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> the only reason this barrier was ever breached for this person was due to their large twitter following I feel like their approach to solving the problem act

> the only reason this barrier was ever breached for this person was due to their large twitter following I feel like their approach to solving the problem actually does represent how most people deal with it - they ASK someone. There are hundreds of massive programming discord servers, with extremely engaged tutors, helpers, and resources. If you want to learn to program, you'll need guidance, and I think that's OK. You won't go buying any old welder and some metal and just start welding (or at least it won't go very well). You'll seek out people who already do it, get advice, or maybe even seek an education in it if you are really aiming for the long term. Programming looks like it has a low barrier of entry, because you don't have to commit to much. To weld you need to buy (or rent) a welder and material, to do carpentry you need to buy at least some basic tools, to work on your car you need a car, to be an architect you'll need to pay someone to build it, etc. For programming, you seemingly only need a computer (or even just a phone), which most people have access to. This apparent lack of need for commitment makes it look like "it shouldn't be that hard", but that's IMO a complete misunderstanding. This is why I'd prefer hiring people who have at least somewhat of a formal programming education. In my university, for example, we learned how to use git, linux, write JS, CSS, html, c++, php, do SQL, manage and design databases, and generally just learned a lot of "background knowledge". With that, it's trivial to pick up almost any tech afterwards. For anyone else trying to get into programming, join a discord or reddit, or slack, or matrix, or IRC community, which is focused on what you're learning. It will save you weeks of trying.

alexb_ 4y ago
Have you ever actually tried to do this? Programmers are extremely opinionated people. If you somehow manage to get past the barrier of "pretending to look smart so you can even ask a question without getting flamed to hell and back (hello, stackoverflow!)" you will be met with people suggesting different things, which quickly devolves into a giant argument about which thing is better and why this guy is so stupid for liking that thing over this thing and it becomes absolutely impossible to get anything done. And again, there is a baseline expectation of knowledge that people have which is far, far too high. Even if, by some miracle, you get someone telling you to type "xyz" in the terminal, I doubt anyone has enough patience for the next question of "what's a terminal". This is the baseline understanding we need to allow for and the vast majority of tech enthusiasts, programmers, and others just don't get that.
- lionkor 4y ago
  Yes I have tried to do this, and I do this kind of "helping others" a lot on discord. StackOverflow is about the worst helping platform. That's not the kind of platform I was talking about, I was specifically mentioning discord and reddit. r/cpp, r/c_programming, and some discord servers like the "programming" discord are great. I see what you're saying, but that is NOT the experience I've had at all on most communities other than StackOverflow. I really urge you to actually try it and have a look.
- spaniard89277 4y ago
  I'm one of those learners and this is true to an extent. But there's fantastic people in r/learnprogramming for example. Even better than the Discord of the self-paced bootcamp I'm doing... But the complexity is real. I'm learning Django, which is supposedly easy, and it's a completely different beast than learning the in and outs of a language. And Django has good documentation, for some libraries it's a mess.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - AlchemistCamp 4y ago
    You picked a tough spot to start!
    - spaniard89277 4y ago
      Meh, I'm following the path they tell me. You're probably right tho, but I guess they want to make me employable. I feel that I will use Django for personal stuff in the future too, so althogh it is comples I have enough drive to get through it. I can't be many hours on it though. Programming was much more motivating when I was learning the basics, I could be coding all day with no problem. I loved the challenges they sent me.
      - AlchemistCamp 4y ago
        Setting aside Django and learning it as a beginner, the job market for Python as a whole is a bit odd. It's great for grad students coming in from other disciplines but pretty harsh and credentialist towards the more typical self-taught web dev profile. That said, both the concrete things you pick up with the language and the meta skills you pick up fighting with frameworks, libraries and dependencies will come in useful. Keep learning and you'll be more employable. Best of luck! I've been there.
BlargMcLarg 4y ago
Mind you, I agree with most. However: >With that, it's trivial to pick up almost any tech afterwards. The fact most of the market does not align with this at all kind of shows to me the contrast between "passionate people willing to help get stuff done" and "a brutal corporate market where everything not perfect nets you a fat zero, despite projects being way more samey and boring". The job market for juniors is absolutely brutal and it is already expanding to other levels to a point where if you mess up or don't have the "right experiences", you're still effectively a junior still according to the market. Through no fault of your own. Couple that with a "we're looking for i+1 experienced people to do i-1 work" mentality and the number of corporations which don't do this being extremely limited. On top of that, tech also has a large "trial-and-error" part to it which most people should be willing to acknowledge. If we're not mutating upon existing solutions, we might as well just package the existing thing into an instant solution. The mutating on existing solutions is the difficult part.

alexb_ 4y ago

Have you ever actually tried to do this? Programmers are extremely opinionated people. If you somehow manage to get past the barrier of "pretending to look smart so you can even ask a question without getting flamed to hell and back (hello, stackoverflow!)" you will be met with people suggesting different things, which quickly devolves into a giant argument about which thing is better and why this guy is so stupid for liking that thing over this thing and it becomes absolutely impossible to get anything done. And again, there is a baseline expectation of knowledge that people have which is far, far too high. Even if, by some miracle, you get someone telling you to type "xyz" in the terminal, I doubt anyone has enough patience for the next question of "what's a terminal". This is the baseline understanding we need to allow for and the vast majority of tech enthusiasts, programmers, and others just don't get that.

lionkor 4y ago
Yes I have tried to do this, and I do this kind of "helping others" a lot on discord. StackOverflow is about the worst helping platform. That's not the kind of platform I was talking about, I was specifically mentioning discord and reddit. r/cpp, r/c_programming, and some discord servers like the "programming" discord are great. I see what you're saying, but that is NOT the experience I've had at all on most communities other than StackOverflow. I really urge you to actually try it and have a look.
spaniard89277 4y ago
I'm one of those learners and this is true to an extent. But there's fantastic people in r/learnprogramming for example. Even better than the Discord of the self-paced bootcamp I'm doing... But the complexity is real. I'm learning Django, which is supposedly easy, and it's a completely different beast than learning the in and outs of a language. And Django has good documentation, for some libraries it's a mess.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- AlchemistCamp 4y ago
  You picked a tough spot to start!
  - spaniard89277 4y ago
    Meh, I'm following the path they tell me. You're probably right tho, but I guess they want to make me employable. I feel that I will use Django for personal stuff in the future too, so althogh it is comples I have enough drive to get through it. I can't be many hours on it though. Programming was much more motivating when I was learning the basics, I could be coding all day with no problem. I loved the challenges they sent me.
    - AlchemistCamp 4y ago
      Setting aside Django and learning it as a beginner, the job market for Python as a whole is a bit odd. It's great for grad students coming in from other disciplines but pretty harsh and credentialist towards the more typical self-taught web dev profile. That said, both the concrete things you pick up with the language and the meta skills you pick up fighting with frameworks, libraries and dependencies will come in useful. Keep learning and you'll be more employable. Best of luck! I've been there.

BlargMcLarg 4y ago

Mind you, I agree with most. However: >With that, it's trivial to pick up almost any tech afterwards. The fact most of the market does not align with this at all kind of shows to me the contrast between "passionate people willing to help get stuff done" and "a brutal corporate market where everything not perfect nets you a fat zero, despite projects being way more samey and boring". The job market for juniors is absolutely brutal and it is already expanding to other levels to a point where if you mess up or don't have the "right experiences", you're still effectively a junior still according to the market. Through no fault of your own. Couple that with a "we're looking for i+1 experienced people to do i-1 work" mentality and the number of corporations which don't do this being extremely limited. On top of that, tech also has a large "trial-and-error" part to it which most people should be willing to acknowledge. If we're not mutating upon existing solutions, we might as well just package the existing thing into an instant solution. The mutating on existing solutions is the difficult part.