
How did you learn to code? - vdthatte
Hey everyone,I&#x27;m curious- how did you go about learning how to code?<p>Was it self-taught and working on projects&#x2F;bootcamps&#x2F;through tutors?
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mattmoss
Mostly self-taught: BASIC/ASM on a C64 using the Programmer's Reference and
Compute!'s Gazette. Taught myself C on a Mac Plus by writing a game over
winter break during my first year at university.

There's so much documentation available now (more than was available years
ago) for so many open-source and free resources out there.

For me, though, the biggest assist to _really_ learning something is having a
project. Whether it's at my employer or a personal thing, a project drives me
much better to learn something than documentation alone.

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vdthatte
I completely agree with the project part. Funny, I started learning how to
build iOS apps during the winter break of my first year at university too!

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savethefuture
Self taught by reading and watching as many guides, articles, tutorials as
possible. Then applying what I learned to build something I was interested in,
at the time it was early webapps. Learned html, then I had to learn this thing
called css, then js, then backend with ruby, then databases with sql, then
hosting and managing with linux.. The more I learned the more I had to learn.

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vdthatte
That's really cool! Did you have a vision for becoming an engineer or making
your own products when you were starting out? Did that drive you? Or was it
just the thrill of making stuff?

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throwaway456321
Got introduced to the school computer in 1980 - a Texas 990/10 mini.
Immediately went out and bought a bunch of books on BASIC (the only language
we were allowed to use). Bought a UK101 for home use (8k 6502), bought Rodnay
Zaks' book on 6502. Also Leo Brodie's book on Forth. So self taught from books
- the only way to learn back then !

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vdthatte
Fascinating! Yeah it's funny how we tend to take Google/Stack overflow and all
the amazing resources on the internet for granted now haha

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w_allDueRespect
I attended a bootcamp. The program had a very poorly constructed curriculum,
and that made it feel more like a money grab than a place to learn useful
skills. I got as much as I could out of it, but I would say that the majority
of my current skillset has been self-taught.

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vdthatte
That's really interesting!!

Would you recommend someone starting out to rather learn stuff on their own
instead of going to a bootcamp? Also what do you think made their curriculum
poor?

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w_allDueRespect
No I would definitely recommend a bootcamp, if you find the right one they
will provide great value as long as you immerse yourself in them. I have many
complaints about the particular one that I went to, starting with the fact
that they charge nearly $15,000 CAD for a 6 month "Full Stack Developer"
program, 3 months of which is spent covering very little Javascript, and
focusing strictly on WordPress. Basically the first 3 months is a waste of
your money. Another thing that I've read about, and heard about, but I haven't
experienced, is that the prevalence of all these bootcamps has lead to an over
saturation of Junior level developers in the industry. That would make sense
intuitively, because there's only so many Junior jobs to go around, so it
might be worth looking into how the job market is wherever you are.

