How hard is it to learn how to program?

[Gaddabout]

Switching gears to pursue a career in web development, but I'm trying to do it the hard way. On purpose. Jumping into Java now, because I feel I will be better for it by learning the lower-level stuff and argumentation. I know most web dev is done in .Net and scripting these days, but the more I take to vets I respect, the more I see their disdain for script kiddies who love their Ruby/Python/JSON worlds, but have almost no understanding of how their computer works.

Curious what the experienced programmers on here think?

I've been a journalist who's lived in the web dev world for 16 years. My focus has been on the content, but I've been required to have a toe or two in the technical side for most of my career. To date, my greatest accomplishment was rebuilding an array in a Perl script, and that's just sad to me. I have a deep understanding of HTML dating back to its infancy, and have a reasonable understanding of CSS. I need the other side of it now, the functional part.

My goal is to jump into corporate web dev, something secure and decent paying. Not interested in running my own business or working freelance.

What say ye, pros?

 

[jf-08]

I don't know anything about programming, but I do know some programmers.

Most work as contract employees, so that may be even more prevalent in the future.

They love it - work 18 mos on, 6 mos off, then repeat.

And the work for Schwab.

 

[SO91]

Not a programmer, but I have the same inclination for different reasons. It interests me, and for the time being, it is more a hobby I want to pick up than a career. Check out http://www.reddit.com/r/learnprogramming/ if you haven't. Lots of good resources there.

 

[asudevil83]

Not a programmer, but I have the same inclination for different reasons. It interests me, and for the time being, it is more a hobby I want to pick up than a career. Check out http://www.reddit.com/r/learnprogramming/ if you haven't. Lots of good resources there.

great resource but ill go a step further

http://ureddit.com/category/23442/computer-science

 

[Linderbee]

I think how hard it is to learn depends on your intelligence/ability to learn. I know zero about programming, but knowing you, I think you'll do just fine.

 

[RugbyMuffin]

Switching gears to pursue a career in web development, but I'm trying to do it the hard way. On purpose. Jumping into Java now, because I feel I will be better for it by learning the lower-level stuff and argumentation. I know most web dev is done in .Net and scripting these days, but the more I take to vets I respect, the more I see their disdain for script kiddies who love their Ruby/Python/JSON worlds, but have almost no understanding of how their computer works.

Curious what the experienced programmers on here think?

I've been a journalist who's lived in the web dev world for 16 years. My focus has been on the content, but I've been required to have a toe or two in the technical side for most of my career. To date, my greatest accomplishment was rebuilding an array in a Perl script, and that's just sad to me. I have a deep understanding of HTML dating back to its infancy, and have a reasonable understanding of CSS. I need the other side of it now, the functional part.

My goal is to jump into corporate web dev, something secure and decent paying. Not interested in running my own business or working freelance.

What say ye, pros?

Maybe check out an IT school.

Not only can they teach, but most are connected to firms, and companies.

It is dry white toast work, hours upon hours of sitting at a desk, looking at text.

Best advice ? Spend a lot of time getting the right chair, so that is it good for your back, and healthy. Start doing yoga.

After that, it is your brain and your patience.

 

[BillsCarnage]

Maybe check out an IT school.

Not only can they teach, but most are connected to firms, and companies.

It is dry white toast work, hours upon hours of sitting at a desk, looking at text.

Best advice ? Spend a lot of time getting the right chair, so that is it good for your back, and healthy. Start doing yoga.

After that, it is your brain and your patience.

This.

That bold sentence is an understatement.

If you have an analytical (left) brain then coding is probably up your alley.
It also depends on what you want to program/code. Do you want to do websites, web apps, ios (where the $$ is now), android, php, etc? You mentioned Java, but did you mean javascript? Java and javascript are two completely separate languages.

You can definitely learn it on your own as there are plenty of web resources available, but at the same time it's nice to be in a classroom environment to bounce ideas off of other people.

Every programmer I've ever met is a programmer. There's a certain mentality that goes along with it.

 

[jw7]

This.
You mentioned Java, but did you mean javascript? Java and javascript are two completely separate languages.

Yes, corporate world these days is moving away from Java and towards Javascript and HTML5. It's all about platform neutral and mobile.

But if you want to be an employed programmer, you need to know SQL (which is really easy to learn) That is where most store the data.

 

[outoftheashes]

Yes, corporate world these days is moving away from Java and towards Javascript and HTML5. It's all about platform neutral and mobile.

But if you want to be an employed programmer, you need to know SQL (which is really easy to learn) That is where most store the data.

This is how I got started and what landed me my current job as a data architect/developer. I agree SQL is easy to learn and once you have the relational object concept down it makes it that much easier to pick up other languages. There are a ton of good SQL resources online. MySQL and TSQL seemed to be in the most demand when I was job hunting but all of the variations are fundamentally the same. There are just minor syntax changes from platform to platform.

I find the easiest way to learn any language is to start with a finished product and reverse engineer them to see what every piece of code actually does. That may not work for everyone though.

Good Luck!

 

[jw7]

MySQL and TSQL seemed to be in the most demand

FWIW, this site uses MySQL as its database.

 

[DWKB]

I code in Verilog or VHDL, which is the closest you can get to both hardward and software at the same time.