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I see these stories quite a bit and they're kind of annoying. ex. 'How I switched my career, and tripled my salary, and became a software engineer, all in 8 wee

by ktran03 13y ago

I see these stories quite a bit and they're kind of annoying. ex. 'How I switched my career, and tripled my salary, and became a software engineer, all in 8 weeks'. Please. Many of my colleagues, and myself to an extent, have spent many many years since childhood preparing just to get into a reputable engineering school. Then it's 5 yrs of constant workload get the degree, whilst hustling doing coop. Then you get out in the real world, and life smacks you in the face, and you realize its only getting started and you're about at the bottom of the rung as can be. To be honest, I get a little offended when someone goes through a couple tutorials, reads couple blogs, and suddenly they call themselves an engineer. I have friends who've been grinding out code since they were 10yrs old (now works for google), people have to realize programming and engineering takes a lot of hard work, it's not something you master over the course of a few weeks/months.

notduncansmith 13y ago
As a self-taught developer, I can see your point. Looking back to where I was when I got hired a year ago, I'm pretty astounded that I called myself a developer or a designer. I've since had the benefit of working with some really great developers, but even so I don't have a lot of what one might call "classical CS knowledge". I learned about Big O and hash tables within the past month. I've never implemented Quicksort. The kind of thing you need to get a job, but don't actually help you do it (during day-to-day web development, at least). I don't really see looking down on someone for lacking that area of knowledge as reasonable, but thinking that watching some videos and throwing together toy sites means you'll be able to handle the thousands of edge-cases that come up every day is pretty ridiculous. That's something you can really only get with experience.
- ktran03 13y ago
  '..but don't actually help you do it day-to-day' Most of the time, but by understanding those core concepts, you're mind looks at programming and solving problems in a different way. Similar to math, you may never use a differential equation, but by understanding it, you look at the physical world and interpret it in a different way. Not my intent to look down on anyone. My point is simply that software engineering is huge, you don't learn it in 2 months. Done traditionally or independently, my hats off to you. It's no easy task.
  - notduncansmith 13y ago
    That's very true. Usually keeping common sense stuff in mind like "I'm having to touch the database multiple times" or "I'm maintaining 2 arrays for this operation instead of one" and realizing that those are red flags, gets you there in almost every case. I agree that those things probably do expand your understanding and allow you to consider problems in different ways (which may help you solve certain types of problems more easily). I also agree with your main point: there are very few people in the world who are likely to be able to (accurately) describe themselves as software developers with <1 year of experience/learning.

by ktran03 13y ago

notduncansmith 13y ago

As a self-taught developer, I can see your point. Looking back to where I was when I got hired a year ago, I'm pretty astounded that I called myself a developer or a designer. I've since had the benefit of working with some really great developers, but even so I don't have a lot of what one might call "classical CS knowledge". I learned about Big O and hash tables within the past month. I've never implemented Quicksort. The kind of thing you need to get a job, but don't actually help you do it (during day-to-day web development, at least). I don't really see looking down on someone for lacking that area of knowledge as reasonable, but thinking that watching some videos and throwing together toy sites means you'll be able to handle the thousands of edge-cases that come up every day is pretty ridiculous. That's something you can really only get with experience.

ktran03 13y ago
'..but don't actually help you do it day-to-day' Most of the time, but by understanding those core concepts, you're mind looks at programming and solving problems in a different way. Similar to math, you may never use a differential equation, but by understanding it, you look at the physical world and interpret it in a different way. Not my intent to look down on anyone. My point is simply that software engineering is huge, you don't learn it in 2 months. Done traditionally or independently, my hats off to you. It's no easy task.
- notduncansmith 13y ago
  That's very true. Usually keeping common sense stuff in mind like "I'm having to touch the database multiple times" or "I'm maintaining 2 arrays for this operation instead of one" and realizing that those are red flags, gets you there in almost every case. I agree that those things probably do expand your understanding and allow you to consider problems in different ways (which may help you solve certain types of problems more easily). I also agree with your main point: there are very few people in the world who are likely to be able to (accurately) describe themselves as software developers with <1 year of experience/learning.