Self Taught?

[Vindir]

Goodness I hate posting newbie topics in here, but if you want me you'll like me as I am. That's what Mah says.

How many of you guys are self taught in here? And how exactly did you go about it? I want details people. From how you were sitting, to what you ate for dinner. Programming and Engineering are the only two things about computers I have simply never managed to pick up. And Engineering I would say is due to lack of material and exposure.

I've busted my electronic balls so to speak trying to force my way through multiple online texts and books involving different programming languages, and the only one I've ever gotten even remotely good at was BASIC. Think I can get a job as a basic programmer? Yeah I thought so, worth a try though huh? Alphathree got the whole humility lesson for his post in OT, and going off that, perhaps it's time I got a little taste of success and moved away from the whole acceptance of failure thing. This is driving me nuts. I snap my fingers every morning when I wake up(really I do) and not once has it made me a *PooF!* programmer.

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Marquis Vindir of the OC Crusaders
Holding Boundaries and Breaking Barriers

Fool that I was, I foamed in my wickedness as the sea and, forsaking Thee, followed the rushing of my own tide, and burst out of all Thy bounds. The madness of lust held full sway in me. - Aurelius Augustine

[Rogue]

I would be very intrested in this also, I have always wanted to know how to program. I have no experiance apart from makig "Hello world" in Basic.

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The "Rogue" Knight
OC Crusader's

"Whoever is now within reach of my voice, whoever is man the victim, I am speaking at the deathbed of your mind, at the brink of that darkness in which you're drowning, and if there still remains within you the power to struggle to hold onto those fading sparks which had been yourslef, use it now" -Ayn Rand

[Vindir]

Speaking of "Hello World" and other sadistic variations. I'm a master at this one in a number of languages

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Marquis Vindir of the OC Crusaders
Holding Boundaries and Breaking Barriers

Fool that I was, I foamed in my wickedness as the sea and, forsaking Thee, followed the rushing of my own tide, and burst out of all Thy bounds. The madness of lust held full sway in me. - Aurelius Augustine

[Galen_of_Edgewood]

Vindir, I've only learned languages through classes, so I can't help you on the self-taught thing (though I swear that I had to teach myself somethings to survive the bloody classes).

I think that the best way to learn a language is to get a decent book (or online tutorial), learn the general concept, and then look through some sample code (more complicated than "Hello World", obviously) and figure out how it works. You sorta reverse engineer it. You take a problem, take the solution, and then figure out how they got from problem to solution. You'll learn quite a few new ways of doing things this way, as well as learn a few quirks of the language the code is in.

Now, which Basic are you talking about? Visual Basic? If yes, then there are jobs out there for Visual Basic programmers (though how many, I know not). If no, well, your SOL there....

C/C++ and Java are your most likely languages to find a job for. Besides, if you can understand these two languages, you can learn almost any other language in very little time (under a month for most uses). Many companies will have their own, specific language or a specific compiler, so you will get on the job training.

Learn the concepts of programming, more than just the syntax. If you understand and can apply the concepts of programming, it is just a (hopefully) simple matter of learning the syntax of the programming language that you are to program in.

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"Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?" he asked.
"Begin at the beginning,"
the King said, gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop."
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

[Klashe]

Originally posted by Vindir:
Goodness I hate posting newbie topics in here, but if you want me you'll like me as I am. That's what Mah says.
...

Well, Vindir, self teaching isn't difficult at all. Understanding the concepts is the hard part.
Looking at sample code can only help you a little bit. You have to dig into the stuff. Get a book with lots of sample problems and work through them (plug thru them sometimes). It's very difficult to get the same level of knowledge that a college student has, on your own. Teachers are necessary to help you work thru the problems and explain answers to the questions you have.
And it is also difficult to get a job in the field without a degree. Trust me, I know. I have major in fine arts but a minor in computer science. Even though I know more about programming than most majors do, I still had a hard time finding a job.
I don't mean to discourage you, though. I have heard of MANY MANY people educating themselves. It's just hard because languages like C or C++ can be VERY frustrating without guidance. Keep working at it. Get a book with lots of sample problems (Anything by Dietel and Dietel rocks) and go thru them. Good luck and keep persistent!

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If I rest, I rust.
--Indian Proverb

[Dengin]

I'm mostly self-taught, almost completely in fact. I used to play games a lot, back in the Atari ST days (and before that, MSX computers, which no one here probably remembers), so I played around a bit in BASIC. I wanted to go to college to be a Comp Sci major, but back then (1986/87) what that meant was 95% math, and Pascal programming. Which is not what I wanted to do. So I went the completely opposite way and got a Liberal Arts Master's Degree. Then I moved to the U.S. and while I was waiting for my work permit, I taught myself HTML, in Notepad. This got me my first job, and the rest is history, I played with NT 3.51 at that job, set up a webserver (IIS 2.0 and BIND), wired a small office LAN and wrote web pages. The next job was a helpdesk job where I did some Banyan, Novell, and NT4. My third job was a system/network admin job, during which I got my MCSE (all self-study, no classes). My current job is different again, little networking, mostly Tier 4 support, and I'm learning Perl, VB, ASP and XML.
So, I never had any formal education in computers, I only took 1 class, a CNA class in job #2, but everything else, I taught myself.

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Abit BH6
PIII-450 @ 504
256MB RAM
Viper 770 non-Ultra @ 150/183
NVidia 6.50
Diamond Monster MX300
Vortex 2 v.2048

[kid A]

I taught myself html and all those things, but it's not much to brag about...

I am teaching myself PHP now, though

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Now listening to:
Kings Of Convenience - Quiet Is The New Loud

T-Bird 1000@1100Mhz

[dighn]

I taught myself C++ along with some other stuff like HTML/VB... I used tons of resources: online books, library books, advanced c++ FAQs, IRC channels, web sites, various source codes, programming references...
if you are learning just for the sake of learning, i would think it's more difficult cuz learning programming requires a lot of practice to get yourself accostomed to writing programs and the concepts and the way of thinking...

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Live Long and Prosper



[This message has been edited by dighn (edited February 15, 2001).]

[Pestilence]

It really depends on what you want to learn. I taught HTML by myself through looking at webpages, my friends' source codes, and online web sites. And I just kept on practicing it. I am getting to know Java well and I have to tell you that it was not self taught. I'd be careful about learning a major programming language by yourself, even with the help of online web sites. You get so much more knowledge in a structured environment rather than looking for some particular type of code online which more than likely won't be explained in human enough terms for you to understand well. There are data structures that you learn in a class environment that so called "hackers" who teach themselves aren't familiar with and are easy to look over if all you do is look for solutions to a particular problem once it arises instead of getting more information and then applying which solution would be best to a particular problem. I'd very much suggest a class instead of being self taught. At least for 1 programming language. After that it's just a matter of syntax, which you can learn by yourself online and with books.

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(\__/) See the bunny.
(='.'=) Hear the bunny.
(") (") Pet the bunny.

BE the bunny.

[typedef enum]

I guess I'll just add to this discussion. I was in the service for 6 years, and went to school @ night. I got out, and then went to college, pursuing a Computer Engineering degree. I finished last year, and have been working as a hardware/software engineer since.

It's difficult, but not impossible to teach yourself programming. We have a guy that never went to College, or had any formal training. The hard part is probably getting your foot in the door. But the hardest part might be in truly understand all the underlying theory. For example, a background in Calculus, Physics, Discrete Math can go a long way in helping you understand many of the principles in various types of programming that you might have to do.

This is probably more so if you're trying to pursue, say, game development. I'm currently working on both the Windows side, and also doing development on a Motorola DSP. Despite the fact that both are pure C/C++, there is a rather dramatic difference between coding C++ in Winows....and pretty much anything else, for that matter.

The best thing to do is to get VisualStudio (if you're truly serious), get a solid book (I have a huge library, it just depends on what you're goals are, experience, etc) and do it.

Of course, VS is kinda expensive, so if you're a little skeptical that you'll really work at it, then you can snag Linux for free, and find some really nice free IDE's, such as KDE's new KDeveloper package. It's really pretty nice.

TE

[Gary Dix]

I had to learn VB by myself and then teach it! Actually it was the best way, as you had to know it thoroughly before you make lessons on it for students. And where you screwed up, they would also have problems.

But self teaching doesn't build the dicipline I think, that doing a course would. You get too lazy when you are self taught, and some things don't seem to be int he books at all, so you plateau out and can't get any further.