Anybody write code??

There are hundreds of specific disciplines, and many ways to learn, but there it's no getting around the years it takes to become proficient.

Only worth doing if you live in an outsource country like India or Ukraine.

I've been a professional computer programmer for over 20 years. In my experience it pays well and is in demand, although that is going to depend on where you live.

As to how hard it is to learn - that depends. Some areas are easier than others and some languages are easier than others to get up and running quickly. If you are smart and a quick study then you should be able to get yourself into employable shape in a year, but not for all jobs (or even most jobs).

Just be wary of the "coding boot-camps" that are popping up all over the place. Employers don't view them on nearly the same level as a 4 or even 2 year degree. Unless you have a technical background to begin with, then it's maybe a solid option. I've seen a lot of English majors try and launch a second career after teaching for a decade thinking if they just do a 12 week program they'll come out with a job but fail miserably.

DontFeedTheTroll wrote:

I've been a professional computer programmer for over 20 years. In my experience it pays well and is in demand, although that is going to depend on where you live.

As to how hard it is to learn - that depends. Some areas are easier than others and some languages are easier than others to get up and running quickly. If you are smart and a quick study then you should be able to get yourself into employable shape in a year, but not for all jobs (or even most jobs).

I concur. In some areas of the country there is a shortage of coders and cities are setting up coding 'bootcamp' type programs to create a knowledgeable workforce.

IT jobs generally pay very well depending on the area and industry you get into. I don't know any coders that are unemployed.

I am actually interested in everyone's opinion. I have recently been learning Python on CodeAcademy. I actually enjoy learning it and it feels like solving a puzzle. Am I wasting my time? Is Python a good language to learn? How will I become proficient?

Learn ColdFusion. It's the latest and greatest and will be around for a long time. All the big companies are using it.

Curious cat wrote:

I have heard it pays very well and in demand. Does anybody write that could tell me if it is difficult to learn?

If you are young (25 or under) and do well with learning new languages, or have a background in any type of engineering then you can learn to code web stuff at an employable level within a couple of months. You can learn at an older age but I'd imagine as you get to 30 and older employers are less likely to hire a self-taught programmer without any relevant professional experience. If your mind just isn't wired that way then you'll have a harder time adapting and it's probably not worth trying to become a coder unless you're still under 20.

The key is you need to create a personal pet project that you treat like a job (and spend time on accordingly) for those couple months while you're learning. This can be your attempt at a hot new phone app, a specialized social network, or even your version of a forum like LRC. If it's a website it will teach you the basics of web servers, web forms, HTML and a scripting-type language. You'd want to run on a full relational database, for example MySQL which will also teach you database and SQL basics. Add some JQuery and Ajax/JSON to validate forms and make the UI a little more slick. If you're interested in e-commerce then add a simple order page with a payment form to sell shirts or subscriptions or whatever, and check into the different PayPal APIs for free entry into handling payments that will get you at least the basics. It doesn't matter if anyone ever uses the project other than you, the point is to learn and learn by doing something similar to actual marketable work.

Finally, don't let anyone convince you that programming jobs are all outsourced now. If they're telling you that they're either trolling, people in another industry repeating glib cliches, or just a really mediocre failed programmer. I've been doing this for 15 years, no degrees or certifications, am not a hyper-competitive type who cares about work outside of work. The client rate for my work is $125 an hour. After overhead (taxes, subcontractors, utilities, non-billable hours) I make around 95K off 25 hours a week and made mid 100s when I was doing 40 hour weeks.

I'm a developer as well. Super easy to find a job if you're anywhere near population.

As for learning: Not everyone picks it up so easily. Like any difficult subject, for some people it just 'clicks' and for others they'll never figure it out.

As for HOW to learn: Find a language like python or javascript and just mess around. Google how to do things, watch tutorials, try to make a TODO App. Expand the TODO app to store your information in a database. Expand the TODO app again to make web service calls to a backend server that handles the data. Expand the TODO app one more time and have separate users and an authentication system. Once you do that you'll have the basics of one language down.

It's a fun journey, enjoy.

This type of work is not for everybody. At the least, take an introductory programming class at a community college and see how you like it. Do some career aptitude training and see if you are oriented to this type of work. There are several books that address this subject as well such as "What Color is Your Parachute?", etc. One element of the book is that people tend to like working with people, data, or things. Computer science work is definitely working with data.

There's a huge difference between a software engineer and a programmer. Job reqs are often not clear what they are looking for.

If you have the mind for it, picking up a language and becoming a programmer can be pretty easy. A 2-year degree is probably the best route, and online is just as good as a local college in many cases.

Becoming actually proficient in coding is a much rarer skill, and much more sought-after. This takes 4 years of college - usually 6+ - and then a decade or so of use. It's fricking hard (and no, I'm not proficient - I'm a hardware guy).

Luckily, applications requiring really good coding (cars/planes, encryption, OS development, etc.) are a small portion of the industry now. We-based stuff and internal business application development are huge, and don't require that level of expertise. Soft skills become more important in succeeding at these jobs. Things like accurate project time estimation and status reporting, and language skills that let you understand what the requirements are - even in the face of rapidly changing wants and needs from whoever you're coding for.

Developer here wrote:

As for learning: Not everyone picks it up so easily. Like any difficult subject, for some people it just 'clicks' and for others they'll never figure it out.

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This doesn't get mentioned enough, especially within the whole STEM discussion. It's called Computer SCIENCE for a reason. Yeah the end result is writing code, but if you can't understand the often difficult, underlying concepts of what makes good software, you'll never be a good developer. As an engineer previously, I know a lot of the concepts aren't easy to digest. So I'd highly recommend doing some work on your own before jumping into any formal education. Get your feet wet first.

There is only one language you need to know in today's market: PROLOG.

Old Man Runner wrote:

Learn ColdFusion. It's the latest and greatest and will be around for a long time. All the big companies are using it.

This is kinda funny, I've made a pretty good living over the last 15+ years doing CF coding.

Please -- no one else go into it. There's a huge backlog of older sites that need sporadic work and I can pick and choose the jobs I want.

Ole Timer wrote:

Old Man Runner wrote:

Learn ColdFusion. It's the latest and greatest and will be around for a long time. All the big companies are using it.

This is kinda funny, I've made a pretty good living over the last 15+ years doing CF coding.

Please -- no one else go into it. There's a huge backlog of older sites that need sporadic work and I can pick and choose the jobs I want.

I still make a very good living with COBOL.

tech recruiter wrote:

but if you can't understand the often difficult, underlying concepts of what makes good software, you'll never be a good developer.

This is not true. The bulk of programming work is rather ordinary logic, or such a small task in a big project it isn't very challenging in many ways.

The rest is in no particular order:

The challenge lies in readable code that is thorough and that can be picked up after it's been forgotten and has good flow that can be understood by others. The other challenge is picking up other languages.

Over time, coding shops have their own subcultures that prefer some command/style over others. You have to be smart enough to identify it and adopt those standards quickly.

If you get into a big shop with big projects, coding is little more than a sweatshop.

I'd argue there's way more money in being able to talk to the money people and the developers at the same time, each in their own buzzword bingo.

I'm a data scientist. For me, the most useful coding I know is SQL. I can do 99% of the things I encounter without having to look anything up. So I can code quickly, and write efficient code with good data structures. This is great because most of my work as a data scientist is cleaning up and preparing data for modeling. Learn SQL (not MS access, although that's fine to use), and you'll be useful to companies in a variety of ways.

The actual modeling I do in R, and I'm proficient enough in it. I'll usually do a bunch of SQL work for a while, then hit R hard for a week for the modeling, then back to SQL. Takes me a few days to get back into it after being away for a few months.

Used to use visual basic a ton, but haven't touched it in years. Learning some python now just to be conversant.

So, my advice is learn SQL. After that, I'd go with python, as it's pretty easy syntax to learn and everyone seems to ask for it. Can also do a lot with python.

Do you haz the codez?

You'll never know if it's difficult to learn unless you try to learn it. Like a lot of skills it's about 20% book learning and 80% learning by doing. You can be barely literate in the rest of your life and still be good at writing code. If you actually can learn it, you'll probably be in demand and make a decent income. The only downside of most coding is that you own virtually none of your own work product.