4 ms·

Is there a good way to learn those skills at a professional level outside of a university setting? I feel like I've taught myself a sufficient amount of front e

by ellius 9y ago

Is there a good way to learn those skills at a professional level outside of a university setting? I feel like I've taught myself a sufficient amount of front end, back end, ops (Docker, IaC etc), but I'm at a loss for how to test my ability with algorithms and data structures, memory management, etc. I've picked up some books, but I don't have a good way to measure my ability or demonstrate it to employers.

austenallred 9y ago
The free way is of course with books (http://teachyourselfcs.com http://teachyourselfcs.com is a good guide), but if you're looking for a school you could do something like bradfield or something like https://lambdaschool.com/computer-science https://lambdaschool.com/computer-science (disclosure - I'm a cofounder of Lambda School). As far as demonstrating it to employers, that comes down to the interviewing process, which is in and of itself pretty broken, but they'll probably just ask you a lot of contrived questions about that stuff.
octalmage 9y ago
Create some open source projects in the field you are interested in! This is a great way to demonstrate that you know what you're doing, especially if others are using your project and collaborating with you. When I interview people I always look at their GitHub and dig into their work. Just make sure that your code has tests and has ok documentation. Bonus: if one of them gets popular you'll have companies coming to you.
vinceguidry 9y ago
I'm a self-taught web developer, and I can tell you that the skills and knowledge gap between web development and "real" software engineering is huge, enough to where I seriously consider going back to school to pick them up, even though I already make $100k+, I've reached the top of my earning potential. If I knew a program tailored to people like me that would give me a reasonably-accredited certificate and teach me the math and theory, I'd pay perhaps $20k for it. I'd go back to college, but I really don't want the pain of all that undergrad coursework.
- staticautomatic 9y ago
  Have you considered the Georgia Tech online masters in comp sci?
  - auston 9y ago
    Do you need a degree to do that? Or can you test your way in?
    - vinceguidry 9y ago
      Yes. http://www.omscs.gatech.edu/program-info/admission-criteria http://www.omscs.gatech.edu/program-info/admission-criteria
hasenj 9y ago
> but I'm at a loss for how to test my ability with algorithms and data structures, memory management, etc Try to work on projects involving encoding/decoding video streams and displaying them on the screen. Also, 3D game engines.
joshvm 9y ago
Learning algorithms for the sake of it is incredibly dull, for me. I find reading about nice algorithms interesting, but I don't remember anything later unless I'm solving a problem. You're better off working through a problem set like Project Euler, or trying some TopCoder Single Round Matches (SRMs, there's a huge archive). At least that way you'll see some interesting puzzles and you'll get exposed to the majority of the 'standard' algorithms. By the time you get 'good' you should be able to read a problem statement and immediately think "Ok, this is some kind of graph problem" or "List of sorted stuff? Probably need to use binary search". There are some good books like Skienna's the Algorithm Design Manual which encourages this kind of intuition.

by ellius 9y ago

austenallred 9y ago

The free way is of course with books (http://teachyourselfcs.com http://teachyourselfcs.com is a good guide), but if you're looking for a school you could do something like bradfield or something like https://lambdaschool.com/computer-science https://lambdaschool.com/computer-science (disclosure - I'm a cofounder of Lambda School). As far as demonstrating it to employers, that comes down to the interviewing process, which is in and of itself pretty broken, but they'll probably just ask you a lot of contrived questions about that stuff.

octalmage 9y ago

Create some open source projects in the field you are interested in! This is a great way to demonstrate that you know what you're doing, especially if others are using your project and collaborating with you. When I interview people I always look at their GitHub and dig into their work. Just make sure that your code has tests and has ok documentation. Bonus: if one of them gets popular you'll have companies coming to you.

vinceguidry 9y ago

I'm a self-taught web developer, and I can tell you that the skills and knowledge gap between web development and "real" software engineering is huge, enough to where I seriously consider going back to school to pick them up, even though I already make $100k+, I've reached the top of my earning potential. If I knew a program tailored to people like me that would give me a reasonably-accredited certificate and teach me the math and theory, I'd pay perhaps $20k for it. I'd go back to college, but I really don't want the pain of all that undergrad coursework.

staticautomatic 9y ago
Have you considered the Georgia Tech online masters in comp sci?
- auston 9y ago
  Do you need a degree to do that? Or can you test your way in?
  - vinceguidry 9y ago
    Yes. http://www.omscs.gatech.edu/program-info/admission-criteria http://www.omscs.gatech.edu/program-info/admission-criteria

hasenj 9y ago

> but I'm at a loss for how to test my ability with algorithms and data structures, memory management, etc Try to work on projects involving encoding/decoding video streams and displaying them on the screen. Also, 3D game engines.

joshvm 9y ago

Learning algorithms for the sake of it is incredibly dull, for me. I find reading about nice algorithms interesting, but I don't remember anything later unless I'm solving a problem. You're better off working through a problem set like Project Euler, or trying some TopCoder Single Round Matches (SRMs, there's a huge archive). At least that way you'll see some interesting puzzles and you'll get exposed to the majority of the 'standard' algorithms. By the time you get 'good' you should be able to read a problem statement and immediately think "Ok, this is some kind of graph problem" or "List of sorted stuff? Probably need to use binary search". There are some good books like Skienna's the Algorithm Design Manual which encourages this kind of intuition.