Coding Advice

roundthebend

There's been a few of these posts lately. Where are people getting the idea that software is a sensible future career choice? I'm quite glad it is since it's what I do, but it'd be cool to hear from an outsiders perspective. Maybe I'm missing something.

@mellowsun you've nudged me to look into machine learning. I've heard a few bits about it and there's a project at work that's using it. I've got a Maths A Level and actually quite enjoy it, so coupled with my coding 'chops' maybe it'd be a good string to add to my bow.

monquixote

I was wondering myself. 

At the moment every other advert on Youtube is something along the lines of: "I used to be a heroin addict, but after taking this 2 week Python online course I'm a VP of engineering at Google and now when I poop I poop rainbows." or words to that effect. So I wonder if it could be related to that.

digitalscream

monquixote said:

There is an option 3 which is build some kind of tool to automate an aspect of your existing job, but that requires you working for the right kind of company with the right kind of boss and I'm assuming if it was an option they would be doing it already.

This is exactly how I got into it - I already had a lot of basic (and BASIC) coding skills, but I regarded it as a hobby more than anything. I ended up chasing the money into the service management team at work, and got fed up with manually collating reports...so I chained a bunch of VBA stuff together in Office and made the whole thing work more reliably and smoothly. Then I wrote a web-based timesheeting system in my lunchtimes to replace the one everybody (400 people in IT) hated, and they finally decided it'd be better to pay me as a developer and let me do this shit full-time.

My last project there was to spend three months working on a company-wide project management system linking all the office apps with Microsoft Project into a fully server-based system, thus saving them about £800k on the system they were about to buy. Oh, and I had no budget for hardware or software, so I had to leverage my contacts in the hardware team I used to work for to intercept a bunch of desktops about to hit the skip.

On successful completion of the project, I was made redundant.

The moral of this story? Be sure that you really want to be in the coding game, because absolutely nobody will ever thank you for it.

Drew_TNBD

monquixote said:

Writing software is much more like a craft than a profession IMO. 

If you put it in terms of working with wood then it doesn't take very long to learn how to saw a plank in half and you might find a few people who will pay you to do so, but don't expect to spend a couple of weekends in your garage with a chisel and then get a job as a master joiner building chippendale furniture.

You need to be looking at putting a 1000 hours into coding to get any good at it an 10,000 hours to become an expert. It's entirely doable, but you need to love it because it's a lot of work.

That's the same as anything though really. There's loads of crap musicians here on this forum, because they've not spent the time to be good at it. Likewise with exercise, running, dieting, etc... etc...

thomasross20

@digitalscream even worse... my old supervisor at my first job out of uni... he was only 36/37 or so... but he knocked his pan in, like all of us did, at an electronics start-up. Seriously long hours and weekends for about 8+ years (I left after year 3). The payout at the end apparently wasn't all that great and he found out soon after he had spinal cancer and died within a year having lived a gigantic part of his life to work (to make the founders a lot of money). I think about him a lot - that really was an utter tragedy

Apart from that, it can be like that in electronics, too - but less so, I think. @monquixote made a good post and I agree - "coding" seems to be popular for folk wanting to dive in and thinking they'll be writing Apple's top apps or summat. I agree with the above - 10, 000 hour rule applied to most things etc. Maybe folk think it's not so tough to get into? There's a higher barrier to IC design, thank heavens. Saying that, lots of jobs are popping up in Asia so I'd better keep my skillz up (can't see myself doing it forever - the pace is so frantic). 
 
I take it you work contract, then?

monquixote

Drew_TNBD said:

monquixote said:

Writing software is much more like a craft than a profession IMO. 

If you put it in terms of working with wood then it doesn't take very long to learn how to saw a plank in half and you might find a few people who will pay you to do so, but don't expect to spend a couple of weekends in your garage with a chisel and then get a job as a master joiner building chippendale furniture.

You need to be looking at putting a 1000 hours into coding to get any good at it an 10,000 hours to become an expert. It's entirely doable, but you need to love it because it's a lot of work.

That's the same as anything though really. There's loads of crap musicians here on this forum, because they've not spent the time to be good at it. Likewise with exercise, running, dieting, etc... etc...

Not necessarily "anything", but yes I agree it applies to a great many things. 

The YT adverts suggesting you can do a couple of weeks course then walk into a £50k+ coding job are just as ridiculous as the suggestion that you could spend two weeks learning guitar and become a session musician.

That said coding is not like guitar in the sense that supply of guitarists massively outstrips demand whereas with coding the reverse is true so there is plenty of reasonably paying work for the mediocre. 

Drew_TNBD

monquixote said:

Drew_TNBD said:

monquixote said:

Writing software is much more like a craft than a profession IMO. 

If you put it in terms of working with wood then it doesn't take very long to learn how to saw a plank in half and you might find a few people who will pay you to do so, but don't expect to spend a couple of weekends in your garage with a chisel and then get a job as a master joiner building chippendale furniture.

You need to be looking at putting a 1000 hours into coding to get any good at it an 10,000 hours to become an expert. It's entirely doable, but you need to love it because it's a lot of work.

That's the same as anything though really. There's loads of crap musicians here on this forum, because they've not spent the time to be good at it. Likewise with exercise, running, dieting, etc... etc...

Not necessarily "anything", but yes I agree it applies to a great many things. 

The YT adverts suggesting you can do a couple of weeks course then walk into a £50k+ coding job are just as ridiculous as the suggestion that you could spend two weeks learning guitar and become a session musician.

That said coding is not like guitar in the sense that supply of guitarists massively outstrips demand whereas with coding the reverse is true so there is plenty of reasonably paying work for the mediocre. 

Epic. I'll aspire to be mediocre then!  

monquixote

Drew_TNBD said:

monquixote said:

Drew_TNBD said:

monquixote said:

Writing software is much more like a craft than a profession IMO. 

If you put it in terms of working with wood then it doesn't take very long to learn how to saw a plank in half and you might find a few people who will pay you to do so, but don't expect to spend a couple of weekends in your garage with a chisel and then get a job as a master joiner building chippendale furniture.

You need to be looking at putting a 1000 hours into coding to get any good at it an 10,000 hours to become an expert. It's entirely doable, but you need to love it because it's a lot of work.

That's the same as anything though really. There's loads of crap musicians here on this forum, because they've not spent the time to be good at it. Likewise with exercise, running, dieting, etc... etc...

Not necessarily "anything", but yes I agree it applies to a great many things. 

The YT adverts suggesting you can do a couple of weeks course then walk into a £50k+ coding job are just as ridiculous as the suggestion that you could spend two weeks learning guitar and become a session musician.

That said coding is not like guitar in the sense that supply of guitarists massively outstrips demand whereas with coding the reverse is true so there is plenty of reasonably paying work for the mediocre. 

Epic. I'll aspire to be mediocre then!  

If you understand that getting good at coding is the same scale of challenge as getting good at playing the guitar and you are prepared to put the effort in then I expect you will be fine. 

The skill you can't learn is the ability to knuckle down and get shit done/learned and given the quality of your musical output you seem to have that. 

Drew_TNBD

Traditionally music has been the only thing that quietens that voice in the back of my head that says "you're fucking worthless, you really should've succeeded killing yourself when you were 9"   ... if coding can be that, I'll be fine.

monquixote

Drew_TNBD said:

Traditionally music has been the only thing that quietens that voice in the back of my head that says "you're fucking worthless, you really should've succeeded killing yourself when you were 9"   ... if coding can be that, I'll be fine.

I've been learning functional programming for the past year or two and I'm actually more into it than guitar at the moment. 

Axe_meister

Coding is a lot like music.
I do some coding but I recognise that my code is the equivalent to learning the pentatonic scale in two positions. 
Yes I can knock out a small database based application that is functional but nowhere near what is required in a professional environment.

TheBlueWolf

I'm not expecting a £50K job a year by next Thursday

Being on long term sick I've got a lot of spare hours to fill so I'd like to have done something constructive. If I do get good enough it sounds like there's work available which is a goal but in the meantime I've got a couple of personal projects going and it'd be nice to know I can easily find my way around.

randella

TheBlueWolf said:

I'm not expecting a £50K job a year by next Thursday

Being on long term sick I've got a lot of spare hours to fill so I'd like to have done something constructive. If I do get good enough it sounds like there's work available which is a goal but in the meantime I've got a couple of personal projects going and it'd be nice to know I can easily find my way around.

Have at it, I say.  If you find it interesting and what you're learning makes sense, you're part of the way there.  It doesn't automatically, coding involves a particular way of thinking which not everyone is afflicted with

For the vast majority of coders, a first job will a) pay sod-all, and b) make you realise you know next to nothing which is why you're being paid sod-all.  This obviously isn't exclusive to software but unlike some other industries, if you're any good, it can change quickly.

monquixote

Axe_meister said:

Coding is a lot like music.
I do some coding but I recognise that my code is the equivalent to learning the pentatonic scale in two positions. 
Yes I can knock out a small database based application that is functional but nowhere near what is required in a professional environment.

Pleasingly like music there are some people who will still pay you for that it just requires setting your sights on the Dog & Duck rather than Madison Square Garden.