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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 smar

by 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.
      - spaniard89277 4y ago
        Thanks, after Django comes Spring. I found java cumbersome but apparently there's much more java work in spain. I'll see how it goes.
Dudeman112 4y ago
>I doubt anyone has enough patience for the next question of "what's a terminal" Have you spent time trying to teach people stuff? Most people have no idea whatsoever how to learn things. Instead of asking "what's a terminal?" and getting a grunt in response, they won't even ask. Learning things greatly outside your expertise needs a huge time and effort investment towards grokking the basics of the subject. Most adults are goal-oriented, which means they won't do the hard work of really getting the basics, nor even think that maybe they should be asking, reading and writing down stuff they don't know that won't immediately help with their goal, but is fundamental to not end up bumbling about cluelessly. The standard behaviour is like trying to solve differential equations without knowing what a function is. Just trying stuff works if what you are trying to do is piss easy, and it won't work if it requires any building blocks / isn't piss easy. Instead of looking at a term they don't understand and grinding until they understand it (which is often a recursive endeavour), they are just trying to make it work.

by alexb_ 4y ago

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.
    - spaniard89277 4y ago
      Thanks, after Django comes Spring. I found java cumbersome but apparently there's much more java work in spain. I'll see how it goes.

Dudeman112 4y ago

>I doubt anyone has enough patience for the next question of "what's a terminal" Have you spent time trying to teach people stuff? Most people have no idea whatsoever how to learn things. Instead of asking "what's a terminal?" and getting a grunt in response, they won't even ask. Learning things greatly outside your expertise needs a huge time and effort investment towards grokking the basics of the subject. Most adults are goal-oriented, which means they won't do the hard work of really getting the basics, nor even think that maybe they should be asking, reading and writing down stuff they don't know that won't immediately help with their goal, but is fundamental to not end up bumbling about cluelessly. The standard behaviour is like trying to solve differential equations without knowing what a function is. Just trying stuff works if what you are trying to do is piss easy, and it won't work if it requires any building blocks / isn't piss easy. Instead of looking at a term they don't understand and grinding until they understand it (which is often a recursive endeavour), they are just trying to make it work.