Ok, strange title, but what I'm looking for is when you just understood how this coding stuff works. I must admit, I'm a newbie and started playing with vs.net and c# approximately 2 years ago. Decided about a year ago to undertake my first real project ( A software product lifecycle management system). I have no real experience with coding before this, however, I decided to learn programming as I have been a product manager for several years. It definately helps when talking with developers. Anyway, I struggle quite often on things that are simple and it gets frustrating. I think I understand alot about the basics but putting it all together I haven't grasped yet. So what was the turning point for you.

My first forray into computers was in 1986 with the then brand new Atari 5200 ST I was pretty young and don't remember much except playing games on it. Then, I quit using computers for a long time until....well, I was bored and just decided to see what was up in the computer world.

This time I started as a casual user on windows / linux dual boot machine. The first turning point for me was when I started learning how to automate my machine by scripting in vbscript and bash shell. That was about 8 years ago.

I gave up on linux for the last couple of years of the 90's and worked as a web developer using classic ASP which I thought was the shit at the time.

Got laid off....Decided to get a degree, learned about OOP and that's when real click happened. When you really grasp all of the OOP ideas, you just have that EUREKA moment.

Now, I just enjoy learning about new langauges and digging into open source projects. Which inevetably led me back to linux where I've spending most of my time lately. LOL I've got it running on every machine in the house (2 pcs and an xbox).

erichar11 wrote:

Ok, strange title, but what I'm looking for is when you just understood how this coding stuff works. I must admit, I'm a newbie and started playing with vs.net and c# approximately 2 years ago. Decided about a year ago to undertake my first real project (A software product lifecycle management system). I have no real experience with coding before this, however, I decided to learn programming as I have been a product manager for several years. It definately helps when talking with developers. Anyway, I struggle quite often on things that are simple and it gets frustrating. I think I understand alot about the basics but putting it all together I haven't grasped yet.

Divide and conquer. Starting developers always make 1 big mistake: they want to do everything and more at the same time, and often start at the wrong end of the application (the gui)

During a CS course, you'll learn that there is a big difference between programming and typing in code: programming is desiging the flow of your application, typing in code is the hammering in of long lengths of programming code which represents the designed flow of the application in executable form.

You therefore start with the basics: nassi-schneider diagrams, data flow diagrams, data transition diagrams, data state diagrams... these might look funny and they might make you think you're a real dumb-ass as everybody around you doesn't seem to need them, but they really are helpful and the people who think they are for newbies ARE the newbies. All those diagrams make you have insight in what has to go on in your application before you even wrote a single line of code. The great thing is: you can easily change them and think them through, and check them if they're correct or not.

Once you're confident you've designed your application correctly, you can start with the code-hammering: this is just converting your diagrams into code. But because you know the structure of your application, you KNOW what you have to write, what the code has to do and what is still there to be written.

As I said: divide and conquer: take one step at a time. Seasoned programmers didn't become seasoned programmers after reading "VB 6 in 21 days" . Key is to first decide what the complete system has to become, roughly, then implement the subsystems one at a time, and GUI as the last part.

This last remark is perhaps a bit strange, but let me explain: the GUI is the interface to the functionality for the user. It has functionality grouped in such a way that the user can understand it better/work with it better. That doesn't necessarily mean that the grouping is also good for the software structure, mostly it isn't. (the structure has to be logical, not because a user wants a, b and c on the same form). When you write the core first and the gui last, you already have a logical system and the gui isn't driving the program stucture.

Furthermore, you won't fall into the pitfall beginning programmers often fall in: they design a gui which looks awesome but to feed teh gui with all the data it needs and to write all the control logic for the gui so it works well, they need a team of 10 people working 24/7 for 6 months! . I.o.w.: they use the gui design to design the functionality of the software they want to develop, which is not good, you should not design the functionality of your software using any program related material, so no screens, no code. Just abstract diagrams.

So what was the turning point for you.

Right the first time I saw a computer running a 10 line program in highschool in 1984 (the machne had 16kb and was as big as a huge ibm pc). I couldn't wait till I had my own computer, which I bought in 1986, together with my younger brother: (we were paper delivery guys for 2 years before we had the money together ) a Toshiba HX-10 MSX-1 with 64KB memory . The same day I wrote a program in MSX Basic (written by bill gates!) which solved ax^2 + bx + c = 0 for given a, b and c . Boy what a thrill that was

From that day I was hooked at age 16 I wrote my first virtual memory engine in Z80 assembler to store larger programs in memory (I stored the page area in videoram). Programming demos in 68000 assembler on the amiga was fun too, it learned me that there isn't anything more rewarding than writing a program (and more frustrating, but that aside ).

In the early 90'ies I was in a dutch demogroup and I worked with one programmer to write demos, one of the biggest minds I've ever met. He was always 10 steps ahead of me. Made me realize I had a lot of work to do (He's now lead designer of Philips multi-media CPU's in silicon valey , so it was no match)

But I'll never forget the two of us sitting at a table behind our PC at a dutch demoparty, writing phongshading code when we looked at the kid sitting next to us. We were 25, that kid was 14. He had written effects with the same power as we had, which needed math that isn't taught to kids his age. We were completely stunned and impressed. That kid was the biggest talent I've ever met. Sadly he had to quit programming at age 19 due to RSI.

He had the strange talent of thinking out of the box. Most people give the same answer more or less when confronted with a problem, not him. Seeing his answers to problems make you realize that you need 2 steps back, not 1, when you have to construct an algorithm and you don't clearly know how it will look like.

@cmartinbot: 1986, good year! . You still use linux? At the uni we were forced to use unix (there wasn't an alternative anyway) and by the time I graduated I was so fed up with unix I couldn't stand it any longer. Not that I love clicking on everything, but all those config files each with a syntax that was just too hard to remember...

Though a couple of years back I was asked to port the Halflife model render code (from Valve's open source halflife model viewer code (I had made an extended version of that once)) to linux so it could run on a huge SGI box and I wrote that code on an old box in the corner with RH7 and just the gnu crap (make, gcc, gdb ) and vi And it was a blast It was not the fancy intellisense -windowed debugger way of writing code but it just felt right . Though as for now, I don't really know what to do on Linux, the system is ok, but just staring at a command prompt is not that great . Perhaps, some day there will be a C# development env. on linux... for what do you use linux the most then?

Gee Otis, almost sounds like you were born to be a programmer

My parents bought my first PC in 1989 i was 11 years old in standard 3 or grade 5 as you guys propably know it. This PC was a 286 12mhz, 1 MB RAM, 40MB HDD And VGA Monitor. In 1990 my parents tried to enroll me into my schools computer classes where they thought the kids LOGO. Unfortunatly i did not pass the requirements of 80% in maths and so i was not enrolled.

I played around with the PC having no knowledge of how to do anything. Eventually i picked up the DOS 3.3 manuals and started reading. After understanding DOS a friend of my fathers gave me a pirated copy of Borland Pascal 8.0. He was a real Computer Wiz and i learned about hardware and software. Did some PC circuit board design - but i was not really that good with it.

In 1992 i started High School where i started taking Computer Programming as a additional Subject. There they tought programming using Turbo Pascal 6.

After High School (1996) i went to College and did a Diploma in PC Engineering. While studying i was offered a part time job as a Web designer. Later on i was offered a position of Junior Delphi Programmer at the same company - This is where my career as programmer \ developer started - It was during this time that i had my EUREKA momment - And suddenly understood OOP. Although i was tought OOP previously, i did not undertand the usage of it.

I just wish that i could have started earlier with computers - It seems like i missed the whole era where the PC was born. That is why i like to go to http://www.woz.org/

Otis wrote:

@cmartinbot: 1986, good year! . You still use linux? At the uni we were forced to use unix (there wasn't an alternative anyway) and by the time I graduated I was so fed up with unix I couldn't stand it any longer. Not that I love clicking on everything, but all those config files each with a syntax that was just too hard to remember...

Though a couple of years back I was asked to port the Halflife model render code (from Valve's open source halflife model viewer code (I had made an extended version of that once)) to linux so it could run on a huge SGI box and I wrote that code on an old box in the corner with RH7 and just the gnu crap (make, gcc, gdb ) and vi And it was a blast It was not the fancy intellisense -windowed debugger way of writing code but it just felt right . Though as for now, I don't really know what to do on Linux, the system is ok, but just staring at a command prompt is not that great . Perhaps, some day there will be a C# development env. on linux... for what do you use linux the most then?

I still use linux everyday. Call me crazy but, I actually like having config files to edit. It's a way simpler system in a way. Gnome and KDE have come a LONG way lately too.

There is always vi and emacs There's a port of SharpDevelop floating around called MonoDevelop though, I haven't used it.

I mostly use Linux cause I LOVE to tinker with my machine (the computer sicko ) and my PVR is MythTv so, I like to hack on that as well.

All in all, I use windows for work and the occasional game or two.

Wow, sounds like you guys have been at this awhile No wonder I feel lost in some of your discussions, although I must say, things are getting clearer thanks to your discussion. Since you all shared some background info about yourselves, I thought I would do the same. I've been in the software industry for the past 14 years, starting right out of college. Most of those years I've been in some sort of product management capacity starting with Symantec, moving to HP and then on to several startups. I actually got interested in coding because I was moved from a retail product to managing a enterprise network product. We had several product managers but none were very technical and in dealing with enterprise solutions, you have to be somewhat technical inorder to understand customer problems. So that began my interest in becomming more of a technical product manager and gaining a better understanding of technical issues. I must admit, I like the technical stuff, it's just it gets frustring as the learning curve is pretty high. Now on to some other questions.

Frans, I understand what your saying about developing the backend stuff first before developing the GUI, but the thing is, developing a GUI prototype upfront I find extremely helpful because it provides everyone (the team, customers, etc) with a general indication of how this thing is supposed to work. You know what they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. I'm not talking about developing the GUI first, but more or less a prototype (usually just simple screen shots or html pages). Now the problem is, sometimes people think the prototype is the official gui when infact its just a prototype. This is something that has to be managed.

Secondly, regarding your comments about data flow diagrams, states, etc. this is something I have to look into. When I started my project, I used visio's ORM stuff to map out the datatables and relationships which for the most part works well and I like it (visio has some rough edges). But this really doesn't have to much to do with the dataflow. I haven't seen much on these topics, can you make a suggestion on where's a good place to get more information. Do you know if visio provides these types of diagrams. My guess is it probably does so I will definately take a look.

I doubt you'll ever feel like you completely grasp "programming". There's always something new to learn. Always a new way of doing things right around the corner. What marks a good programmer I think is experience. I'm 25 now and like to think I'm at the same level Frans was at when he was 25. It makes me feel better when all I really want is to reach that level of zen.

You don't have to go to college to learn how to be a really good programmer. Your primary tools in the learning process are books and experimentation. You will also learn a lot from doing things the wrong way, but that speaks a lot about programming in general. You will make mistakes and you will wish you did things differently after the fact.

As a suggestion, the book Code Complete was my first wake up call that I could do things better. Many colleges use that book in their classes, so if you're not going to college, that may be just thing you need to get you to the next level.

Sadly he had to quit programming at age 19 due to RSI.

I probably would have had to quit by now if it had not been for my Maltron keyboard. Also, I recently started using a SmartNav infrared device instead of a mouse, and have found this quite helpful.

alexdresko wrote:

You don't have to go to college to learn how to be a really good programmer. Your primary tools in the learning process are books and experimentation. You will also learn a lot from doing things the wrong way, but that speaks a lot about programming in general. You will make mistakes and you will wish you did things differently after the fact.

I agree that books can help tremendously, but I disagree that you can do without school. Especially experimentation is not a good teacher. It helps getting insight in what's taught to you by a source (book, course) but it's not a source by itself. The reason for that I think is that by experimentation, you don't know what you're doing is correct if you don't know WHAT you're doing. also don't underestimate the amount of time you'll spend on solely learning things when you attend to a school/uni. The problem with real-life learning is that you only learn the things which are required for the job you're doing at that moment, i.e. the tricks to meet the deadline. You don't learn background knowledge, you don't learn the WHY, just the HOW. That can be ok, but it won't bring you beyond the point where you need to know WHY and can forget about the HOW because that's a question that's not appropriate at that level.

So if you don't do school/uni, please read a lot of books. These are the real source for knowledge, not the skills people learn during work.

JimFoye wrote:

Sadly he had to quit programming at age 19 due to RSI.

I probably would have had to quit by now if it had not been for my Maltron keyboard. Also, I recently started using a SmartNav infrared device instead of a mouse, and have found this quite helpful.

Thanks for the pointer to that keyboard, I didn't know they existed. It's fortunate that these keyboards are actually made, so people who suffer from RSI and related deceases can keep on working with computers. Also that mouse is new to me, cool thing Isn't that putting more stress to your neck? Because you have to sit up straight in one position, which might get a little uncomfortable after a while I think...

Otis wrote:

I agree that books can help tremendously, but I disagree that you can do without school.

Don't forget that not everyone (I'm talking about me here ) has the luxury of a good teacher no matter where you go or how much you pay to/for school. My "professors" were incredibly lame. I'm pretty sure I already knew more than them at the time. And I know for a fact that I didn't learn anything from them. Well, except for my systems analysis professors. Those were great classes.

I learned everything I know (not that I'm a uber-hacker or anything) from reading and experimenting. To me, that seperates the boys from the men (as it were ) when it comes to skills in this industry. Most kids I knew in college were just in it for the money. I say most because there were also dudes like me as well. Hell...I dropped out because I was getting so many job offers without a degree because of my resume.

Please don't do that because of my testimonial!

Thanks for the pointer to that keyboard, I didn't know they existed. It's fortunate that these keyboards are actually made, so people who suffer from RSI and related deceases can keep on working with computers. Also that mouse is new to me, cool thing Isn't that putting more stress to your neck? Because you have to sit up straight in one position, which might get a little uncomfortable after a while I think...

I didn't know they existed either. I would love to get one of those.

Otis wrote:

I agree that books can help tremendously, but I disagree that you can do without school.

I agree, learning to program does not help you to understand how things actually work or why you are doing it in a certain why. Proper schooling teaches you how to spell (must have missed that class) and teaches you how things actually work and why it works and where you will use it.

I was a very very lazy student in High school, my aim was always just to pass - never to get good grades and that is why i was unable to go to univ. But when i went to College suddenly everything chnaged - this time i was actually learning about things that i enjoyed. At the end of my college years i left with 93% average. My employers always ask my "what went wrong during highschool".

On the one side i am happy that i did not go to univ because I was able to enter the I.T. market much quicker than my friends that when to Univ but on the other hand i sometimes wonder if i missed out on something?

cmartinbot wrote:

I didn't know they existed either. I would love to get one of those.

Donno looks funny - how easy will it be to type on it?

Otis wrote:

I agree that books can help tremendously, but I disagree that you can do without school.

I fall into the category of people who think college is largely a waste of time and money. Most people that go to college end up getting jobs that don't even relate to their degree. I know several people paying off school for the next 10 years that didn't get much from it. Additionally, most classes are based on books.. books that can be purchased at your local book store. My thinking is that very few people can spend 2 hours a day, 3 days a week in class and learn as much as I have doing real work since leaving highschool. This is especially true considering, a cmartin said, many people get into this field for the money, not the love... I got the love. Granted, college teaches you a LOT that I missed out on... History... Statistics...etc... But I'm not going to let any of that stand in the way of becoming a world class software developer.

And then there's the exception.. people like you.

alexdresko wrote:

Otis wrote:

I agree that books can help tremendously, but I disagree that you can do without school.

I fall into the category of people who think college is largely a waste of time and money. Most people that go to college end up getting jobs that don't even relate to their degree. I know several people paying off school for the next 10 years that didn't get much from it. Additionally, most classes are based on books.. books that can be purchased at your local book store. My thinking is that very few people can spend 2 hours a day, 3 days a week in class and learn as much as I have doing real work since leaving highschool. This is especially true considering, a cmartin said, many people get into this field for the money, not the love... I got the love. Granted, college teaches you a LOT that I missed out on... History... Statistics...etc... But I'm not going to let any of that stand in the way of becoming a world class software developer.

And then there's the exception.. people like you.

College doesn't have to be a waste of time, but (I comment on the USA only), because it has become in effect an extension of the public school system, it is a waste of time. People coming out with degrees in economics (alas, they don't really even know anything about real economics, ha ha), psychology, communications, good grief....

The comp sci departments have a hard time keeping up with the latest things, they are typically about 10 years behind, except for maybe a few really good ones, like CM.

I majored in history. Now I write software for a living. Go figure.

If private schools didn't have to compete with subsidized public schools, they could probably do a lot better. I have to read a book on on distributed application architecture. Who says a school couldn't offer me a class in that? But no school could compete on a price basis with the local (subsidized) community college, and the folks there aren't about to go to the effort of keeping up with something like that.

Thanks for the pointer to that keyboard, I didn't know they existed. It's fortunate that these keyboards are actually made, so people who suffer from RSI and related deceases can keep on working with computers. Also that mouse is new to me, cool thing Isn't that putting more stress to your neck? Because you have to sit up straight in one position, which might get a little uncomfortable after a while I think...

Can't recommend the keyboard enough, though it is a bit pricey. I have two, the first one I paid 800 USD, and the second 575. It has two layouts, QWERTY and a propriatary one called Maltron. The latter is better, so I learned it, though that was a bit painful. But it's great. Problem is, now when I get on a QWERTY keyboard, it's hell. You can only have one system micro-coded in your fingertips at a time. So I often take this keyboard with me if I need to do work away from my office. I took it with me to South America recently.

On the SmartNav, no I don't have a problem with my neck. And I have dual 19 in. monitors. My main problem is I forget I have the metallic dot on my forehead and then I go answer the door and the person at the door thinks I'm a Hindu or maybe belong to a UFO cult. Once I forgot it was on and went to the video store, the cell phone store, and then the grocery store. I was so mad when I got home and looked in the mirror and saw the dot there. People are afraid to say anything, because everyone here is so afraid to be politically incorrect. But people who know me say, "Jim, do you realize you have a dot on your forehead?".

JimFoye wrote:

Thanks for the pointer to that keyboard, I didn't know they existed. It's fortunate that these keyboards are actually made, so people who suffer from RSI and related deceases can keep on working with computers. Also that mouse is new to me, cool thing Isn't that putting more stress to your neck? Because you have to sit up straight in one position, which might get a little uncomfortable after a while I think...

Can't recommend the keyboard enough, though it is a bit pricey. I have two, the first one I paid 800 USD, and the second 575. It has two layouts, QWERTY and a propriatary one called Maltron. The latter is better, so I learned it, though that was a bit painful. But it's great. Problem is, now when I get on a QWERTY keyboard, it's hell. You can only have one system micro-coded in your fingertips at a time. So I often take this keyboard with me if I need to do work away from my office. I took it with me to South America recently.

I can imagine that. I already have problems with different querty keyboard layouts (the '\' above the smaller returnkey vs. a large returnkey) .

On the SmartNav, no I don't have a problem with my neck. And I have dual 19 in. monitors. My main problem is I forget I have the metallic dot on my forehead and then I go answer the door and the person at the door thinks I'm a Hindu or maybe belong to a UFO cult. Once I forgot it was on and went to the video store, the cell phone store, and then the grocery store. I was so mad when I got home and looked in the mirror and saw the dot there. People are afraid to say anything, because everyone here is so afraid to be politically incorrect. But people who know me say, "Jim, do you realize you have a dot on your forehead?".

Great story

Btw, about colleges in the US: what's the difference between a college and a university? Is a university (like berkeley) something you go to after college? (yes I watched 90210 and the rest but it's always unclear to me)

College just means one particular school, and a university is a group of colleges. So I went to Vanderbilt University, and within Vanderbilt I attended the College of Arts and Science.

But in everyday speech people use both terms to mean the same thing, a 4 year program of higher education that follows high school. So people say "I will go to college" when usually they will attend a university, etc.

Otis wrote:

Btw, about colleges in the US: what's the difference between a college and a university? Is a university (like berkeley) something you go to after college? (yes I watched 90210 and the rest but it's always unclear to me)

Funny question. They're sort of used interchangeably, and sort of not. People usually "go to college" after high school, but college can either refer to a 2-year college or a 4-year university. These 2-year colleges, like the one near me called "Delta Community College", are usually small community schools where one can get basic General Education for cheap then either quit with an "Associate of Arts" degree, or move on to finish their "Bachelor of Arts" degree at a 4-year university, like the "University of California at Berkeley". California (I don't know about other states) further divides up their public universities into the "U.C." (University of California) system and the "State" system.

The U.C. system is harder to get into, is very competitive, and is focused more on research and the academic side of things. This system includes schools like U.C. Berkeley, U.C. Davis, U.C.L.A, etc. The State system is for the rest of us, is easy to get into, is focused more on practical application, and most people graduate from it. You probably haven't heard of most of these schools like Sacramento State, Stanislaus State, Sonoma State, etc. You can get a B.A., B.S., etc from both schools, but a degree from a U.C. school usually has more weight.

Hope that makes sense.

Jeff...

Thanks all for the explanations! It's clear now.

You're welcome. I forgot to mention on the SmartNav, you need a way to click, I use a pair of clickers that are connected to the device at one end and attached by velcro at the other on either side of my Maltron keyboard. This does contribute a bit more to the cable clutter on my desk.

That indeed puzzled me, but I imagined some key combination on the keyboad would mimic the left/right mousebutton clicks. But that's not the case?

Yes, you can use the keyboard, too. I rather like this arrangement, my hands just slide up the side of the keyboard a bit. For me using the keyboard to click would seem a bit confusing, though any of this stuff you get used to after a while, I suppose. (I should know!).