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If you have been starting to write code and study code for a year, you are still learning to code. You have not learned to code, you are not even a journeyman y

If you have been starting to write code and study code for a year, you are still learning to code. You have not learned to code, you are not even a journeyman yet. I've been in the industry about 9 years, and coding since I was a child. My parents caught me staying up late with a flashlight under the covers as a teenager reading books on C instead of nudie mags. My first program with an event-driven UI ran on a NeXT Color Station. This is not to brag, it's to say I've been doing this basically since I could decide what to do, and I still have a lot to learn about coding, computer science and software engineering. So you've made your third biggest mistake; you've vastly underestimated what you are in for. You have never "learned" to program, you are "learning." Every year will ask you to acquire new skills and use new models and learn new domains.

suneel0101 14y ago
Absolutely right, there's no end to it. What I hope the reader will achieve is the basic ability to prototype their ideas. That's where I am. In no way do I think I've learned all there is to code. Every day I'm learning precisely how little I know. Heck, I just started learning Lisp and truly enjoying how unfamiliar and powerful functional programming can be.
- KirinDave 14y ago
  "Heck, I just started learning Lisp and truly enjoying how unfamiliar and powerful functional programming can be." Try Haskell before you have too many preconceptions of what "should" be to burn away. :)
  - suneel0101 14y ago
    Sounds good :)
sopooneo 14y ago
A recovering non-coder?
eitland 14y ago
> So you've made your third biggest mistake; you've vastly underestimated what you are in for. You have never "learned" to program, you are "learning." I am afraid your comment is even more mistaken. Even more it is discouraging in a really bad way. Read carefully and I'll explain. Even if your HN score is 10 times mine. In my opinion you are creating a false dichotomy between having learned and learning. Someone who has just started to walk/bike etc has still learned to walk/bike. They are by no means near entering Olympics for the next few years but they have made their own life very much simpler and more enjoyable. (Father of small children here.) Comments like yours are discouraging at least one specific subset of people from doing the one thing that can possibly help them increase their skills, namely use them. I even think that for most people even if they can learn a lot about coding by just reading, reading and immideately applying it is by far a quicker route. Anecdata: I once told a 16 y.o. intern how to use basic perl and Visual Basic for Applications. After 14 days where he would run his scripts, check, check with his supervisor, fix the code, learn more perl and vba and so on he came back with a report that would have taken weeks to finish by hand. He is now on his last year on a Bachelor with Honors study and this was his first useful program. Still makes me happy. (By the way, I also started coding at age 12. Having programmed for both $100+ million companies as well as startups I am not one of those struggeling to learn the basics. Anymore, that is : )
- shreyansj 14y ago
  Learning to walk/bike is in no way comparable to learning to code. Learning to walk/bike is primarily a physical muscular action to train your body to keep it's balance etc. Once you have learned to walk or bike, you have learned it. Learning to code is an activity of the brain where there is no clear defining line as to when you have learned. You might feel that you have learned a few languages or frameworks but there is still more or still something else that you can learn. So, it's amore gradual and continuous process. Hope this makes sense.
  - eitland 14y ago
    > Once you have learned to walk or bike, you have learned it. Go tell that to someone who competes in running or biking. > You might feel that you have learned a few languages or frameworks but there is still more or still something else that you can learn. Again, same goes for biking: There are all kinds of tricks you can do. Yet once people manage to ride a bicycle for a few hundred meters without falling they have picked up the concept and we say they can. Even if there are still lots to learn (traffic rules, all kinds of neat tricks etc) I argue that the same goes for coding: Once people understand the basic building blocks and start writing their first useful or amusing program from their own imagination we say they can program. At this point they can start making their own and possibly also other peoples lives more comfortable. Start making their own prototypes which is what I read from the original post. Would you hire them as programmers? I would not. Do they need to read more books or attend more courses to start prototyping their own ideas like the original post was talking about? Thankfully not.

suneel0101 14y ago

Absolutely right, there's no end to it. What I hope the reader will achieve is the basic ability to prototype their ideas. That's where I am. In no way do I think I've learned all there is to code. Every day I'm learning precisely how little I know. Heck, I just started learning Lisp and truly enjoying how unfamiliar and powerful functional programming can be.

KirinDave 14y ago
"Heck, I just started learning Lisp and truly enjoying how unfamiliar and powerful functional programming can be." Try Haskell before you have too many preconceptions of what "should" be to burn away. :)
- suneel0101 14y ago
  Sounds good :)

sopooneo 14y ago

A recovering non-coder?

eitland 14y ago

> So you've made your third biggest mistake; you've vastly underestimated what you are in for. You have never "learned" to program, you are "learning." I am afraid your comment is even more mistaken. Even more it is discouraging in a really bad way. Read carefully and I'll explain. Even if your HN score is 10 times mine. In my opinion you are creating a false dichotomy between having learned and learning. Someone who has just started to walk/bike etc has still learned to walk/bike. They are by no means near entering Olympics for the next few years but they have made their own life very much simpler and more enjoyable. (Father of small children here.) Comments like yours are discouraging at least one specific subset of people from doing the one thing that can possibly help them increase their skills, namely use them. I even think that for most people even if they can learn a lot about coding by just reading, reading and immideately applying it is by far a quicker route. Anecdata: I once told a 16 y.o. intern how to use basic perl and Visual Basic for Applications. After 14 days where he would run his scripts, check, check with his supervisor, fix the code, learn more perl and vba and so on he came back with a report that would have taken weeks to finish by hand. He is now on his last year on a Bachelor with Honors study and this was his first useful program. Still makes me happy. (By the way, I also started coding at age 12. Having programmed for both $100+ million companies as well as startups I am not one of those struggeling to learn the basics. Anymore, that is : )

shreyansj 14y ago
Learning to walk/bike is in no way comparable to learning to code. Learning to walk/bike is primarily a physical muscular action to train your body to keep it's balance etc. Once you have learned to walk or bike, you have learned it. Learning to code is an activity of the brain where there is no clear defining line as to when you have learned. You might feel that you have learned a few languages or frameworks but there is still more or still something else that you can learn. So, it's amore gradual and continuous process. Hope this makes sense.
- eitland 14y ago
  > Once you have learned to walk or bike, you have learned it. Go tell that to someone who competes in running or biking. > You might feel that you have learned a few languages or frameworks but there is still more or still something else that you can learn. Again, same goes for biking: There are all kinds of tricks you can do. Yet once people manage to ride a bicycle for a few hundred meters without falling they have picked up the concept and we say they can. Even if there are still lots to learn (traffic rules, all kinds of neat tricks etc) I argue that the same goes for coding: Once people understand the basic building blocks and start writing their first useful or amusing program from their own imagination we say they can program. At this point they can start making their own and possibly also other peoples lives more comfortable. Start making their own prototypes which is what I read from the original post. Would you hire them as programmers? I would not. Do they need to read more books or attend more courses to start prototyping their own ideas like the original post was talking about? Thankfully not.