I started programming around 20 years ago - self taught and experiencing the same problems as you in the early beginnings.
I made mistakes when I started
- jumping around between languages
- thinking I couldn't grasp something
- jumping from one tutorial to another, and another, and another
- I wish I started learning algorithms & data structures earlier
- I wish I took time to dive deep instead of rushing to getting something working
What was my breakthrough?
I got a job in social assistance - it was mostly sitting at a desk and distributing food supplies. This left me with most of the day unfilled with errands and a PC in front of me. I installed Perl on it and started learning, digging deep into every bit of the language.
- Learning how the interpreter works
- Reading the perldoc for every module I used, every function I called
- Writing small scripts to help with my then daily tasks
- Writing code every day, even for stupid one off tasks or things I wanted to try
Three months later I got my first job as a Perl programmer - mostly doing web interfaces, marketing mailers & web scrapers.
Having learned Perl to the level when the language itself wasn't getting in my way it was far easier to grasp additional concepts:
- programming paradigms
- algorithms & data structures
- abstraction
- documentation & good practices (version control, testing etc.)
This was a major stepping stone for me. Picking up any other programming language, framework was a breeze since then.
I worked at a corporation doing Oracle PL/SQL for seven years. I programmed in Ada, Ruby, Perl, Python & JavaScript professionally in long term employment. I did contract work for C, C++, Java. I played with Common Lisp, Scheme, Prolog, Erlang & Smalltalk (mostly when I was hospitalized for a long period of time) and now I'm working with a start-up I co-founded where I'm doing Python, Ruby, Javascript, C, Go and recently some Dart.
Don't let anyone tell you that you're limited in any way - most of all don't think it yourself. The only limitation is what you want to achieve.
Recently I got really interested in OpenBSD and would really want to be involved in OpenBSD development.
Here's how I'm tackling this specific problem now with hindsights to the mistakes I made when starting as a programmer.
1) Pick one project
This is OpenBSD in my case - should be a heavily developed framework, library, application in your case.
I ignore all the OpenBSD vs X articles, post whatever. I made my choice.
2) Follow it
Subscribe to the mailing lists, join the IRC channel - consume news & changes about the project.
Don't feel bad when you can't keep up! 20 emails per day? Try to read a few of them and leave the rest for later - just keep at it.
3) Follow the code
Take a look at each code change made to the project, try to understand it even if it's over your head.
4) Run it!
Changes were made? Pull them in, run them.
5) Poke around
Try introducing your own changes. Hit a bug? Try to trace it down as much as you can & fix it. If you can't fix it, report it upstream.
6) Make your own
You want it to do more? Add it, or at least give it a good try.
Don't know how? Still try! Even if you just end up breaking stuff you will learn!
7) Rinse & repeat
Until you feel confident enough to go in on your own - though you rarely are completely on your own. Don't be afraid to ask for guidance & help. Just remember that it's always nicer to show people that you tried on your own (and documenting that) before going public with a help request.
So this was a wall of text, hope it helps you at least a little bit :)
I mostly work from home on my own schedule so can devote a few hours spread out throughout the day. If you really want to learn and need a helping hand in the early steps or someone to bump ideas against feel free to catch me on freenode @ #hncode.
This is definitely speaking to me. I started with .NET almost a year ago and I said I'm going to learn everything about the framework inside and out. I said it was my goal to be employed as a C# developer and love what I do. .. I haven't touched C# in almost 3 months. I got interested in Android which led to Java which led to Spring which led to Grails then I said "Hey whats Node JS?" then Ember and Angular .. and one book after the next. I test drive a framework to see what it can do and I have spent about a month digging into about 10 different frameworks and do you know what I discovered?
They all do the same fucking thing. So with that I feel on one level I like being exposed to different languages on my personal time (Perl programmer/Sys Admin professionally) and I thought that this was really helping my programming skills in general. But now I'm wondering if I've caused more trouble than good. I know I have to pick a technology and literally stick with it. I have to see what I'm most passionate about. I am thankful for everything I have observed but its time to publish some apps. I feel like I do a lot of studying and have nothing to show for it. Rails, ASP.NET MVC, Spring MVC, and Grails all do the same thing. It just depends on what eco system and what language you're most comfortable with and of course your work environment. All of this for me is personal exploration. At work we have a LAMP environment and our web apps are written in PHP. I'm just there to build my resume. I can't stand PHP and am not passionate about the technology we work with. So yeah. Lost in a sea of code.
And this is pretty much how it goes for everyone. At first you think that learning X language and Y framework is a goal unto itself. You then realize that solving problems is the real goal, and that languages/frameworks/libraries/whatever are just tools which enable you to get stuff done. Many of us could write a long list detailing all of the technologies that we know, but really; who cares? What have you done with them? That's the important bit.
First off, thank you for the excellent reply. I think I'll be saying this a lot in this thread, but I don't know how to express my gratitude for your response--it's shed some light on things for me.
I'm a college student, and I haven't had a single programming course. I'm interested in full-stack, including front-end design and dev. I've learned my shit with that, and can hold my own with it pretty well. However, I do have plenty of free time to do what I want with programming, and I've taken on a massive load.
Every day I'm hopping between frameworks. I did half of the Ember.js course at CodeSchool, realized I didn't like how the project was being handled and decided to try React. That's just the latest, though--I've been trying to learn Node, Express, Gulp, Slush, and a bunch of others. I've got about 10 projects with just a bit of work done on them, and no more because I got stuck, didn't know what to do, and moved on. I see now that I really need to pick my tool and learn it.
Right now, that's going to be Node + Express for me. I don't think I have the gusto or interest to get into the nitty-gritty of Node core dev, but I could definitely do that with Express. Thank you for the excellent guide on how to really focus with it. I'll definitely be doing that immediately.
Thanks for your help, and I'll definitely sign on to Freenode to chat and get some help/ideas some time.
This is an excellent attitude to have and may be the only healthy attitude.
As opposed to the conventional wisdom, which wants us to Never Settle by keeping on jumping between things, reading broadly and pretending you are a coding god after reading all the X vs Y articles, never building up enough expertise in any one thing, while holding out for that one gig that will hit the spot.
And Just Getting It To Work as is commonly understood really translates to Do a Shoddy Job So It Looks Good On The Surface, Fuck Understanding Or Actually Getting It To Really Work.
I started programming around 20 years ago - self taught and experiencing the same problems as you in the early beginnings.
I made mistakes when I started
- jumping around between languages
- thinking I couldn't grasp something
- jumping from one tutorial to another, and another, and another
- I wish I started learning algorithms & data structures earlier
- I wish I took time to dive deep instead of rushing to getting something working
What was my breakthrough?
I got a job in social assistance - it was mostly sitting at a desk and distributing food supplies. This left me with most of the day unfilled with errands and a PC in front of me. I installed Perl on it and started learning, digging deep into every bit of the language.
- Learning how the interpreter works
- Reading the perldoc for every module I used, every function I called
- Writing small scripts to help with my then daily tasks
- Writing code every day, even for stupid one off tasks or things I wanted to try
Three months later I got my first job as a Perl programmer - mostly doing web interfaces, marketing mailers & web scrapers. Having learned Perl to the level when the language itself wasn't getting in my way it was far easier to grasp additional concepts:
- programming paradigms
- algorithms & data structures
- abstraction
- documentation & good practices (version control, testing etc.)
This was a major stepping stone for me. Picking up any other programming language, framework was a breeze since then. I worked at a corporation doing Oracle PL/SQL for seven years. I programmed in Ada, Ruby, Perl, Python & JavaScript professionally in long term employment. I did contract work for C, C++, Java. I played with Common Lisp, Scheme, Prolog, Erlang & Smalltalk (mostly when I was hospitalized for a long period of time) and now I'm working with a start-up I co-founded where I'm doing Python, Ruby, Javascript, C, Go and recently some Dart.
Don't let anyone tell you that you're limited in any way - most of all don't think it yourself. The only limitation is what you want to achieve.
Recently I got really interested in OpenBSD and would really want to be involved in OpenBSD development.
Here's how I'm tackling this specific problem now with hindsights to the mistakes I made when starting as a programmer.
1) Pick one project
This is OpenBSD in my case - should be a heavily developed framework, library, application in your case.
I ignore all the OpenBSD vs X articles, post whatever. I made my choice.
2) Follow it
Subscribe to the mailing lists, join the IRC channel - consume news & changes about the project.
Don't feel bad when you can't keep up! 20 emails per day? Try to read a few of them and leave the rest for later - just keep at it.
3) Follow the code
Take a look at each code change made to the project, try to understand it even if it's over your head.
4) Run it!
Changes were made? Pull them in, run them.
5) Poke around
Try introducing your own changes. Hit a bug? Try to trace it down as much as you can & fix it. If you can't fix it, report it upstream.
6) Make your own
You want it to do more? Add it, or at least give it a good try.
Don't know how? Still try! Even if you just end up breaking stuff you will learn!
7) Rinse & repeat
Until you feel confident enough to go in on your own - though you rarely are completely on your own. Don't be afraid to ask for guidance & help. Just remember that it's always nicer to show people that you tried on your own (and documenting that) before going public with a help request.
So this was a wall of text, hope it helps you at least a little bit :)
I mostly work from home on my own schedule so can devote a few hours spread out throughout the day. If you really want to learn and need a helping hand in the early steps or someone to bump ideas against feel free to catch me on freenode @ #hncode.