Learn coding.. From scratch.. at 31.. Worth it/feasible?

lux7

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After meeting a guy working a few hours per day and comfortably living just by fixing website from anywhere he wanted to be, I was thinking on ways to improve your life.

What to do when you want more freedom from work and some kind of an easy, hassle free life with (relatively) lots of freedom and free time?

Starting a business requires lots of work and uncertitude, setting money aside to retire requires decades of work.

Learning coding seemed the surest way for.

If you get good at coding you can get good money -so you can work less-, you can work free lance, on a beach.. And much more on your terms that if you were on the business side where you mostly can't work from remote, free lance and, on average, learn less than the tech people.


If you were 31, handy with computers but with 0 programming knowledge, on a full time job, do you think it could be worth start learning coding to completely change your career/life?
 

topcat

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I would say you most definitely can! But then again I'm biased...

I'm 23 and have spent the past year exactly teaching myself to code in HTML, CSS & Javascript/jQuery, with no previous coding experience. I spent a good amount of that time learning while still working a full time job, but recently left to get a portfolio put together. It's doable, the startup costs are minimal, and it's booming right now. I haven't started freelancing yet but my goal is to begin this summer. I'm very confident I'll have work.

Long story short is you can learn to code no problem, it just takes alot of work at first and can be a headache at times but it's worth it I feel. I'm somebody that doesn't work well at a 9-5 so it's basically been do or die for me. Give yourself a good enough reason to learn and you will bruv. Feel free to PM me if you need any pointers regarding learning resources, there're plenty of them online.

Topcat
 

lux7

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Thanks Topcat!

Most certainly I'm about to shoot you a PM :).

If anybody has had similar experiences, happy to read..
 

Drck

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31 is not old at all, you have lots of energy and by this age you should be well organized, perhaps disciplined. So the learning curve can be quite steep, I wouldn't worry about the age.

IMO it depends if you really like it. You can become good on your own, or you can become good by studying programming in school. Both have advantages and disadvantages: There are great programmers who became good on their own but they needed to re-discovered lots of ways that were already discovered by others, which is essentially just waste of time. And there are great programmers who learned programming in school, except they learned to be too structured and thus don't have enough energy to discover their own way of coding. Also in school you may learn to create some useless site or program in one semester, while you can do the same on your own over the weekend... It all depends...

So why not do both ways? Learn what you can from others at school, learn great ideas of others, and work on discovering your own great ideas. This way your learning curve will be the most efficient

It probably sounds like a cliche, but if you want to do programming just for money chances are that you won't become that good. You got to like it (whatever you do, not just programming), you got to be able to spent hours or weekends creating your own code just for fun, withoug getting paid for it. That is how you become really good.

There are also different levels of programming, HTML, assembly, C, Visual Basic, C#, Java... web page programming, database programming... It also depends on your personality, e.g. if you like to explore more or create more, most likely you'll be good at web page programming. If you like more engineering you'd be good with say Assemply. If you like more stable and repetitive jobs, database maintnence (DBA), running SQL or reports is not a bad choice either (I don't know today, but these guys used to make 80-100K per year a couple years ago).

Today's programming standards are C# or Java languages, I would chose one of these two (or lighter Visual Basic). Good languages, very similar, object oriented, portable, you can do easy stuff or heavy duty stuff, you can do web pages, databases, desktop programs, games... HTML, JavaScript and similar are good and relatively simple, but IMO you won't make much money by simple programming or creating simple web pages...

Good Luck
 

ray_zorse

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I can certainly see the attraction of a lifestyle where you can work from anywhere, make money just by sitting at your computer, etc... but I'm not too certain that learning to code is it. Especially at a high level it's quite an introverted pursuit... I certainly enjoy working in the office because it's a bit more social, even though we are all basically at our computers doing our own thing, we can talk about what we're doing etc. What might work well would be working at a company that does Extreme Programming (XP) where you always code in pairs, one guy at the keyboard and another guy keeping an eye on things and discussing strategy etc.

The other thing is that writing code that works well is enormously difficult, if you just want to go quick in-out and basically fulfill a contract and leave a mess for someone else to clean up that's fine (would be pretty much the standard approach as far as I can see), but to really produce a product that people will love, you have to be in it for the long haul -- fixing problems, redesigning again and again until the customer is totally satisfied, and given the customer often has unrealistic deadlines you can find yourself working 80 hour weeks. Honestly there's a dude who would give me programming work, but I haven't called him recently cos last time it was like that. He was very apologetic and everything, but fact is, customer's deadlines need to be met and that's your job if you agree to work for them.

I suppose it's like any other craft, learning to do it takes 10,000 hours (see Malcolm Gladwell for the 10,000 hour rule and discussion of people like Bill Gates and their route to success)... but don't let me discourage you, it's an awesome thing to do. I absolutely love coding and would consider myself to be at the highest level of the game, although to tell the truth I know little about CSS, javascript, etc and the latest web technologies. But that's because I mainly work on the bare metal, at the operating system level or whatever (if computers still had microcode I'd be working on that). Would love to get better at web and app development, but I think basically once you get a feel for how it works you can easily teach yourself any software technology given enough time. They're basically just layers.

No reason you can't learn at 31, but maybe don't give up your day job just yet, tackle some projects in your evenings etc and see how you like it. Feel free to PM.

-Ray
 

lux7

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Drck said:
Today's programming standards are C# or Java languages, I would chose one of these two (or lighter Visual Basic). Good languages, very similar, object oriented, portable, you can do easy stuff or heavy duty stuff, you can do web pages, databases, desktop programs, games... HTML, JavaScript and similar are good and relatively simple, but IMO you won't make much money by simple programming or creating simple web pages...

Good Luck


Yep, that's what I have I have been suggested, together with the fact that people who can do nice webpages -or even just "spice up" already existing ones- have a lot of work.

And if making much money is not a top priority then.. It would make sense to go for "lower paying, easier to learn".
 

BarryS1

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Hi Lux,

Almost two years ago, I went from knowing zero code and math to getting a full-time remote programming job. I started learning to code after graduating college as a liberal arts major and lived with my parents for covering expenses. I was able to change fields because I could afford allocating time to taking unpaid internships, college classes, and online certifications. If I juggled a full-time job, it would have taken longer.

By the time I accepted the entry-level position, I had 1.5 yrs of related experience, seven university-level classes (I went back to school), and five online certifications. I know the requirements differ for the type of programming job (I do data analysis/query databases), that’s a rough picture of the work required.

I live in Silicon Valley and see a lot of professionals switch to remote programming, while working full time. I see people jump on online programming classes like code academy, coursera, udacity, ect., then take a university-level class at night. After getting some classroom experience, most people try jumping on live projects or an unpaid internship to get their foot in the door.

It’s definitely a great life, but it’s not as free as I would of expected. I can ONLY work in places with reliable wi-fi (if I don’t have a portable router), leaving most public places off limits. Another thing is having an environment that’s quite enough to talk on phone, Skype, ect. without background noise. I had a lot of managers with a short temper for employees they couldn't get a hold of pronto. Your working conditions can range from contacting a client/boss a couple times a week to being on instant message at all times/clock in like a normal 8-5 job.

For the lifestyle, I like the convience of not having to commute to work (california traffic is terrible), but I end up working more hours than my friends in an office. My friends who program in an office sometimes aren't ALLOWED to take their work home, whereas I am on the computer at every spare moment.
 

lux7

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BarryS1 said:
Hi Lux,

Almost two years ago, I went from knowing zero code and math to getting a full-time remote programming job. I started learning to code after graduating college as a liberal arts major and lived with my parents for covering expenses. I was able to change fields because I could afford allocating time to taking unpaid internships, college classes, and online certifications. If I juggled a full-time job, it would have taken longer.

By the time I accepted the entry-level position, I had 1.5 yrs of related experience, seven university-level classes (I went back to school), and five online certifications. I know the requirements differ for the type of programming job (I do data analysis/query databases), that’s a rough picture of the work required.

I live in Silicon Valley and see a lot of professionals switch to remote programming, while working full time. I see people jump on online programming classes like code academy, coursera, udacity, ect., then take a university-level class at night. After getting some classroom experience, most people try jumping on live projects or an unpaid internship to get their foot in the door.

It’s definitely a great life, but it’s not as free as I would of expected. I can ONLY work in places with reliable wi-fi (if I don’t have a portable router), leaving most public places off limits. Another thing is having an environment that’s quite enough to talk on phone, Skype, ect. without background noise. I had a lot of managers with a short temper for employees they couldn't get a hold of pronto. Your working conditions can range from contacting a client/boss a couple times a week to being on instant message at all times/clock in like a normal 8-5 job.

For the lifestyle, I like the convience of not having to commute to work (california traffic is terrible), but I end up working more hours than my friends in an office. My friends who program in an office sometimes aren't ALLOWED to take their work home, whereas I am on the computer at every spare moment.

Thanks Barry, great to get another first hand experience!

By "full time remote programming job" you mean that you actually work for a company and not free lance?
 

BarryS1

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lux7 said:
Thanks Barry, great to get another first hand experience!

By "full time remote programming job" you mean that you actually work for a company and not free lance?

I am working for a company right now, but trying to find a freelance job on the side. I am messaging professionals on LinkedIn and looking at freelance project job boards. I don't find conferences/meetups that helpful for finding a job unless you are experienced in the field. I can't communicate with a manager and build a connection by offering new ideas with my current skill level. When I talk to anyone there, I am on a totally different planet than them lol!

Good luck!
 
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