Re: [Tutor] Real world experience
On 12/05/14 01:12, C Smith wrote: I have never known anyone that works in this industry. I got one job transforming xml (should have used xslt, ended up using sed and python regex scripts) where the guy asked me how much I wanted and I threw 200 bucks out there because I could get a room for two weeks at that cost. He just laughed and handed me the money. I'm sure he did. That would be a reasonable rate per day for contract IT staff. I am still completely in the dark about what level of difficulty I would be facing in the professional world. You would be expected to work on bigger projects that you have likely seen before (think 10,000 lines of code to upwards of 10 million lines.) You could be expected to work as pat of a team - anything from 4 to 400 other developers. That will involve following standardized practices, using standard notations and naming conventions and so on. You could be expected to work on things that, if they go wrong, could kill people - think aircraft control software, or railroad signalling systems - or bring the world finance system to its knees - think high speed stock trading systems... You might be expected to write comprehensive documentation - requirements, project plans, quality plans, architecture, design, test specifications, user guides, installation guides, tech support notes etc. on top of writing the code. If this is difficult at all for me, is there hope to think about making money in this field? Sure, there are lots of small web type companies building sites for other small businesses that churn out pretty standard online presence. Many of those folks are not University trained (although they probably have done a lot of coding) What level of experience are the people at who make 100k a year? Usually experience of many different types of project from small 1-4 man teams up to very large 100+ teams and short (few days or weeks) to long term (several years). They probably also have management experience, looking after teams of programmers. They should also have some experience of dealing with non technical business types and of managing budgets. And of course a wide knowledge of the IT industry and its technologies (networks, databases, hardware interfaces...) as well as probably a specialised area of knowledge in business - banking, call centres, telecomms, gaming etc Sorry if this is off-topic for the list Way off topic! :-) But probably of interest to a significant minority of the readers. Maybe you could look at newsgroups like comp.software-eng to see the kind of stuff pros discuss. The kinds of problems they are asking questions about. Also look at the job sites and read the job specs carefully. Ask how much of whats being asked could I do? -- Alan G Author of the Learn to Program web site http://www.alan-g.me.uk/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/alangauldphotos ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] Real world experience
I have never known anyone that works in this industry. Just as a side comment: there are probably several folks on this mailing list whose job description would match working in industry. You could be expected to work as pat of a team - anything from 4 to 400 other developers. That will involve following standardized practices, using standard notations and naming conventions and so on. Seconded. Being able to work well with others is one of the biggest skills of the professional programmer. It's a matter of exposure and practice. That programming doesn't have to be a solitary thing needs to be strongly emphasized, because the media likes to exaggerate, especially for the sake of a sexy story: it seems really enamored to portray programming as some lone, antisocial activity. In industry, you work with other people: if the problems are small, they still involve interacting with others. Mailing lists like this one are one way to get some social interaction and experience. Programmer user groups are also a valuable way to get in contact with experienced folks. If you have an organization nearby, like Hacker Dojo, you may want to look into those kinds of things. http://www.hackerdojo.com/About I don't know where you're geographically located, but if you are close to Hacker Dojo, they're good people. ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] Real world experience
On Mon, May 12, 2014 at 1:47 PM, Danny Yoo d...@hashcollision.org wrote: I have never known anyone that works in this industry. Just as a side comment: there are probably several folks on this mailing list whose job description would match working in industry. One big step is program for someone else. Whatever you do scratches your own interests and itches. Once you start programming for someone else's changing requirements and lack of understanding of coding limitations you really find out if you know the language. Leam -- Mind on a Mission http://leamhall.blogspot.com/ ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] Real world experience
On 12/05/14 18:47, Danny Yoo wrote: practice. That programming doesn't have to be a solitary thing needs to be strongly emphasized, because the media likes to exaggerate, Yes, This can't be stressed too much. Industrial coding is a team activity not a solo process. In fact one well known and respected management book(*) had as a maxiom - Beware of the man in a darkened room. What it meant was be suspicious of the lone wolf coder who doesn't tell you what he'sd doing, where he's at etc. His code will likely not work with any one else's (and he'll blame them of course!) and it will be late because its always 95% complete... There are a few lone shark geniuses out there, I've met maybe 2 in my 40 years in IT. But 99.9% of coders work best in a team. (*)Software Project Survival Guide by Steve McConnell (also author of Code Complete etc) -- Alan G Author of the Learn to Program web site http://www.alan-g.me.uk/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/alangauldphotos ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] Real world experience
Thanks to everyone. practice. That programming doesn't have to be a solitary thing needs to be strongly emphasized, because the media likes to exaggerate, Yes, This can't be stressed too much. Industrial coding is a team activity not a solo process. This is particularly good advice for me. Although I realized that a big project would involve many people, I was thinking of myself as coding alone in dark room without being able to go over ideas with a team. I would probably get less frustrated that way. One big step is program for someone else This is something I need to practice. Just as a side comment: there are probably several folks on this mailing list whose job description would match working in industry. I was thinking IRL. Thanks for the sense of community though. I don't know where you're geographically located, but if you are close to Hacker Dojo, they're good people. That looks pretty amazing. I am in Atlanta, but I may take a bus out there just to check it out. I lived in LA for a little while and venice beach, santa monica, and the desert-y hills around mulholland drive were beautiful. or a significant contribution to the industry. I will keep this in mind. involve following standardized practices, using standard notations and naming conventions and so on. This is another very relevant thing for me to keep in mind. My variables are usually interesting animals or spells from final fantasy 1. Thanks On Mon, May 12, 2014 at 4:55 PM, Alan Gauld alan.ga...@btinternet.com wrote: On 12/05/14 18:47, Danny Yoo wrote: practice. That programming doesn't have to be a solitary thing needs to be strongly emphasized, because the media likes to exaggerate, Yes, This can't be stressed too much. Industrial coding is a team activity not a solo process. In fact one well known and respected management book(*) had as a maxiom - Beware of the man in a darkened room. What it meant was be suspicious of the lone wolf coder who doesn't tell you what he'sd doing, where he's at etc. His code will likely not work with any one else's (and he'll blame them of course!) and it will be late because its always 95% complete... There are a few lone shark geniuses out there, I've met maybe 2 in my 40 years in IT. But 99.9% of coders work best in a team. (*)Software Project Survival Guide by Steve McConnell (also author of Code Complete etc) -- Alan G Author of the Learn to Program web site http://www.alan-g.me.uk/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/alangauldphotos ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] Real world experience
I don't know where you're geographically located, but if you are close to Hacker Dojo, they're good people. That looks pretty amazing. I am in Atlanta, but I may take a bus out there just to check it out. I lived in LA for a little while and venice beach, santa monica, and the desert-y hills around mulholland drive were beautiful. Scanning Atlanta ... ... I do not know what the status of this is in real life, since I don't live in Atlanta, but you might want to check on: https://wiki.freesideatlanta.org/fs/Info Alternatively, check your local meetups in the area. For example: http://www.meetup.com/Geekspace-Gwinnett/ http://www.meetup.com/python-atlanta/ There are probably many others out there in your local area. Start searching. :P Good luck to you! ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] Real world experience
Freeside is more makers. I haven't gone but have known people that have. You might find some arduino supposedly, but not much coding otherwise and you have to pay membership fees. It is more social than technical, I think. And your car will probably be broken into. I will check out the python-atlanta group though, thanks. On Mon, May 12, 2014 at 7:42 PM, Danny Yoo d...@hashcollision.org wrote: I don't know where you're geographically located, but if you are close to Hacker Dojo, they're good people. That looks pretty amazing. I am in Atlanta, but I may take a bus out there just to check it out. I lived in LA for a little while and venice beach, santa monica, and the desert-y hills around mulholland drive were beautiful. Scanning Atlanta ... ... I do not know what the status of this is in real life, since I don't live in Atlanta, but you might want to check on: https://wiki.freesideatlanta.org/fs/Info Alternatively, check your local meetups in the area. For example: http://www.meetup.com/Geekspace-Gwinnett/ http://www.meetup.com/python-atlanta/ There are probably many others out there in your local area. Start searching. :P Good luck to you! ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] Real world experience
Hello, 10 Pick one favorite specific topic, any topic (XML parsing; Unix process handling; databases). The topic matters for you. Learn it deeply. Keep learning it. The topic matters less for others (unless it is specifically within the computer science discipline). You have just begun. [0] 20 Pick a toolkit (minidom, etree; os, multiprocessing, threading, subprocess; sqlite, psycopg, sqlalchemy, mysql). Learn why people solved the problem differently each time. Ask. 30 Write a program that does something interesting with this. Try a different toolkit. What was hard? What was easy? What could you simply not accomplish? Look at the source code for the tool you used? Why couldn't you accomplish what you wanted? 40 Read all of the documentation. Read it again. Read papers and books listed in the documentation footnotes. Read the documentation again. Realize that all of this is a (fallible) human endeavor. 45 Find other, related mailing lists. Subscribe. Listen. Post. 46 Talk to somebody who has solved the problem. How? What tools did that person use [1]? 48 If reference to something that was new or you did not understand, GOTO 40. 50 Write a brand new program to solve the same problem. Examine what you did differently. Ask somebody to review your code. 52 Read your old code. 53 Talk to somebody who has solved the problem in his/her own way, potentially with different tools. [2] 59 If MASTERY and BORED, GOTO 10. 60 GOTO 20 [3] This discipline can be approached in depth-first or breadth-first traversal pattern. Most people on more technical mailing lists appreciate the depth-first traversal. Time waits for nobody (Oh! I need to go eat!), -Martin [0] For these purposes, mine was IP networking. [1] What!?! Not Python?! Why? There are reasons to choose something else. Do not be blind to those resaons. [2] Find people who are motivated as you are and are working on similar problems. Work for them. Keep reading. Hire them. Keep writing. Keep reading. [3] Oops. I learned on BASIC. I hope I do not get banned from the list. -- Martin A. Brown http://linux-ip.net/ ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] Real world experience
I think that is going to be my new wallpaper. On Mon, May 12, 2014 at 8:25 PM, Martin A. Brown mar...@linux-ip.net wrote: Hello, 10 Pick one favorite specific topic, any topic (XML parsing; Unix process handling; databases). The topic matters for you. Learn it deeply. Keep learning it. The topic matters less for others (unless it is specifically within the computer science discipline). You have just begun. [0] 20 Pick a toolkit (minidom, etree; os, multiprocessing, threading, subprocess; sqlite, psycopg, sqlalchemy, mysql). Learn why people solved the problem differently each time. Ask. 30 Write a program that does something interesting with this. Try a different toolkit. What was hard? What was easy? What could you simply not accomplish? Look at the source code for the tool you used? Why couldn't you accomplish what you wanted? 40 Read all of the documentation. Read it again. Read papers and books listed in the documentation footnotes. Read the documentation again. Realize that all of this is a (fallible) human endeavor. 45 Find other, related mailing lists. Subscribe. Listen. Post. 46 Talk to somebody who has solved the problem. How? What tools did that person use [1]? 48 If reference to something that was new or you did not understand, GOTO 40. 50 Write a brand new program to solve the same problem. Examine what you did differently. Ask somebody to review your code. 52 Read your old code. 53 Talk to somebody who has solved the problem in his/her own way, potentially with different tools. [2] 59 If MASTERY and BORED, GOTO 10. 60 GOTO 20 [3] This discipline can be approached in depth-first or breadth-first traversal pattern. Most people on more technical mailing lists appreciate the depth-first traversal. Time waits for nobody (Oh! I need to go eat!), -Martin [0] For these purposes, mine was IP networking. [1] What!?! Not Python?! Why? There are reasons to choose something else. Do not be blind to those resaons. [2] Find people who are motivated as you are and are working on similar problems. Work for them. Keep reading. Hire them. Keep writing. Keep reading. [3] Oops. I learned on BASIC. I hope I do not get banned from the list. -- Martin A. Brown http://linux-ip.net/ ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
[Tutor] Real world experience
I have never known anyone that works in this industry. I got one job transforming xml (should have used xslt, ended up using sed and python regex scripts) where the guy asked me how much I wanted and I threw 200 bucks out there because I could get a room for two weeks at that cost. He just laughed and handed me the money. That is the only professional experience I have and no formal education whatsoever (some high school). I have been doing online stuff and hit a wall in a 'design of computer programs' class on udacity. I made it about halfway through but started back at square one to sharpen my skills before trying to come at it again from a different angle. I started to feel overwhelmed when trying to basically recode regex (functions for '*' and '.' for instance) in python and make an api to interact easily with the text parser. I am still completely in the dark about what level of difficulty I would be facing in the professional world. If this is difficult at all for me, is there hope to think about making money in this field? I am pretty persistent and can keep up a level of work if I am not even close yet, but I don't know if I am a year off or 10 years off. Are basic scripting skills employable at even a very low rate (10 bucks an hour)? What level of experience are the people at who make 100k a year? Sorry if this is off-topic for the list, but I am trying to get past a psychological hurdle or two before reapplying myself and hopefully it would be valuable to others as well. ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] Real world experience
Probably off-topic for the list but i'll let some of the others weigh in on that. This is more for help with the python language itself. But i'll weigh in. Programming is difficult work. It's definitely a profitable career. Its hard to say how much you'll make since it varies depending on location, but in general a combination of experience and your ability to solve difficult problems and provide solutions consistently command higher salaries. However, many companies wont even consider you without a degree, or *a significant *contribution to the industry. If you want to pursue a career in IT, you need to finish high school. You would be wise to get a degree. My $0.02. Tim On Sun, May 11, 2014 at 7:12 PM, C Smith illusiontechniq...@gmail.comwrote: I have never known anyone that works in this industry. I got one job transforming xml (should have used xslt, ended up using sed and python regex scripts) where the guy asked me how much I wanted and I threw 200 bucks out there because I could get a room for two weeks at that cost. He just laughed and handed me the money. That is the only professional experience I have and no formal education whatsoever (some high school). I have been doing online stuff and hit a wall in a 'design of computer programs' class on udacity. I made it about halfway through but started back at square one to sharpen my skills before trying to come at it again from a different angle. I started to feel overwhelmed when trying to basically recode regex (functions for '*' and '.' for instance) in python and make an api to interact easily with the text parser. I am still completely in the dark about what level of difficulty I would be facing in the professional world. If this is difficult at all for me, is there hope to think about making money in this field? I am pretty persistent and can keep up a level of work if I am not even close yet, but I don't know if I am a year off or 10 years off. Are basic scripting skills employable at even a very low rate (10 bucks an hour)? What level of experience are the people at who make 100k a year? Sorry if this is off-topic for the list, but I am trying to get past a psychological hurdle or two before reapplying myself and hopefully it would be valuable to others as well. ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] Real world experience
What is a difficult problem that if I could solve it would indicate I am ready to begin looking for a job? I realize that solving just ONE problem isn't too meaningful, but I am looking for a level of difficulty or some sort of gauge as to what a good programmer would consider difficult. What would a junior programmer for a company be expected to be able to do? This way I could have an idea of the range between a beginner (still a paid employee) and someone with many years of experience. I am in the south, USA. thanks On Sun, May 11, 2014 at 9:43 PM, Tim Krupinski tdkrupin...@gmail.com wrote: Probably off-topic for the list but i'll let some of the others weigh in on that. This is more for help with the python language itself. But i'll weigh in. Programming is difficult work. It's definitely a profitable career. Its hard to say how much you'll make since it varies depending on location, but in general a combination of experience and your ability to solve difficult problems and provide solutions consistently command higher salaries. However, many companies wont even consider you without a degree, or a significant contribution to the industry. If you want to pursue a career in IT, you need to finish high school. You would be wise to get a degree. My $0.02. Tim On Sun, May 11, 2014 at 7:12 PM, C Smith illusiontechniq...@gmail.com wrote: I have never known anyone that works in this industry. I got one job transforming xml (should have used xslt, ended up using sed and python regex scripts) where the guy asked me how much I wanted and I threw 200 bucks out there because I could get a room for two weeks at that cost. He just laughed and handed me the money. That is the only professional experience I have and no formal education whatsoever (some high school). I have been doing online stuff and hit a wall in a 'design of computer programs' class on udacity. I made it about halfway through but started back at square one to sharpen my skills before trying to come at it again from a different angle. I started to feel overwhelmed when trying to basically recode regex (functions for '*' and '.' for instance) in python and make an api to interact easily with the text parser. I am still completely in the dark about what level of difficulty I would be facing in the professional world. If this is difficult at all for me, is there hope to think about making money in this field? I am pretty persistent and can keep up a level of work if I am not even close yet, but I don't know if I am a year off or 10 years off. Are basic scripting skills employable at even a very low rate (10 bucks an hour)? What level of experience are the people at who make 100k a year? Sorry if this is off-topic for the list, but I am trying to get past a psychological hurdle or two before reapplying myself and hopefully it would be valuable to others as well. ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
