Just how difficult is it to Learn to Program?

Four-Percent

Hi!

My aul fella works in IT now having done a course in C++ and nothing more in the field - admittedly this was 15 or so years ago, so I would venture a guess that the field has evolved since then.

When I expressed an interest in learning to him, he suggested that C sharp would be more relevant to learn than C++, and that Java is a good starting point. Did any of you guys learn to program outside college? How long did it take you?

Thanks for any help

Evil Phil

If you're only interested in it from a hobby point of view then it depends on how much effort you want to put in. It's still going to be difficult though.

If you want a job, you need to go to college, it is that simple. Now a number of people are going to go on about bits of useless paper and how I'm so wrong and how the trained themselves but if you want to work in software development then you need to start studying software development formally. Teaching yourself just won't be enough, certainly not in todays job market, certainly not if you're serious about it.

km991148

Even if it is just a piece of paper then it is still a piece of paper that most decent employers expect - its not just about showing that you have learned about the science and the methodologies etc, but that you can commit to and work for 3-4 years..

Anyway I am sure these arguments have been done to death..

OP- c# and java would be more relevant as general purpose languages.. but what do you want to do? Finding out what you want to do then learn a language best suited for that end goal will help..
and as asked above - what do you want it for? Hobby? Work? etc..

tomED

Evil Phil wrote: »

If you're only interested in it from a hobby point of view then it depends on how much effort you want to put in. It's still going to be difficult though.

If you want a job, you need to go to college, it is that simple. Now a number of people are going to go on about bits of useless paper and how I'm so wrong and how the trained themselves but if you want to work in software development then you need to start studying software development formally. Teaching yourself just won't be enough, certainly not in todays job market, certainly not if you're serious about it.

Would agree with Evil. If I was hiring a designer, college certs wouldn't be such a big deal - but for a programmer, I'd like to see that they have completed a course.

padraig_f

Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years - Peter Norvig

shoegirl

tomED wrote: »

Would agree with Evil. If I was hiring a designer, college certs wouldn't be such a big deal - but for a programmer, I'd like to see that they have completed a course.

Absolutely. I have a colleague who belongs to the cut/paste and copy out of books school of programming i.e. in reality he has no skills. He is ruthlessly exploited by a terrible operations manager who hasn't a clue and the output he produces is so appalling that his scripts break down maybe half a dozen times a week, requiring the very manual processes that his "work" was supposed to replace being necessary to work around the breakdowns. Meanwhile we've systematically laid off all but 2 of a brilliant team of multi-talented developers who were originally responsible for doing all this kind of work (i.e. customised solutions). To give you an idea the programmers can produce in 2 hours what Mr Cut-and-Paste takes 6 months to do shambolically.

He's only still there because he is being protected by the Ops Manager who is trying to "cut costs" (I'm not even convinced he is succeeding on any level). I would guess that when the wreckage that Bad Ops Manager has made of the turnover (i.e. having a direct hand in overall turnover dropping by 7% per year for the past 15 months finds its way onto annual balance sheets both will be wiped and since Cut-And-Paste has poor social skills, no qualifications and bad personal hygiene, he will face a bleak long time on the dole. In short, he's ineffective.

The 2 programmers I don't know if they are college educated or not, but they are reputed to be able to program or script any language.

I guess the difference between somebody who has a college background and somebody who is self-taught is methodology - most college students will learn systems analysis and design methods that will help them break down specifications and requirements into units they are able to then translate into smaller pieces. Many development and scripting languages are similar and learning one can lead to learning into other ones. I generally find that those with a history of studing development formally are better able to cope with the learning processes requiremed to do thing effectively, even just human processes.

The real difficulty with self-taught programmers is that unless they are very gifted they can quickly reach limits and the problem with Cut-And-Paste is that if he finds something he cannot do he tends to change the specifications to suit his limited skills and abilities rather than break it down into workable chunks. As a result his work is extremely poor and unreliable. Sadly the fact that he has been willing to try his hand has prevented us from formally hiring capable labour and as a result we are providing very poor services to our clients who are well aware of this (a lot of the work is involved in monitoring and triggering alerting systems).

Four-Percent

Thanks for all the replies - I'd certainly consider a degree in CS since I have a huge interest in it, but I'm perfectly happy where I am at the moment.


One other question, which university in Ireland/UK is considered to have the best computer science department?

EL_Loco

depends how motivated you are. I always found the biggest leaps in understanding was when you had a project to do. Always on the surface it seemed like a big ask, but as you drilled down into it and started programming it it just became a series of little modules you were stringing together. I would say this is hard to emulate "privately" unless you've handed over your bank account details to someone who won't give them back until you're finished.

I did go to college for it so I would have methodologies and approaches I'm probably not even conscious of when I do go to do some coding. (currently 10% of my job at the moment).

I would argue that possibly things like games development or web dev you might get more credit for your portfolio of work. Business and corporate stuff they would probably lean towards having some qualifications.

anyways, what's the plan? what's the point in learning French if you're not going to France?

Reku

padraig_f wrote: »

Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years - Peter Norvig

Was just thinking along those sort of lines last night, you go to college and learn a language, but all they do is teach you the basics so you can teach yourself the rest. Really becoming good at a language means you need to build up a large mental back catalogue of the available libraries/classes and when to use one over another, and this can take a very long time.

Earthhorse

If you are just learning as a hobby then there is no need to go the degree route but you may wish to if you prefer learning that way. As for learning to program, if you are good at abstract or logical thinking then coding is something you should be able to take on but it will still be a lot of hard work.

In this respect, you have your dad on hand, and, personally speaking, I find it much easier to learn from another skilled programmer than from a book or the web. I'm not saying they aren't useful resources, they are, hugely; but a book can only cover so much and with the web you'll more often get how rather than why (and you'll have to phrase your question very carefully sometimes or be faced with irrelevant results).

If you are going the teach yourself route I strongly recommend having a project in mind, just a small little app you'd like to write; you'll learn quite a lot that way and it's easier to keep motivated compared to doing endless labs.

Four-Percent

Earthhorse wrote: »

If you are going the teach yourself route I strongly recommend having a project in mind, just a small little app you'd like to write; you'll learn quite a lot that way and it's easier to keep motivated compared to doing endless labs.

Yeah I was thinking this, we made a little Xs and Os game ages ago, I'm gonna dig it out and have a look at it.


I'm looking at picking up programming as a hobby for the moment, but who knows, if I enjoy it a lot I can see myself making trying to make a career out of it.