Anyone else self-taught coding/programming from scratch?

Van_Basten

Van_Basten

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I am in the process of learning with whatever spare time I have, it is a 21st century lifeskill that I see as a must-have. My background is in Law (UK school equivalent of the Ivy League) and I used to live with a computer scientist before I graduated. So basically, my interest started when I wanted to learn what he was doing. Basically the guy was a freaking genius (to me) and had finished his projects long before they were even set by the lecturers. I am still going through newb stuff of course but yeah I have always been interested in the history of computing and just the genius of human invention. Anyone else ever started from having this same spark of interest?
 


I am 100% self-taught.

I hacked wordpress and basic PHP for a long time, but over the past two years or so I've really stepped it up with shit I know. I love TutsPlus, but there are a ton of other subscription sites out there for learning shit easily (Code Academy, Lynda)

Great skill to have... You don't need to be a computer scientist to get this shit. Just enough to get by
 
I'm completely self taught.

I was one of the nerdy kids in elementary school that got pulled out of class twice a week to go do special projects with other nerdy kids and to go to science fairs and math bowls and whatnot. In 1988, when I was in 3rd grade, we learned BASIC programming to do low resolution graphics plotting on Apple II computers. I just took to it. The other kids were doing their PLOTs and HLIN and VLIN to draw basic shapes, while I'd already figured that out and was bored and learned about how to do loops and fills and interactive elements. When those few weeks were over, they had a pretty picture. I had a scene with an animated dinosaur in front of an active volcano that roared when you pressed a certain key.

It was all down hill from there. :)

I wrote programs in QBasic in junior high and high school that did my math homework for me, and provided a nice chunk of pocket money when sold to friends. I learned HTML and JavaScript in the Netscape 4 and IE 4/5 era. I dropped out of college to pursue dotcom dreams, which fizzled out in the bust. Taught myself ASP and SQL and ended up in the 9 to 5 world in the same job and sitting in the same cubicle for the last 10 years going nowhere fast, which I'm now trying to work my way out of. (But hey, if you want to know about the exciting world of Microsoft SharePoint, I'm your guy!)

I'm lucky to be the type who can sit down and read some documentation and dive right in and produce some pretty good code. I still don't know shit about the proper way to do sorting algorithms and other pissing contest shit that certain types of programmers measure each other by, though.
 
I'm conflicted, in one hand that's a manly fucking name you've got there Van Basten ... is your first name Dirk?

On the other hand, you've got a soccer fag in your avatar. Please tell me that's rugby or something because I'm utterly conflicted.

Yes, i be self tout ... there's no better way to learn IMO because you're not forced to think inside a classroom and therefore are free to use your imagination, something that's significantly important for any high end hack.
 
I learned what I do from home outside school. It builds on itself, I figure I may not be the first one to get it, or the fastest, but at some point it clicks. Just takes more time than someone else, but the knowledge builds on itself and eventually it empowers you.

Easiest way to learn is to find something you're interested in and make it. You can make a hacked up shitty ass version that still works and you'll eventually realize why it was shitty and what was shitty about it, and that's the time to refactor.

For me my interest started in web dev, then I moved to game dev and eventually got hired doing that and haven't looked back.
 
I've tried... (2 years)

I can hack the shit out of Wordpress, vBulletin, PHP, HTML, etc. And slice a PSD in Photoshop, etc.. (Basically if it's pre-coded, I can do anything..)

But when it comes to making a PSD > Wordpress from scratch, lol I have no idea. Even CSS no idea about ANY of that.

...

Usually try to change the code myself, if that fails outsource. For brand new themes, I always outsource that. :(

Have watched all the videos, read a ton of tuts, it's not my thing.. Too much of a designer anyways.

Good luck.
 
Yep. Most of the people I know who are "good with computers" all started around 11-13 and are mostly self-taught. Started out as a hobby, then they realized they could just get a job and keep doing what they would be doing anyway.
 
More interested to know if there are any coders / programmers who are not self-taught - and what paths did they take to get there. I think the self-taughts all have a similar path, following up on an interest.
 
I've been dabbling since I was 9 years old and have picked up quite a bit. Starting from such an early age gave me great intuition though. Recently this 30 something year old guy hired me by the hour to basically teach him this and that about programming and web development and I could really see how my intuition helped me along. It was really hard to teach him because he couldn't connect the dots. I coulda just been a shit teacher though..

Tl;dr I'm a 20 year old virgin
 
Self taught HTML/CSS, now dabbling with PHP/Javascript/Python.

Just learn what you need along the way. Most of the times I never need to start from the ground up, but just recognize and know enough to customize something that's already built.

But now that I can start from the ground up, it's more fun. I appreciate my web properties that much more because of it.
 
If you really want to be a programmer, the best advice I can give you is to finish.

If you ask a question, finish it by finding the answer and completely understanding it. If you start a lesson on one of many "learn to code" web sites, finish the lesson. Finish the tutorial. If you start a project, finish the idea. Start a programming book? Finish it.

There is no worse enemy to people who are just starting out and have an interest in coding than getting stuck behind "What language should I learn?", "What book should I read?", "Is this project a good idea?", etc..

Just start, and finish. You will see the rewards quicker than you think.
 
I can hack sites together out of multiple google searches for various examples of html, php and javascript.

Everything I know has come from reading forum posts from people who have had the same problems as I and somebody has had the good will to explain it to them.

Stackoverflow is your friend. It also helps to have a couple of solid coders on your skype just incase you cant quite get your head around something. But 99% of the time you can figure it out with a good old "problem here" site:stackoverflow.com
 
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sirtokealot said:
I can hack sites together out of multiple google searches for various examples of html, php and javascript.

Everything I know has come from reading forum posts from people who have had the same problems as I and somebody has had the good will to explain it to them.

Stackoverflow is your friend. It also helps to have a couple of solid coders on your skype just incase you cant quite get your head around something. But 99% of the time you can figure it out with a good old "problem here" site:stackoverflow.com
Click to expand...

This

You don't need to know how to do any of it. The key is being able to figure out what the right questions are, and then google will handle the rest
 
100% self taught.

I graduated college when I was 20. My first job was working on an IT Help Desk that literally had zero customers. We had one call in our first 6 months. I could see the writing on the wall, so I learned how to hack the customer support system to add fields and make new functionality.

Next thing I know I'm being sent out as a consultant to customer sites to do the exact same stuff for them.

Quit that company and started my own - did things like writing order entry systems for large plumbing manufactures (and the US gov'mint, financial companies, etc) and more. Traveled around the world a couple times on other people's dime.

Ironically, while I do well financially as an owner of a consulting company I am still a total failure at IM.

But I haven't given up yet...
 
Almost entirely self taught. Started at around 9, then got internet access at 15 and started making bank. That's one side of it, just having the power to hack something together that can generate $1,000 a day while you're sitting in high school. It was all ugly code, but it was goddamn powerful.

I did decide I wanted a college degree after doing fuck all in high school, but I never graduated cause I was working on my own or for clients all the time. What I did end up learning, however, was the academic approach to expanding my skills. I didn't need a degree, but learning discrete math, database design and some of that gave me that really strong foundation. Since then it's been a series of moves where I'm learning new skills, then applying them hard until the job is done.

For anybody who is either an academic or pragmatic programmer, I definitely recommend taking the step to become both. When you're that guy you can really write your own ticket.
 
Lots of good advice here. I came from a background similar to Barman. Just knew enough to get things done. For me its been the beginning of this year. I really like udemy.com for courses. They are always sending out coupons so don't pay full price for the courses. There are some sneaky fucks as I have found a few instructors to be selling courses that are currently on youtube.

Here is a promo they are running. https://www.udemy.com/collection/ge...ads.facebookpage.udemy.usa.oct19deal&xref=wdd

No Afflink
 
All of the best programmers I know didnt even finish high school or goto college.

They all came out of the AOL spam and VB scene. Literally can code any 'college level' programmer out of their fuckin' socks(hahah nerd pun joke). Been programming for 10+ years, all self taught.
 
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