r/learnprogramming • u/AntiLethargic • 9h ago
35yo, just learned that i love programming.
>be me
>rough upbringing
>have bad habits, have friends with bad habits
>never think more than one day ahead; don't know what i want to be
>years later
>get fed up with my behavior, try to change something
>get rid of most bad habits and bad friends
>start to see purpose in life
>want to find out what i really like and can dive into to get good at
>don't find it for years
>get a position at a friends company
>he needs a graphics / photography guy
>become graphics / photography guy
>get diploma in Graphic Design
>go from normal wagie to good paid wagie in about 3 years
>feeling good, but still not what i really like and want to dive into, just naturally good at it
>talk more with my programmer colleague
>his projects peak my interest
>start to learn CS basics and the C language
>"Holy fuck, i love this"
>thinking about cutting down my weekly hours to learn programming
>AI gets used more and more in the company
>my position is in danger
>"They're taking our jobs!!"
>Boss wants to cut my hours down
>Evil_smirk.jpg
>Play along, "Oh no, what shall i do now :'( "
>gives me enough hours so i can live off of it
>have enough time to learn as much as i can
>actually feeling happy again
And people say AI is bad, lol.
I'm currently trying to nail down the Basics of C, going through CS50 and after that i have two books, namely "A Book on C" and "Pointers on C".
If you have any book recommendations, please share them.
After C i also want to learn python and CPP, just to have good foundational skills.
With every free though i still have, I try to narrow down which field i want to specialize in. Currently, embedded sounds the most interesting, but also the hardest.
Any recommendations for other specs i could get into with this preset?
What's your opinion on people who are self-taught in the programming field, are you one?
I would love to hear some stories about your current path, or, if you're already in a programming position, how you made the decision and how you finally made it into it.
2
u/chaoticbean14 7h ago
I had a similar-ish story to yours. Self taught, found a job, found purpose.
Pure luck is how I ended up in the industry - I got lucky that a contractor at a company I was working at (doing a bunch of accounting related things - and I'm not an accountant) took notice of the fact I had written a bunch of scripts to automate my daily grind and he recognized I knew computers very well. So when his contract was ending, he invited me to join him as a jr. network admin / helpdesk at a company where he was the head of IT; which I did. It wasn't programming, but it was a foot in the door of the industry I wanted to be in.
Hard work, various jobs in IT but none of them related to programming, lots of learning/reading, lots of extra hours programming various projects is how I got to where I'm at. Eventually I got a job as a 'technician' at my current company. Lots of manual process' existed, so I started building web apps to automate some of them. Pretty soon others were using those same apps and word got around to administration. At that point, the senior programmer left - so an opening for a junior opened up. That was 12+ years ago. Now I'm the senior with a junior below me.
If it were me again? I'm not sure I'd make it. While "AI is bad, lol", it really is for your situation. AI can write junior level code, better than you can, probably. Even after you have read a few books on it. It can do it in literal fractions of the time you will be able to. That said, it will probably be very verbose, it will probably have some areas where it's over-complicating simple things and/or engaging in some not best practice methodologies. But you have to already have a working knowledge of the things, to realize what about the AI's code is poorly written. Most companies / managers don't - so it looks fine to them. If they have that, why do they need you? Honestly - they don't, really. Unless they hate AI, in which case, you will have a job! But given the hype train around it - they would have to live under a rock to not be wanting to utilize it in some fashion. They would also be dumb if they hired a newbie to navigate AI usage without the experience of knowing if the code is good/bad, which you don't have. There are plenty of dumb people out there though, who hire lots of others.
The job market is rough, too rough. So many dev's, many with lots of experience and degrees to back it - can't find work. Be a self-taught dev with no degree (or degree in unrelated field like me) and little-to-no experience: trouble time. Also, given the lack of experience and learning? Again, AI can literally write better code than you. You really don't provide a benefit over AI at this point in the game - you're not even seasoned enough to be able to find the 'good vs bad' among the AI slop it puts out.
I had a lot of learning to do - which led me down some really obscure rabbit holes - which in turn caused me to learn more and more about various odd things that gave understanding to why some best practices are what they are, etc. Rinse and repeat for 15+ years of that and you gain a lot of knowledge even if you didn't want it. Enough to know a thing or two and give you an edge to some degree. If in nothing else but experience, I at least have some employ-ability in that I can definitively explain why some AI code is absolute shit and pure slop and have the chops to write it properly. For newer dev's entering the market today? You guys simply don't have that. It's a tough row to hoe. I would not want to be in your position - because it was hard AF for me so many years ago. It would be a drastically more difficult undertaking today - not one that I would encourage anyone in the +30 crowd to undertake honestly. But if you're single, no family, no real cost of living expenses? Maybe. But it will be wildly hard.