Current Events > How in the hell is coding/programming a hobby to some people?

(+) Yeah! (+)

It looks so complicated and soul-crushing.
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it's not once you know what you're doing
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chill02 posted...

it's not once you know what you're doing

I've tried to learn this shit for a solid year, and I'm getting nowhere. I know HTML (barely), and it felt like a chore.

Do people actually have fun?
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It's the world's most complex puzzle game with infinite content.
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ChromaticAngel posted...

It's the world's most complex puzzle game with infinite content.

that's one way to put it

also, like with nearly everything, it just clicks for some people
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I feel like the amount you need to know for it to be enjoyable is far too much, though. A lot of programmers stop programming after about 10 years because they get burnt out
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legendarylemur posted...

I feel like the amount you need to know for it to be enjoyable is far too much, though. A lot of programmers stop programming after about 10 years because they get burnt out

Are they doing it as a job?
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I do web programming on the side. I have the need to be challenged and this provides that. I've been developing my own forum software from scratch and it actually has a feature for speech navigation and speech to text for messages.
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Asherlee10 posted...

chill02 posted...

it's not once you know what you're doing

That's me every day at IT support.
"Hai BrutaI, this engineering control system doesn't work. Can you pls fix?"
"How long has it been broken? What are you expecting it to do? Do you know what could have caused the problem?"
"six months. Um just work to fix the heating. The old IT guy was trying to upgrade it to Windows 7"
Me: I wanna employ him again to beat him

legendarylemur posted...

I feel like the amount you need to know for it to be enjoyable is far too much, though. A lot of programmers stop programming after about 10 years because they get burnt out

Getting burnt out has more to do with business requirements and not programming itself.

Sales will agree to anything the customer wants even if it doesn't make sense and when we complain we're told "Well we already sold it to them so do it."
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I code for a living, and I still have fun working on side projects when I'm not too busy at home.

As chill said, it's definitely not for everyone though.

__Cam__ posted...

chill02 posted...

it's not once you know what you're doing

I've tried to learn this shit for a solid year, and I'm getting nowhere. I know HTML (barely), and it felt like a chore.

Do people actually have fun?

Who told you to start with HTML as a first programming language? HTML isn't even really a programming language

chill02 posted...

it's not once you know what you're doing

don't you need like, a practice environment or something I'd assume?
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Baneposting posted...

Asherlee10 posted...

chill02 posted...

it's not once you know what you're doing

That's me every day at IT support.
"Hai BrutaI, this engineering control system doesn't work. Can you pls fix?"
"How long has it been broken? What are you expecting it to do? Do you know what could have caused the problem?"
"six months. Um just work to fix the heating. The old IT guy was trying to upgrade it to Windows 7"
Me: I wanna employ him again to beat him

"Hi, the X system is down"
"Wtf is the X system, ive been working here for 2 years and ive never even heard of it"
"Listen i g2g can you jump into my computer and take a look?"
"But what is your compu... oh ffs youre already gone..."
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Once you stop sucking you realize you can literally do anything. It's pretty great tbh
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Like my girlfriend told me about this task she had to do at her old job which involved copy/pasta a bunch of city voting data or something. It took her days but if she knew how to program it would have taken maybe 2 hours and then there would just be a program that would be able to do the task forever. It's a beautiful thing having this sort of power.
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It's like anything else.

You go from easy mode to normal to hard mode, and you learn tips and tricks along the way. Keep looking for ways to challenge yourself. Make your projects bigger and more complex. Use more uncommon languages, see what you like about them and what you don't. Some people are gonna find it frustrating while others find it fascinating.

Like just a week or two ago, I managed to pull off dynamically loading dlls in Ada, the language that does nothing dynamically. I did this by using the language's built-in FFI to call a C function that directly appeals to the operating system. The tricky part was actually garden-variety Ada conversion errors.

It was kinda like playing a super-fast violin concerto on a tuba, which I've actually heard before but that's a different story.
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DarkDragon400 posted...

legendarylemur posted...

I feel like the amount you need to know for it to be enjoyable is far too much, though. A lot of programmers stop programming after about 10 years because they get burnt out

Are they doing it as a job?

Yeah, I suppose that's a big factor. I do know a lot of people who currently genuinely enjoy programming. Who knows in the distant future?
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ROD posted...

don't you need like, a practice environment or something I'd assume?

Depending on what language you wanna learn, your home computer can do just fine. In fact, there are online environment for free you can learn with.

Rika_Furude posted...

"Hi, the X system is down"
"Wtf is the X system, ive been working here for 2 years and ive never even heard of it"
"Listen i g2g can you jump into my computer and take a look?"
"But what is your compu... oh ffs youre already gone..."

I'm still comprehending the concept of "he tried to update XP to Windows 7". There are three XP computers. Each are XP for specific software requirements.
"He could never get it to upgrade. It always annoyed him"
MOTHERFUCK DON'T UPGRADE SHIT IF YOU DON'T NEED IT

Coding can be super fun. Case in point: Advent of Code!
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Baneposting posted...

In fact, there are online environment for free you can learn with.

for real?! where?
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DevsBro posted...

Like just a week or two ago, I managed to pull off dynamically loading dlls in Ada, the language that does nothing dynamically. I did this by using the language's built-in FFI to call a C function that directly appeals to the operating system. The tricky part was actually garden-variety Ada conversion errors.

This seems kind of dangerous. Why did you do it this way? You're completely avoiding the reason people use Ada in the first place.
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How repetative is it?
Like, me trying to learn say, C# was a bit like: make button, make 6 text boxes (for example) type in a bunch of code that's more or less the same with variants of "textbox1.text".
It seems really, really boring since it was repetative to me.

Just my take on it - I genuinely would like to learn coding properly outside of learnign scripting for job related stuff

@ROD
https://www.codecademy.com/

Keep in mind that it's not the most advanced in terms of what you can do but ultimately, if you have a computer (an actual computer/laptop with windows/linux/iOS on it) then you can learn to code. If you're on GameFAQs, you can learn to code. Most of the tools are free. take say, Java, you can get some tutorials online for free - just Google, they're legally obtained so you're not pirating or anything. And then just go nuts. NetBeans is an IDE (integrated development environment) where you can debug code, etc. So you could use that for Java, say, following tutorials that start with it. Most good tutorials start with a setup of the IDE

Baneposting posted...

How repetative is it?
Like, me trying to learn say, C# was a bit like: make button, make 6 text boxes (for example) type in a bunch of code that's more or less the same with variants of "textbox1.text".
It seems really, really boring since it was repetative to me.

Just my take on it - I genuinely would like to learn coding properly outside of learnign scripting for job related stuff

That all depends on what problems you're solving.
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Baneposting posted...

How repetative is it?
Like, me trying to learn say, C# was a bit like: make button, make 6 text boxes (for example) type in a bunch of code that's more or less the same with variants of "textbox1.text".
It seems really, really boring since it was repetative to me.

Just my take on it - I genuinely would like to learn coding properly outside of learnign scripting for job related stuff

If you're writing almost the same thing 6 times you should be using some sort of loop or function call.

But yes, boring coding can be repetitive. Fucking awesome coding is fucking awesome. Blame the boring code not the field of coding itself.

Baneposting posted...

How repetative is it?
Like, me trying to learn say, C# was a bit like: make button, make 6 text boxes (for example) type in a bunch of code that's more or less the same with variants of "textbox1.text".
It seems really, really boring since it was repetative to me.

Just my take on it - I genuinely would like to learn coding properly outside of learnign scripting for job related stuff

What got me into programming was web development and specifically dynamic web development with a database backend
I dont know c# or traditional gui programming, but web development is pretty fun for me. Probably couldnt make a career out of it since i dont know SEO
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Okay so some of the stuff I was learning (keep in mind, this was basic as Hell) was in C# and the idea of: parsing text into doubles and then doing math functions, say getting the tax percentage or how much gross pay you'd have.
so it was literally going to be line by line.

That's what put me off it - was the fact it was going by using basic methods when I imagine there was a much, much faster way. But the class was filled with different levels so the guy couldn't just jump ahead to "okay so here's how I'd do it in ten minutes".

MJ_Max posted...

Who told you to start with HTML as a first programming language? HTML isn't even really a programming language

What would you recommend as a good place/language to start?
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Coding is for nerds plain and simple
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__Cam__ posted...

MJ_Max posted...

Who told you to start with HTML as a first programming language? HTML isn't even really a programming language

What would you recommend as a good place/language to start?

Python is the most common beginner language I think. Not sure for resources though, I learned at college, so hopefully someone else knows some good free resources.

This seems kind of dangerous. Why did you do it this way? You're completely avoiding the reason people use Ada in the first place.

Right?

I chose Ada for exactly the reasons you mention. If anything is screwed up, it just won't compile instead of doing the wrong thing or hitting a runtime error. Actually, Ada isn't as good at avoiding runtime errors as its reputation suggests but in fairness it was first developed in 1983 so other languages have had a long time to catch up.

It wasn't until I was thousands and thousands of lines into the project that I decided to add plugin capability, so at that point I wasn't gonna scrap the whole thing and start over. But really it's no more dangerous than doing it in C anyway, since it's done exactly how it's done in C. It does mean that I've had to manually add the protections that come with dynamic operations but actually just because the language is so stubborn it's helped a lot with that kind of stuff anyway. Like I mentioned before, garden variety conversion errors. In spite of C being C, Ada continues to be Ada and makes the process a much-appreciated pain in the butt.
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__Cam__ posted...

MJ_Max posted...

Who told you to start with HTML as a first programming language? HTML isn't even really a programming language

What would you recommend as a good place/language to start?

Python was basically made for beginners.

Visual Studio is free and it has an extremely good debugger so you can try it out. I recommend C#.NET or F# if you want to do a functional programming language (as opposed to Object-Oriented).

There is no one-size-fits-all answer.

I don't recommend starting with C++. If you absolutely feel like you want to manage memory manually, start with C, and then build on your knowledge of C to learn C++.
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I never learned Python. I started with PHP and SQL right away. I use the Jetbrains line of products now when I do my coding, but that isn't for everyone because it isn't free.
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Actually, Ada isn't as good at avoiding runtime errors as its reputation suggests

Wait I take that back. I was thinking of my own exceptions that I use to break the automata loop and display an error message before termination. It's actually pretty rare to have an actual RTE though I've pulled it off before.
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It's really fun to do while stoned :P
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It's fun when it's a hobby but it sucks ass(atleast for me) when it became a job with a time limit.
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__Cam__ posted...

chill02 posted...

it's not once you know what you're doing

I've tried to learn this shit for a solid year, and I'm getting nowhere. I know HTML (barely), and it felt like a chore.

Do people actually have fun?

Tried HTML back in 2000 and lost interest in about a month.
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MutantJohn posted...

It's really fun to do while stoned :P

lol for my ML class we had a Kaggle competition on determining if two people would match from match.com or some other dating site. I ended up implementing custom features while high and getting poor results for a few weeks cause I did it wrong. Moral of the story, don't code high.
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I really enjoy it.

IllegalAlien posted...

MutantJohn posted...

It's really fun to do while stoned :P

lol for my ML class we had a Kaggle competition on determining if two people would match from match.com or some other dating site. I ended up implementing custom features while high and getting poor results for a few weeks cause I did it wrong. Moral of the story, don't code high.

Damn I implemented a tough algorithm in Java for a class while buzzed and ended up getting way above the mean. Moral of the story, code buzzed.

Coding is immensely satisfying once you accomplish something, especially if what you made is going to help you accomplish other things more easily.

For example, imagine a task that requires you to enter numbers into a database individually and that task is going to take you a week of soul crushing labour. But then imagine spending 4 hours figuring out how to write a script that accomplishes the same task in 30 minutes.

Think about Primitive Technology. He builds all that shit to make his life easier, and it looks immensely satisfying. Coding is the same, just more modern.
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pinky0926 posted...

Coding is immensely satisfying once you accomplish something, especially if what you made is going to help you accomplish other things more easily.

For example, imagine a task that requires you to enter numbers into a database individually and that task is going to take you a week of soul crushing labour. But then imagine spending 4 hours figuring out how to write a script that accomplishes the same task in 30 minutes.

Think about Primitive Technology. He builds all that shit to make his life easier, and it looks immensely satisfying. Coding is the same, just more modern.

Exactly, coding is about the destination, not the journey. If your destination sucks coding will just suck in general.

MJ_Max posted...

IllegalAlien posted...

MutantJohn posted...

It's really fun to do while stoned :P

lol for my ML class we had a Kaggle competition on determining if two people would match from match.com or some other dating site. I ended up implementing custom features while high and getting poor results for a few weeks cause I did it wrong. Moral of the story, don't code high.

Damn I implemented a tough algorithm in Java for a class while buzzed and ended up getting way above the mean. Moral of the story, code buzzed.

Yeah some people say a drink is good for math or hacking, personally, meh. I actually wrote a ton of production websites high when I was a freelancer working from home lol
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__Cam__ posted...

MJ_Max posted...

Who told you to start with HTML as a first programming language? HTML isn't even really a programming language

What would you recommend as a good place/language to start?

Try www.hackerrank.com.
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__Cam__ posted...

MJ_Max posted...

Who told you to start with HTML as a first programming language? HTML isn't even really a programming language

What would you recommend as a good place/language to start?

Read the book Think Like a Computer Scientist and learn Python with it and do all the exercises. I have TA'd computer science classes for about 3 years and I think this is the most effective, balanced presentation of programming I have seen for beginners
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Tag for later
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My wife is having to learn some programming languages for chemistry research. She's enjoying it so far.
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You wont know till you fully understand it. I was dreaded at first but then when I got the hang of it, I now enjoy my job so much.

Soviet_Poland posted...

My wife is having to learn some programming languages for chemistry research. She's enjoying it so far.

Programming for research is probably among the most fun things I know as far as programming goes.
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