Better now than never. Now is all there is, right?
I am writing this for myself as much as anyone else. Not only do I wish to keep a digital record of my foray into the field of computer science/programming, but I also wish to keep myself accountable.
If you have been following my blogs up until now, you will be familiar with the somewhat turbulent employment situation I have found myself in, the way Steemit came to the rescue, and the continuing struggle in trying to find out "what I should do" in regard to my career and life path. If you wish to familiarize yourself with all this, you can read about it here, here, and here.
As of now, I have begun to take some free courses online, which are basically recorded lectures from various universities. As far as accredited distance learning courses, I am still looking for a school that is cost-effective yet accredited, and which offers the courses I need (something else I am still figuring out). At the end of the day, it is not the piece of paper or accreditation that I want, but the knowledge itself which will help me to land a job either as my own boss or as a worker at a blockchain startup, or something of the like.
This could be a totally unrealistic goal. I have been told it takes a lot of time to get good at coding, but I don't know exactly what a lot of time means. I suppose any job in IT would be a start.
If any of you Steemian coders out there have any gems of knowledge to drop in regard to good courses, resources, and specific areas/coding languages I will need to study to begin work for a blockchain startup, or to help people as a freelance coder, please let me know in the comments. I will definitely shoot you an upvote for your time.
Beyond messing with lines of code for QBASIC "Gorillas" back when I had a bowl-cut in 1997, my knowledge of computer science, I'm afraid, does not extend much beyond an appreciation for precise, cut and dry, logical problem-solving, and the utility and elegance of the algorithms, etc., which enable it. I suspect, however, that this may not be the worst place to start.
Cheers.
Peace, Love, and Anarchy.
Graham Smith is a Voluntaryist activist residing in Niigata, Japan.
I feel coding is the language of the future. If you can't speak it, you'll be like a deaf person or a muggle among wizards. I see some suggestions have already been given here like Code Academy. Here are a few more:
If you're just wanting to get the very, very basics in terms of
iftests,forloops, etc, you might want to start with Scratch. I built some games with my son and had a blast with it. The first game we made was a race car game.Okay, and now for the tough love. Branching out on a new career is something you should do from a position of strength, IMO. You should have a solid job, savings, and life in general in a pretty stable place. Those who are successful take calculated risks, not crazy ones. If I were in your position, I'd get a stable job first, pay down debt, and get some savings together. From there, I'd start working nights and weekends to learn something new. I'd start building basic HTML web pages for friends for free. From there I might branch out to doing more complex things like a simple database driven website. Eventually, start charging for your work and look into a local program like this one we have in Nashville: http://nashvillesoftwareschool.com/ Even if you end up getting into a more backend language like python, knowing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript will always be helpful.
Good luck, Graham. Let me know if I can help in any way. Also, you may enjoy this keynote I gave about turning your code into a company.
Thanks Luke. Yeah, I am definitely not just jumping off the cliff. As I mentioned earlier I am still working two jobs and interviewing for another teaching at a new school today. I left my previous full time because of horrible coworker work ethic and bad management. I think my posts tend to give the image that I am not doing anything regular, but that is not the case. Going to be studying when I can.
Advice much appreciated.
Excellent to hear. I guess I was just thinking about the drinking tour of the Japanese dive bar district. hahah! It's funny how our online sharing only gives very small glimpses into who we are. Glad you got out of a bad work situation, and you've got some things lined up. I hope the interview goes well.
Right! I had a YouTube viewer ask me if all I do is walk around and drink beer all day. Lol. That said, I certainly have not been the wisest person in regard to finance up until this point. People like yourself are important for me to see, because I never really had a model of stability and how important fiscal responsibility was. I often think how we handle money is a reflection of our self-image, but that is a topic for another post!! I should definitely write a review of the course.
That's a really interesting concept. My parents didn't handle money well at all so I grew up with the same bad habits. @corinnestokes had a different experience and she's taught me a lot. Together we went to a Dave Ramsey event years ago and then I ended up working there for almost 4 years. I learned a ton. His baby steps idea is definitely worth doing. We paid off $80k in two years which is crazy. We're in a really good place now and it's only getting better.
By the way, I started the Harvard class before I wrote this. It's awesome. I can't believe it's free!
Nice! Maybe you should do a review on it. I'm curious to know which parts strike you as completely foreign and which parts make sense.
There's time yet... I hope so anyway I am 44 and thinking time for same lol
"It's never too late to become what you might have been."
I often think of stories of Bukowski, J.K. Rowling and others to get the fire lit under me, and not to wallow too much in self-defeating thoughts, which I have had a tendency to do at times in the past.
Check this out!
http://getbusylivingblog.com/its-never-too-late-for-success-even-in-your-40s/
It's never too late to learn a new skill! Happy to see you're getting into programming; could open up lots of new opportunities if you get good at it.
I would recommend learning Java to start with. That language is the one most commonly used in the finance world right now. Java's syntax is similar to other highly useful languages such as C#, C++, and Scala, so once you become proficient in Java, learning the other major languages is easier. But whether you start with Java or not, pick one language and focus on it until you become proficient. Then pick another one. Don't try to learn multiple languages at once; that's like trying to run before you can walk. For Java, you can download the free IntelliJ code editor. It's the one I use at work, not too hard to figure out and quite versatile in its feature set. Some people might recommend Eclipse, but I find IntelliJ a bit easier to use.
I can't recommend any online courses from personal experience as I'm self taught and had on-the-job training, but found this which looks interesting: https://www.udemy.com/java-tutorial/
There's also the official tutorials from Oracle: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/
And there are plenty of good video tutorials on IntelliJ:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DDHEYPzXm94
Thanks! These are great resources, and the advice is much appreciated. Java it is. It makes sense to focus on one language at a time. Did you study programming in college, if I may ask?
Yes, I majored in Computer Science. Also self taught myself programming as a hobby starting in 4th grade. It is my other great passion besides cryptocurrencies.
I am most skilled in C++, but also know Java, C#, and have a passing familiarity with Scala, Python, and web technologies.
https://www.thefirehoseproject.com
My son completed their course and has nothing but great things to say about the course and his experience with them.
Cheers. Thank you. Will check it out.
I also messed with code when I was younger, even took an advanced placement computer science course in high school, but I never really focused on it as I grew. Lately I've been looking at getting back into it as well. I started taking an HTML/CSS course at codecademy just to brush up on that and I'm hoping to move on to Python eventually. I'd love to get to a place where I can do some freelance work to help or even cover the bills.
Never heard of code academy. Going to check that out. Thanks for the great comment, and best of luck!
No problem, you as well!
Definitely go for it. The code is the truth.
Hey, you're not alone. At 32, I'm interested in getting into coding as well. Go for it!
Killer!
Good for you, it's never too late to start programming :)
Keep up the great work.
so far i know only of this https://www.coursera.org/learn/cryptocurrency.
Thank you.
@kafkanarchy84 how is your journey going? I'm 34, in Tokyo and taking on a similar challenge :)