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Comment by hamandcheese | Hacker News Reader

I think you overestimate the amount of skill a newb can quickly gain on their own. I taught myself to code, but it took a whole summer (aka free time that adults don't get) and I had access to my dad (who was a software engineer himself) to answer lots of questions.

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I've been programming since I was 4 years old but with literally zero resources or assistance beyond "take books out from the library" for 20 years. It wasn't until I was about 28 until I had the chops to get into the industry (largely down to never having a need or opportunity to learn SQL -- also I mean as a developer, I had a prior career in IT) and even then it wasn't until I was 31 before I had the confidence enough to interview...

On the other hand, I have a wealth of other general computer and protocol knowledge and have been working circles around most of my coworkers since day one. In the typical tech startup world I _rarely_ encounter coworkers with truly deep knowledge outside of whatever language they work in.

IMO the skill isn't about being able to "write code", it's about being able to model how things work.

This is very similar to my story. Once I got on a dev team I was flabbergasted at the lack of breadth and depth of knowledge of my fellow devs. It was only a few older devs that had any clue.

Having gobs of time as a kid and in my twenties to experiment greatly enhanced my capabilities. Once I did start landing corporate jobs (which was exceedingly difficult) I was at or above architect level. As I gained more experience working on production systems I was promoted very quickly (created new positions for me etc).

I have had other architects declare I was the best they have ever met. Which sadly, isn't saying much.

> Once I did start landing corporate jobs (which was exceedingly difficult) I was at or above architect level. As I gained more experience working on production systems I was promoted very quickly (created new positions for me etc).

Ditto and ditto.

I have had some positive experiences working with fresh grads from places like Waterloo (I'd hire 10 of their grads for any one grad from anywhere else...) but my professional experience very much matches yours.

Sorry, are you saying it takes 20 years for a self-taught developer to learn enough programming, especially when they start as kids? No offense, this is a you problem.

I dabbled with PCs since I was 8, around 14 I had enough brain to start to understand BASIC and enough free time to get good enough to write half a decent mini OS by the time I was 17 [1] and got my first paying job (sysadmin and PHP dev) at 19. I'm 37 now.

All you need is free time and being interested enough in the subject matter. And kids learn 10x as fast as adults anyway.

Not sure why you are trying to discourage people from learning on their own based on your time line.

1: https://github.com/1player/klesh

wow its crazy that different people have different experiences

(as it turns out, writing code for yourself is a different skillset than writing code for a boss!)

> (as it turns out, writing code for yourself is a different skillset than writing code for a boss!)

That was exactly the point I was trying to make

Similar experience, except I have never worked professionally writing software as my primary task. I've always stayed in operations/systems roles or other periphery roles, and now am a PM. I am constantly amazed at how many "senior" engineers actually have no understanding about how a computer actually works. Once I went corporate I moved up the ranks on the systems side of things very fast, and was widely regarded as one of the best engineers in the company everywhere I went, and yet I can see absolute chasms in my knowledge and really try to ensure I identify SMEs I can work with to overcome my own gaps. It is really shocking though how little most working engineers actually understand about technology.

I read a "Teach yourself $language in 10 days" book in a weekend, and was banging code on Monday to create the first v0.1 in a week. Of course the code was absolutely horrendous, but it worked. I still have a copy of that old database that was used, and over the years, I have turned to it as I've learned new things and have even rewritten the UI a couple of times. It has helped me stay up to date with new trends as it was originally written in '99 using frames, then went to full CSS/JS, then used it to learn flex, and so on.

So, if you're solo dev'ing, you can get away with making things work with what you've learned in a week. You just wouldn't be hired by anyone else of a serious nature. So it just depends on the individual and projects being worked.

But you're building on the context of knowing a different language.

Picking up the second, fifth, or nth language is easy, as long as it isn't the first one.

The second one actually seems to be harder for some people. It requires separating the syntax from the semantics

Agreed on all further ones, however

What makes you say that? I learned HTML using Notepad and Netscape. I had a single semester as senior in high school that taught PASCAL, but that was 7 years prior. Not really sure how that helped in the slightest.

I don't feel this is any different from someone that might have taken a class that taught HTML/JS/CSS except for that would actually be learning directly applicable to today. If that type of person jumped into a bootcamp, I feel like that would be similar to anything I experienced if not better. The internet is a thing now so there is so much more access to anything I had.

I strongly disagree with this. It’s more like languages hit a common wavelength. Sometimes it makes sense, sometimes it doesn’t.

If I may make some assumptions about you:

1. You're a person of a particular frame of mind who finds it easy and natural to talk to computers in programming languages

2. You knew a different language before, perhaps one you learnt at a young age

3. You've messed around with computers for years now and have built up a conceptual model of what the hardware and software components are and how things fit together. So if a new thing comes along, you can hang it on your tree of knowledge. Consider the difficulty someone might have making hello_world.py if they don't know what an OS is, or how to edit text, or any of the basics.

None of the above generalizes to the population at large.

not "at large", but there's very much a segment of smart people who's expertise lies elsewhere, and they just haven't taken the time to learn the basics of programming. as someone who's spent a lot of time programming, I love meeting brilliant people who could program but don't just because they've gone a different way.

Some people forget how easy programming can be when you know nothing and just try stuff to see what works. Working in a procedural manner with everything in a global scope is simple to get stuff working. Not everything has to be extrapolated out into namespaces, functions, classes. It's nightmare code to maintain later, but going from blank page to working code is totally possible.

I think sometimes we forget not everything has to be written to a git repo with a highly developed structure ready for multiple people to work on. Is it a good habit, hellznaw, but people start somewhere and progress. That was the point that I was trying to make. It is totally possible to have a career as a programmer and have no credentialed degrees in CS or even programming. I know from personal experience.

I agree with you. In the 2000s, what you describe was normal for Excel/VBA. The trick to learn VBA from nothing, was to use the macro recorder, then slowly modify the code. And, arguably, Excel formulas was/is functional programming.

I learned C by using gcc directly and Python by using IDLE. Both with single file project. The actual software engineering can take time, but simple projects are very easy for beginner to reason about. Everyone can build a shed, it’s building a house that requires professional expertise.

Perhaps you're a genius then.

I am quite sure most people who have only learned programming for one weekend would write much worse code than ChatGPT.

What part of "the code was horrendous" did not click with your sentiment? It was horrible. The entire database was one table. Every SQL query was a SELECT *, and filtered everything downstream in the code rather than WHERE. It was absolutely horrible code that I am shocked actually worked with any kind of speed that actually felt responsive. Of course I didn't have millions of records, but the fact that it worked at all was encouraging enough to me that I'm still doing it to this day in the same language. Only now I've been doing it for 20+ years and I'm much less embarrassed about my code, or maybe more. At least back then I could use "I'm a beginner" as an excuse.

The expectation of „quickly gain“ is the problem.

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