red pill me on codeacademy

convenient but fairly shit compared to what you can get from well-selected books.

>>34313545
Not OP but I'm also interested.

I've tried learning coding a couple of times over the years and given up.

Is codeacademy a good way to do it anons?

>>34313573
what books would you recommend?

>>34313648
Learn Code the Hard Way has relatively good books for some of the subjects codecademy does. Generally you can find solid recommendations just by googling.

Anything that has you typing code in a web browser will usually be less rigorous than most books.

Really wish I didn't study computer science. Now my resume is mixed in with retards who claim to have programming skills, when in reality they did some half baked codeacademy tutorials. Fuck you guys.

>>34314155
There's literally no difference someone can reach the same point through self study with enough determination whether it's reading books at home or using some website like codeacademy.

The only difference with a college is somebody being paid to guide you through the learning process and a bunch of official documents at the end proving your knowledge. These things are great but not all of us can afford or desire to study in an institution and other possibilities are a great thing. I think anyone should be able to learn anything for free.

>>34314251
That's great and all but all you do is drive down wages and make it more difficult to find employment. Once again, I really regret falling for the CS meme. Worst decision I've ever made.

Protip: If your field of study has no barrier to entry, choose another career.

>>34314155
Are you really having any trouble finding good work though? Having the degree floats you to the top of the pile at least.

>>34314251
educationless 20-something turd detected

>>34314483
So you go and sit in some brick building and memorise shit. That's basically what 'education' is. I cringe at people who act uppity because they graduated from college. It has nothing to do with your intelligence or anything positive about you, you simply sat in some building and learned shit. It says nothing about your character or your legacy as a person.

>>34314469
Yes, and all my friends who work make less than 50k. It's a fucking joke. There is no shortage of programmers. You'll see big companies set up shop in your area, claim that they can't find skilled workers, then import 95% H1-B workers.

Oh and by the way, check the cost of living in areas where people make the big 6 figures! You're all being memed.

>>34314589
Well shit. I'm a 3rd year CS major. No regrets yet because CS is the only STEM-related thing I enjoy, but it will be interesting to see what my future holds. I have two years of webdev experience but was only making $30k lol.

>>34314155

I work with some CS grads, and some """programmers""" and we're really got nothing to worry about.

You can immediate tell when brainstorming an infrastructure problem when the boot-campers chime up with some dumb latency-loaded, unworkable bullshit.

this literally happened to me yesterday. still speechless about something they came up with
apparently hitting a database is now faster than hitting a memory cache fucking kill me

>>34314905
Maybe you'll have better luck than me. I have no work experience and some github projects with a few dozen stars. Considering taking a QA position, but feeling really discouraged with this lie we've been fed. It's only going to get worse.

csgradsincreaseexponentially.jpg

>>34313545
It all depends on how you learn, what is it that you want to learn and why you want to learn it.

Codeacademy is good because it gives you a clear outline and easy step by step instructions but it will not make you a well rounded software developer.

Stanford has a free self paced CompSci 101 course that you can take online that's very good in the sense that you will have a good understanding of how computers work and why certain things are done a certain way but you might find that after finishing it you have a very good understanding of theory of how computers work but can't use it for any practical application. You will definitely have a leg up in the future when you start writing code where efficiency matters. It will definitely help you to not sound like an idiot when talking with more experienced developers.

Learn how to code the hard way is one of my favorite resources to recommend to people, I like it because it's just good info without the fluff but I can see how it could get boring if you are not super into it.

>>34313545
basically an advert for new things they are trying to push on the internet

You'll see paycheck reports vary wildly.

Personally I've worked for a company that was offering 120k in SF area and couldn't get any programmers, because everyone else was offering 140k. Of course in other areas of US the situation is different and the people we were looking for weren't just some guy who can slap some javascript together that he learned on codeacademy.

But that only held true for the american branch of the company. I'm not an american and now I'm a contractor, which means great money (by the standards of the shithole I live in), but nothing that would impress the americans.

>>34315019
Damn, I would have imagined the degree and github projects would put you in a prime spot for a junior-level position. Good luck my dude, keep searching.

I have a CS degree and more than 15 years of experience (I'm an old bastard), so if you've got any questions ask them.

>>34315273
Is it worth it to try to learn COBOL to try to land a cozy high paying job or do you thing that the old code will soon start to be replaced?

>>34313545
FUCK that game and its stupid slippery floors.

>>34315273
What would you consider as an impressive project in someone's portfolio? Are cover letters important? Thanks.

>>34315469
The problem with these things is that you never know. Let's say, for the sake of the argument, that you do learn that. But it turns out that not enough people did. They will be forced to port all the old shit simply because not enough other people did learn it. But that's if you can find someone to teach you. Because there's another problem, which is: where are you going to learn COBOL and furthermore, where are you going to learn about all these systems?

Furthermore, you seem to be focused on getting a high paying cozy job. Are you really that lazy? Do you really want to do COBOL just because you think you'll be smooth sailing from there on out?

Dunno man, I like doing things that interest me. COBOL and ancient shit doesn't interest me. There's more to life than money, and if you're any good you'll have more than enough money for your needs. Would you really trade a 150k paycheck for a 300k paycheck where you need to be doing something that you don't like and it's completely pointless?

>>34314589
>>34314905
These salaries don't seem that bad to me, it's plenty of money to live on and the job is easy non-physical indoor work. Perfect to stay at for a couple years, gain experience and references to transition to a better paid job.

>>34315642
The cost of a home is over 15 years salary. 50k is jack shit. Made more doing manual labour.

>>34315679
You must be from some shithole country with worthless currency if laborers make more than 50k a year.

>>34315742
Yes, Canada is quite shitty.

>>34314933

DB's involve disk/network I/O right?

>>34315513
Not sure what you mean by cover letters as I'm not an american.

Is that the letter you send with the CV? If so, yes. I mean we don't send letters anymore, if you're applying to shit you send an email. In the email you should attach the CV and you should take care what's in the email, which is I guess your cover letter.

Here's what you do, if this is your first job you're applying to. You basically google a bunch of companies that do the shit you want to do. IT DOESN'T MATTER IF THEY SAY THEY ARE HIRING. For each company go though their webpage, read what they're doing. Then write them an email saying who you are and that you're looking for work, and that you'd love to work with their team on X, where X is some shit they're doing. The trick is to show interest in what they're doing, but not too much to the point where it's fake, you don't want to slobber all over their dick. The point is to make it sound like you're going to add value to them. Something like how you hope you can help them improve their shit. All this shit is 1 or 2 sentences each, keep it short, nobody has time to read your essays. Then say, here's some of my shit and list prior projects, github etc... then attach the CV and send. Do this for a bunch of companies.

You need to know that before this shit gets to programming geezers like me, it first goes through HR, that's what all that bullshit about helping the company's vision in the email is about.

When talking about what's an impressive projects, shit that is actually used by other people in production is impressive. Libraries and frameworks. Of course, it matters if you're the principal engineer or not (we can see number of commits by a person on a project on github). So a big project is impressive, but a 100% authorship on a minor library is more impressive than 1 commit on a major framework.

>>34315941
Oh yeah, and I'm surprise nobody is asking the real questions. It is really easy to get A JOB, but how to steer your career and how to get some positions is the hard part. I with someone explained things to me, things like:

- how do I know when to switch jobs
- how do I get a higher salary
- how do I deal with other people on the team trying to use me
- how do I find my place in a company
- etc.

>>34316019
I just want to move out of my mom's basement and not become an hero. Appreciate the advice. Gonna adjust my application strategy.

>>34314330

A lot of people are going in to CS right now, but the thing is a lot of studies have been done regarding CS education and the conclusion that I've seen is that not everyone is cut out for it, and that no level of educational quality will make them into good developers. Programming in my observation requires a certain level of natural talent that not everyone has. I see a lot of memes about programming being stupidly easy, and indeed it is if you are one of those talented people, but in reality most people can't hack it.

A lot of people are lured in to the major not because they have the knack or passion for it, but purely for money and job security. A lot of these types end up failing or switching majors. I'm graduating soon and go to a school with a high ranked CS program, and the weed out classes have high fail rates of 15-30% and you only have 2 chances to pass. The projects, even in the senior level classes, often have surprisingly low averages which show that people simply can't build shit that works.

I didn't have much problem getting a job offer, but I'm one of those people who have been into computers since a young age and had no idea of the average salary, etc when I decided I wanted to major in CS.

>>34314589

You must live in a shit area with barely any jobs and low cost of living. Go to a major US tech hub and you will get employers reaching out to you with barely any jobs under 60k.

>>34316296
See >>34314830. Doubt you'll be better off than someone with a low salary with cheap living expenses.

>>34316296
>This

I live in Alabama and work in Huntsville. Homes are dirt cheap here, but because Huntsville is full of Nasa, Gubment, and aerospace jobs you still make 100k. You will never make good money in CS if all you have around are businesses looking for someone to make them an app. Scientific research and making systems that are crucial to defense and safety is where the money is at for those of us that can't work at Google.

>>34316396

I know, there are lots of entry level jobs in Bay Area paying 100k but we all know how that is.

I'm not saying 60k in NYC (low salary) is better than 50k in Alabama (medium salary) but if you play it right you can come out ahead even in a place like SF.

Plus, there IS reason why people want to live in those expensive places instead those cheap places.

>>34316533
The only reason you'd want to live in SF is if you were a degenerate.

>>34316657

For me the only draw of SF is the weather, everything else nah. East coast weather sucks so much.

>>34316441
>still make 100k

what the fuck are you doing here you fucking normie? go discuss this on a reddit thread

>>34313545
Teaching yourself to write software is very easy, but pointless because no matter how good you are you'll never get hired without some form of certification.

>>34316713
stop being a pusslord

>>34316811
>I literally sit in front of a computer all day and have panic attacks before meetings

ok, friend

>>34316837
No, you WILL get hired. Don't go to school to study programming. Your coworkers will think you're retarded, but you will probably get a job.

File: 1300044776986.jpg (34KB, 600x600px) Image search: [Google]

34KB, 600x600px

>>34316811
relax, most people who say that kind of thing here are just living out some fantasy role-play

>>34316884
Every opening has hundreds of applicants. There's no way to manually screen each one so they're going to apply essentially arbitrary standards just for the sake of filtering the numbers down to something manageable. First ones to go in the trash are the ones without degrees/certs.

>>34316865
you sound like a cyborg to me. a true robot couldn't even present himself well enough to get the job in the first place. nor would a true robot have the ability to overcome his laziness to reach the level of skill needed to get the job

>>34316921
I really hope so, but I know there are a ton of normies here who don't belong. they think small social quirks or imperfect social lives= robot

>>34316935
An Anon ITT says he works with retarded bootcampers. I wouldn't be surprised if the degree is not a factor at all.