Help someone early in their career get into programming and development
February 18, 2019 9:24 AM Subscribe
Wonder if any of you have tips for a young friend fairly early in her career looking into exploring a career in development and learning to code?
She's super solid on math and logic, studied art and design and now is realizing that trying development might be a good path forward given her math and logic chops.
Curious if you know of any programs (online or in-person in San Francisco) that have worked particularly especially well for women to tip their toe in the waters and see how it goes?
She's super solid on math and logic, studied art and design and now is realizing that trying development might be a good path forward given her math and logic chops.
Curious if you know of any programs (online or in-person in San Francisco) that have worked particularly especially well for women to tip their toe in the waters and see how it goes?
I would recommend learning Python first, as it is used across many domains and is generally a sensible language for beginners without too many weird quirks. It's the most common language used in CS101 courses at universities. Perhaps Javascript if she is more specifically interested in using her design skills to build web pages and apps.
People used to really like the book "Learn Python the Hard Way" which is both high-quality and tries to impart some of the very important soft skills of coding, like Googling for answers and reading documentation. I don't know if some better resource has since come along but it is good, and would be as good a place to start as any.
There are coding boot camps, some with a feminist ethos and branding that are female-only. Often their business model is taking a large recruiting fee that amounts of a chunk of your first year salary; this means they don't get paid until you take a job, and usually do have pipelines to good companies. I can't speak to any specifically, but the good ones are not scams the way you might worry about with a for-profit education company.
If she has any interest in neural networks fast.ai is generally well-regarded. But that presumes a basic level of coding knowledge; I think for someone with some mathematical fluency, it would make a good second course.
Also, a random piece of advice: many new coders end up on Stack Overflow (a Q&A site) and may want to ask their own question. They often have a bad experience, because the site has many weird rules and is full of hostile pedants. Theoretically the site owners are trying to change this but in the meantime, there's a lot of randomness in whether you get insulted and have your question deleted, and having that happen to you means nothing about your skill or worth as a programmer.
posted by vogon_poet at 10:28 AM on February 18, 2019 [4 favorites]
People used to really like the book "Learn Python the Hard Way" which is both high-quality and tries to impart some of the very important soft skills of coding, like Googling for answers and reading documentation. I don't know if some better resource has since come along but it is good, and would be as good a place to start as any.
There are coding boot camps, some with a feminist ethos and branding that are female-only. Often their business model is taking a large recruiting fee that amounts of a chunk of your first year salary; this means they don't get paid until you take a job, and usually do have pipelines to good companies. I can't speak to any specifically, but the good ones are not scams the way you might worry about with a for-profit education company.
If she has any interest in neural networks fast.ai is generally well-regarded. But that presumes a basic level of coding knowledge; I think for someone with some mathematical fluency, it would make a good second course.
Also, a random piece of advice: many new coders end up on Stack Overflow (a Q&A site) and may want to ask their own question. They often have a bad experience, because the site has many weird rules and is full of hostile pedants. Theoretically the site owners are trying to change this but in the meantime, there's a lot of randomness in whether you get insulted and have your question deleted, and having that happen to you means nothing about your skill or worth as a programmer.
posted by vogon_poet at 10:28 AM on February 18, 2019 [4 favorites]
Codecademy is not, IMO, a thing that you (generic you) can use to be the primary part of your journey to becoming a professional software developer, but I consider it a very excellent first step. A way to figure out if you even like to code, before you put out further time/money. It requires no financial investment but at the same time is a very guided introduction. You do eventually need to do a lot of self-teaching if you go that route professionally, but if you're just looking to try it, it's not a bad place to start. Further, if she's interested in design-y stuff and the web, I'd actually suggest she start with the HTML/CSS, not with the "real programming". Once you know some of the HTML, learning gradually more JavaScript or whatever else to make your web pages do more things is a natural-feeling progression and doesn't require huge leaps to be made before you can see the results of your efforts. (This is where I started.)
Do not pay for anything and especially do not quit your job for a boot camp without first being really, really sure that you enjoy doing this. I did a boot camp and it worked out really well for me, but no matter how they bill themselves, it's not actually a reliably good early step unless you're made of money. To give an idea of where I was, at the point where I was ready to actually make the best of a boot camp, I could do HTML and basic CSS comfortably, knew enough JavaScript (jQuery, even, which is out of date but still fine for these purposes) to make the UI do some cool things, and had done some Ruby on Rails tutorials but wasn't very far with them.
If she's not interested in web dev, I really think the same holds true: find a point to start small, do some exploring, spend money only once at a stage where you can't progress further on your own.
posted by Sequence at 10:55 AM on February 18, 2019 [3 favorites]
Do not pay for anything and especially do not quit your job for a boot camp without first being really, really sure that you enjoy doing this. I did a boot camp and it worked out really well for me, but no matter how they bill themselves, it's not actually a reliably good early step unless you're made of money. To give an idea of where I was, at the point where I was ready to actually make the best of a boot camp, I could do HTML and basic CSS comfortably, knew enough JavaScript (jQuery, even, which is out of date but still fine for these purposes) to make the UI do some cool things, and had done some Ruby on Rails tutorials but wasn't very far with them.
If she's not interested in web dev, I really think the same holds true: find a point to start small, do some exploring, spend money only once at a stage where you can't progress further on your own.
posted by Sequence at 10:55 AM on February 18, 2019 [3 favorites]
"Coding" is the in-thing to talk about, and everyone in the software business should know how to code at least a little, but software development involves a lot more specialties than coding per se. With a background in the visual arts, she should look for opportunities to learn about modifying images (e.g. Photoshop), rendering images from CAD/CAM systems, designing the little bits and pieces that make a web page look professional, etc. Just think of all that visual stimulus built into computer games....
Software development also requires business/industry knowledge. If there is a particular industry she's interested in (games, finance, insurance, manufacturing, movies, ...), she should look for chances to learn as much as she can about how it works.
posted by SemiSalt at 12:04 PM on February 18, 2019
Software development also requires business/industry knowledge. If there is a particular industry she's interested in (games, finance, insurance, manufacturing, movies, ...), she should look for chances to learn as much as she can about how it works.
posted by SemiSalt at 12:04 PM on February 18, 2019
Have her get on Indeed and start searching words like developer, software engineer, python (etc etc), and read some job descriptions. That will introduce additional words that are worth looking up, thoughts and industries and modalities to look more into and consider.
As a data point, I am not a developer. I constantly have to say this to colleagues, customers, recruiters. "Keep in mind: I'm not actually a developer." A good chunk of my day is spent writing SQL, SOQL, java-ish scripty bits, doing stuff very similar to all that but in Excel (which still blows my mind, and I have colleagues who wouldn't know how to even start to write a SQL script who do things in Excel that additionally blow my mind), fiddle with some HTML, write some formulas in a specialized UI, train others to do bits of the above. I work in business software. (I am not an accountant, do not have any business education. My primary advice is to get some business education and learn basic coding, then orient toward some specific industry and start picking up the skills that will be directly applicable there.) There ARE jobs out there that are pure development or pure software engineering, but many more jobs that are hybrids like mine.
Competition for the pure jobs can be especially tough as most companies can get that work done by very-specifically-trained staff in countries with significantly lower cost of living/salary. You are a little more layoff-proof at this point if you have interdisciplinary/consulting/industry skills to intersect with the technical skills.
Glitch is a good place to dip a toe, play around, see if you have a taste for it.
posted by Lyn Never at 12:57 PM on February 18, 2019 [2 favorites]
As a data point, I am not a developer. I constantly have to say this to colleagues, customers, recruiters. "Keep in mind: I'm not actually a developer." A good chunk of my day is spent writing SQL, SOQL, java-ish scripty bits, doing stuff very similar to all that but in Excel (which still blows my mind, and I have colleagues who wouldn't know how to even start to write a SQL script who do things in Excel that additionally blow my mind), fiddle with some HTML, write some formulas in a specialized UI, train others to do bits of the above. I work in business software. (I am not an accountant, do not have any business education. My primary advice is to get some business education and learn basic coding, then orient toward some specific industry and start picking up the skills that will be directly applicable there.) There ARE jobs out there that are pure development or pure software engineering, but many more jobs that are hybrids like mine.
Competition for the pure jobs can be especially tough as most companies can get that work done by very-specifically-trained staff in countries with significantly lower cost of living/salary. You are a little more layoff-proof at this point if you have interdisciplinary/consulting/industry skills to intersect with the technical skills.
Glitch is a good place to dip a toe, play around, see if you have a taste for it.
posted by Lyn Never at 12:57 PM on February 18, 2019 [2 favorites]
She sounds like she has a great background for a UX developer. I'm a React developer with a background in design on a UX team. I also do some CSS, but they have people in separate roles who specialize in that.
The UX folks hire us specifically because we care more about user experience and getting the look right than regular software engineering types.
I got started with an internship during my master's in computer science (I was working at the university and took half the classes for free). My employer hired me before I even graduated and let me leave work early to go to my last class twice a week.
They had me learn React on the job through Lynda.com, and it was a great experience. I was up and running in less than a week.
posted by marfa, texas at 1:26 PM on February 18, 2019 [1 favorite]
The UX folks hire us specifically because we care more about user experience and getting the look right than regular software engineering types.
I got started with an internship during my master's in computer science (I was working at the university and took half the classes for free). My employer hired me before I even graduated and let me leave work early to go to my last class twice a week.
They had me learn React on the job through Lynda.com, and it was a great experience. I was up and running in less than a week.
posted by marfa, texas at 1:26 PM on February 18, 2019 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: All great suggestions - thanks for the input and recommendations so far.
posted by specialk420 at 4:51 PM on February 18, 2019
posted by specialk420 at 4:51 PM on February 18, 2019
I’m interested in data visualization and had zero coding background. We used a service called DataCamp for learning R in a class in grad school and I found it extremely useful as a beginner. There are some freebie courses available but they do have (I’d say pretty reasonable for the quality) paid memberships to access loads of hands on programming courses.
My favorite one uses data from the Great British Baking Show to teach Tidyverse in R.
posted by forkisbetter at 12:09 PM on February 19, 2019
My favorite one uses data from the Great British Baking Show to teach Tidyverse in R.
posted by forkisbetter at 12:09 PM on February 19, 2019
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posted by clawsoon at 10:09 AM on February 18, 2019 [2 favorites]