERY attractive at the moment. Ill take your advice and have a look at what you have there.

0 u/Sire 23 Feb 2019 09:33

Good to hear. If you’d need any kind of advice, please ask.

Thinking about it, basic concepts include:

Array
ArrayList
List-framework
Map-framework
Hashmap

These will prob keep you occupied for a few weeks.

0 u/dangerous_ai 22 Feb 2019 07:40

I like the website "Learn X in Y Minutes" to get a very fast overview of language syntax. It's not going to go in depth or through the process of teaching concepts, but if you want to look at how a language does something in a single page, this is one good place to go.
https://learnxinyminutes.com/

While frameworks for web dev were certainly available in 2012, there is an increasing emphasis on frameworks for websites, now. The language and framework go together, and there are pros and cons of each. Rails (Ruby) is a common MVC framework. Node.js is a Javascript application engine, upon which you can run very many web frameworks ( http://nodeframework.com/ ) if working in Javascript end-to-end appeals to you. Data and data analysis / data science lean on various languages. Python is increasingly becoming a prime language in the data world, mostly because you can write production code as well as tap into strongly supported and powerful libraries that facilitate the statistics or machine learning needs. Library examples would be numpy, pandas, scikit-learn, spaCy, PyTorch and many others. Python has a (mostly) single thread limitation because of the Global Interpreter Lock (GIL), but now (since 3.4) has async/await that allows for asynch I/O. Julia is a high performance scientific language that has a familiar syntax if you're already a python programmer. I keep my eye on it, but the tooling isn't quite there to support whole data projects, yet. Scala is another big data language that I find a lot of fun. It compiles into Java bytecode and runs on the JVM but avoids a lot of the heavy Java syntax.

I still like to recommend Python as a good on-ramp back to programming. It solves so many of my daily needs and there's libraries for everything. After that, languages are a fun world to explore.

https://github.com/vinta/awesome-python

0 u/Irish_Amnesia 22 Feb 2019 08:27

Taking a year long course for Full Stack as of now. I'm up for talk of the shit. Also here's some fancy shit I never had in the past: https://devdocs.io/

0 u/mudbear [OP] 23 Feb 2019 07:07

Oooh that looks awesome. I was planning on beinga fullstack dev, i find learning something in one thing helps with understanding things in another.

0 u/Plavonica 22 Feb 2019 09:57

CS student here. Try here first: https://www.codecademy.com Java is good to start with. C is good to learn too. But after a while you get familiar with most languages and can swap through several a day as needed.

Other notables: javascript, php, sql(for databases).

0 u/liquidvoat 22 Feb 2019 12:29

Python and JavaScript for sure as a starter. Simple to learn. SQL if you also want a increase your chances for a job.

Are you looking to learn for future employment? I know a lot of employers like to see database experience. But whatever you go with get to making some projects and list those as a resume. That helps tremendously. I'd rather see someone's code and projects and talk about that rather than see what jobs they worked at since high school.

If you're into old fashion learning No Starch Press has a lot of great books from newbie to machine learning. Best of luck to you.

0 u/mudbear [OP] 23 Feb 2019 07:04

Thanks. I already know javascript, i really should have put the languages i do know up, but i have used javascript, PHP and C# using OOP and know basic SQL. I was always better at understanding concepts than remembering what they are called so i generally sound bad when talking myself up heh (OOP? whats that again? oh... really? yeah i know that i thought that was just called programming?).

Yeah looking for future employment, what are some good project ideas that employers would like to see? I started making a game in C# from scratch then started to wonder if it were the most productive thing to create, but learned a LOT from making that silly thing. Even made 2D animations and animation functions that would cycle through the images i made.

0 u/liquidvoat 23 Feb 2019 10:31

A game is a great idea. Really anything that you are passionate about that you can discuss. They care less about the 'game' and more about your understanding/comprehension.

Using the game, talk about how you had to program three different enemy AI and how you had to run error checks for incorrect key commands.

An interactive map of the world using json and pygal helps as you're building a dictionary of demographic data.

A web application would be a great way to round it off. An interactive website that responds to page requests, manages users, etc. Combine a database and that's a well rounded resume.

Again, have passion about what you are talking about and be willing to white board a section of your code. If you code each project in a different language that shows adaptability. Even the same project just coded in a different language helps. Best of luck to you.

0 u/mudbear [OP] 24 Feb 2019 07:45

Thanks! Well i guess i will try finish that game of mine. It honestly helped me a lot in appreciating OOP and actually getting it right by re-using as much code as i could by segmenting it into separate re-usable parts as opposed to having bloated functions. Its hard to have a passion about something nobody is interested in listening to, i really need to get some developer friends in real life to chat with to spur me on.

0 u/justlogin 22 Feb 2019 17:25

Look into local tech meetups, if you live in a big city there should be some. If you live in a medium/smaller city there should be something but fewer choices... Not all meetups will be any good but will probably know the trends in their specific interest areas (maybe lagging behind somewhat but at least know the conventional wisdom).

Ever consider putting up one of those long-tail SEO sites up and taking in the trickle of ad income? It might not be worth it but give it a try.

0 u/mudbear [OP] 23 Feb 2019 06:56

That is actually really good advice i hadn't considered. I have nearly no network at the moment and i feel like it has hampered me immensely. Ill try get into a local tech group if i can find one, thanks. Not sure what the 'long-tail SEO' site is so cant say i have haha.

0 u/roznak 22 Feb 2019 20:59

There is no answer in this, just jump into something and try to get as wide as possible range. In software there is never a predictable way to know what is needed. There is never a predictable way to know what you have to learn for the next job.

The key is to start with something, and as you find typical jobs you then tend to focus on the skills to pass the job interview.

0 u/mudbear [OP] 23 Feb 2019 06:53

Yes, but im still trying to get an idea of where to start to get the most versatile skillset that will give me the broadest range when applying for jobs. I dont want to start something too specialized and wind up with skills that are too niche.

0 u/polygeek 23 Feb 2019 00:52

Why is there so much hate ITT for Python?

0 u/libman 23 Feb 2019 02:49

Use a simpler programming language like Python when getting started, unless you have a good reason to use a systems programming language instead. The most common second language is Java, which is used for things like Android apps and highly scalable server-side code. There are literally thousands of free Python learning resources on the Internets. IntelliJ has the best free IDEs for Python and Java.

0 u/mudbear [OP] 23 Feb 2019 06:50

I learned the basic web languages, i should have posted them in my OP so people knew better what im capable of. I can do PHP, HTML5, CSS3, MySql, javascript. My first programming job was as a front-end developer using zurb foundation but they never taught it to me properly so i wound up taking the principles and kind of hammering out my own stuff to fit. They built websites using C#, which stumped me (and again they never taught me how to work around it) so after i was made redundant i went to uni to learn more programming languages and learned C#.

Then i had a kid, moved to another town and needed a job ASAP and wound up doing some brutal labor shit and havent really had the time to sort things out. I did try making a 2d game in C# at one point from scratch to really get the hang of object oriented programming which was great for practice but i wound up getting distracted trying to make a mod for warcraft 3 (thought it would help me understand how the game works but kind of just made things more confusing)

So now knowing that, how useful would learning java and python be in this context? how do they compare to C# and PHP? Java sounds like a brilliant thing to learn for the mobile market and i think id be happier making apps than websites. thanks for the response.

0 u/justlogin 23 Feb 2019 19:39

How far are you willing to commute and/or move? Look at job listings in your area (but realize fads come and go). The specific skills valued in a startup won't necessarily be the same valued in an established corporation.

0 u/mudbear [OP] 24 Feb 2019 07:32

I cant commute far and the area i live in doesnt have a big web scene atm (things can change but its pretty dead at the moment) i have to live where i am for family and stability, I guess another possibility i thought of was remote work but wasnt sure where to start and wanted to be confident i could tackle remote employers demands.

0 u/justlogin 24 Feb 2019 07:52

Are you set on .NET? That can be a good career depending where you are... Let me think... https://www.freelancer.com/jobs/c-sharp-programming/

Can you do this one? It was probably someone's homework, but he'll pay you maybe.

It would probably go something like:

sum_recur(x, d, n) {
    if(n <= 0) return x; /* base case */
    else return sum_recur(x+d, d, n-1);
}
sum_iter(x, d, n) {
    var acc = 0;
    for(var i = 0; i < n; i++) acc = acc + (x + i*d);
    return acc;
}

Don't trust this psuedocode, could have goofed!

0 u/justlogin 24 Feb 2019 08:40

Don't make a bid for this one, but good practice. https://www.freelancer.com/projects/php/want-application-java-that-decodes/

You will need to convert plaintext/ciphertext to a BigNum, kind of like how several ProjectEuler problems involve large numbers. It's okay if you cheat and use a language with builtin BigInt's (i.e. Common Lisp, Python, etc) https://stackoverflow.com/questions/41633821/encode-string-to-base36

0 u/mudbear [OP] 23 Feb 2019 07:13

Hey goats, thanks for all the replies in here! Really appreciate it

0 u/3dk 23 Feb 2019 17:35

You will quickly realize that beginner tutorials won't help you learn anything new. The way to go is to test your skills at coding challenge sites, I'd reccommend CodeWars and HackerRank. Get good books for stuff you want to learn. Find open-source projects that you like and try to understand their code. Try to make a program for whatever ideas pop into your head. Don't worry too much about best practices, just try to pick them up over time.

0 u/justlogin 23 Feb 2019 19:59

Coding challenge sites are always limited in usefulness, from the viewpoint of a learner. The site can't go too far in teaching concepts without giving answers away! I saw one somewhere with some PDF downloads but most don't even do that...

That doesn't mean the experience would always be useless, but they will always be of limited use.

0 u/obvious-throwaway- 23 Feb 2019 17:46

I like PHP, MySQL, Javascript and jQuery as a compliment.

0 u/SubhumanDeplorable 03 Apr 2019 17:05

Figure out git-hub... And if you Figure it out, teach me... I'm too old to learn I guess.