Who codes and where do you hang out?

[IrvinaYalom]

Is there a place here for coding folk who do coding-y programme-y tech things?

I am currently teaching myself with the aim of eventually becoming a full stack web developer and would quite like to chit chat with people who understand what I mean when I say things like: "how the fuck does the this keyword work in JavaScript?".

If I'm not alone in this (or if there's a place I've failed to find where you all congregate) please do let me know!

@olderthanyouthink
Hmm depends on the baby. Mine never napped consistently so early on no impossible plus I was exhausted. I am lucky though that my son slept through from 11 weeks so at that point you can get some sanity back and start thinking of stuff other then food and sleep. He's 7 months now and I get a consistent 2.5-3 hours to myself each evening to learn to code. It helps having oh available to take over when needed.

Give yourself a few weeks to get your head round it before you even think about anything else.

You have an advantage because you can code already. I'm finding learning hard when I had to do it in 10-20 chunks. Much better to have a long stretch. Don't know if the same applies to actual coding.

If I were you I would do all your pseudo code now that way you have broken it down into individual problems that you can take on one at a time. Also this will help.you to identify where you need to do research or further learning which you can also tackle as a mini project.

You do get free time as s new mum. It just isn't consistent or of any length.

olderthanyouthink

Yes that's my ultimate goal. C# and unity. I have a game in mind that I have started writing (not code) no idea of its something I can achieve on my own though it's a mobile game. I know I cannot compete with triple a!! It will likely just be an exercise to use to learn and build a portfolio but who knows.

I'm a full stack dev, C#, tsql, javascript, MVC, Angular, css 3 etc. etc. Mainly web stuff. Been at it 12 years, before that I was a multimedia artist. So macs, Director, Flash etc. Showing my age there!

I just had to google what 'full stack developer' means. it's not a term really relevant in my field though.

Yes, I tend to be looked down on by proper programmers, and get told to learn Java a lot.

To me anything involving UI seems like wizardry. All my attempts at GUI design end up looking a bit like a 90s web browser full of those spam toolbars.

@Iamnotacerealkiller One of the things that really sold me on test driven development was the way it forces you to break down problems like this - what do I need to solve next? Also leaving on a failing test really helped me remember what I'd been doing yesterday when I came back the next morning...

@DieAntword - just use Bootstrap. Your UI will look like everyone else's (not always a bad thing for user experience ) but it will look fairly decent!

Another coder here I'm a jack of all trades but Java is usually involved somewhere.

Maintenance and bug fixing is my job of choice usually, it's much more fun than the big projects, especially when you get to work on obscure stuff and pick it apart to see how it works.

Software archaeology?

Love it especially when you find letter from the past in comments, put in 10 years before

/ If you touch this bit of code everything will fail and I will hunt you down and kill you /

Even better when you come across something like that, and half an hour later remember you wrote it.

I have googled stuff, and found my own solution on Stack

@FlaviaAlbia

You've just made me really happy because I understand what /* means without googling!!

Would you recommend learning java? I wasn't intending too but don't want to be looked down on for it. I did use some on a day course a few years ago but it didn't make much sense without all the basics that I am learning now and mainly involved cutting and pasting statements. I know it's used for gaming which is where I would like to go but is it needed? Would you recommend learning it before python/c# or after?

Python is more fun than java, java is used in lots of “enterprise” programming so if you like the idea of that kind of job it’s good to know. If you don’t I wouldn’t bother. If you want to learn a language to show off I’d go with erlang :p

Kleptronic that's fantastic.

😂 Flavia, there is a similar alarming comment in one of my crontabs. I don't remember writing it and I'm too scared to remove it.

@Iamnotacerealkiller fingers crossed I'll be able to do something more than eat and sleep but I'm not holding my breath. DP works shifts that average out as 3 or 4 days a week so he should be around to give me respite.

I've barely ever written pseudocode before interesting idea to write the app then code the app.

The unity games that they make at work have been at the top of the App Store chart and actually started making some money (ads) not too long ago

@Kleptronic I've been looked down on by backend developers for doing they easy girly frontend stuff. Though they end up coming to me when they can't figure it out and they don't have to deal with multiple different browsers and their quirks. 

@DieAntword I use bootstrap for everything (and encourage the designers at work to bare that in mind) then I can just do superficial restyling

LOL at the comments in code, there's one in a project that I did that basically says "yes this is stupid but it wouldn't work otherwise"
I'm going to have to put some comments in my code for when I go on maternity leave apologising for some of my crappy code too

to the replies to my last post. That one definitely wasn't me, my comments rarely contain death threats, maybe occasionally thinly veiled exasperation

Iamnotacerealkiller I don't know anything about gaming! The things I've worked on have been mostly big corporate systems like finance and telecoms. The buzz was around various new open source languages and big data in my last job.

olderthanyouthink I don't know how you do it, I hate front end stuff and fiddly browsers. You must have some patience!

@FlaviaAlbia I just dug up that comment I was thinking of

// take fb access token and login in fb-token.php as it doesn't work in here ¯\(ツ)/¯

Frontend is, I think, just more problem solving and balancing the various fixes. Not sure about patience, just feels really good when you can look at IE, Firefox, safari and chrome and it all looks right (though not the same and god forbid they should all follow the W3C standards)

I work in data analytics and spend a fair amount of time faffing with if statements but I can code (just don't very often ). I need a good shove to get myself working in Python again. Got zero ideas at the mo.

olderthanyouthink anyone coming after you will appreciate your art, that would have brightened up my day

This popped up on my Timehop today and it made me think of some of the posts on this thread.

m.xkcd.com/1421/

Urmmm so it's been a while since I started this thread. When I made the OP I was really just beginning to dip my toes into the code-y pool and barely understood most of the replies. Almost a year later and I've just "graduated" from an intensive coding bootcamp so am fully in the pool now- right in the deep end. I am looking for my first proper job as a junior dev and very excited to start doing something professionally that I enjoy so much! Are any of you tech-y MN-ers still about?