Programming

[Flyingpurplepeopleeater]

I am starting to get work as a sound engineer and it is dawning on me that I am not going to make a lot of money doing this for a living.

So I want to get into programming, software, web design that sort of thing because I understand there is big bucks to be made here. I aim to continue working in studios but want something lucrative to fall back on. I think quite a few of you guys are well up on all that and might be able to point me in the right direction?
I am starting at the very basic HTML stage teaching myself. I'm thinking of going on to Java and I've been given a couple of tomes on visual basic and active servers.
I know this will take a lot of time, but should I do a course or could I get enough free stuff online to be qualified?
Any advice on which way to head or how to proceed much appreciated!

Cheers

[hills west]

I am starting to get work as a sound engineer and it is dawning on me that I am not going to make a lot of money doing this for a living.

So I want to get into programming, software, web design that sort of thing because I understand there is big bucks to be made here. I aim to continue working in studios but want something lucrative to fall back on. I think quite a few of you guys are well up on all that and might be able to point me in the right direction?
I am starting at the very basic HTML stage teaching myself. I'm thinking of going on to Java and I've been given a couple of tomes on visual basic and active servers.
I know this will take a lot of time, but should I do a course or could I get enough free stuff online to be qualified?
Any advice on which way to head or how to proceed much appreciated!

Cheers

4 years of school!! computer science...by the time you teach yourself a language it will probably be obsolete by that time....i hate computers

[doubleEntendre]

lol, i'm a computer science major. it's a very, very lucrative field, but all the programming work requires nothing less than zen-like concentration. you have to like programming to get through it.

[Flyingpurplepeopleeater]

I'm pretty good at going zen- like if it's for something I'm into but I gotta say what I've learnt so far aint the most exciting stuff. If I have goals in mind along the way it would be okay, but all I want is to get good enough to one day earn lots of cash to allow me to build a decent studio and eat really well and actually buy new clothes and... well you know. But in reality I don't have a clue about it and it feels like I'm about to start a three legged race up everest or something. But it still appeals somehow...
Well I'll give HTML a blast and see where it leads. It will probably end up on the shit heap with a load of other goals but it's worth a go.
Is that true Hills, that languages become obsolete that quick?

[hills west]

lol, i'm a computer science major. it's a very, very lucrative field, but all the programming work requires nothing less than zen-like concentration. you have to like programming to get through it.

more importantly, youre from new york. whereabouts?

[doubleEntendre]

buffalo area.

[turquoise70]

Bumping this thread.

I'm currently in school for an AAS in Web Programming. I'm learning HTML/CSS on the markup side, and Python and JavaScript on the programming side. Later i'll be taking courses in PHP, .NET, SQL, Java, Ajax and a few others I think.

I have no freaking clue if this is going to pan out or what. I love Python so far, it's fun as hell. I like JavaScript too but it's way more challenging to me. Then again, I've almost been teaching it to myself cuz my teacher is more or less hands-off.

[dono]

Im a programmer, and unix system admin by profession. I do database development, along site web stuff (php, HTML, java, etc) on a daily basis. I also program perl, c and a few others....

Some days i wake up and wish I was a sound engineer by profession. Programming/sys admin is great, and if you want any advice or tips, just ask, but at the end of the day, it's a headache and a half most of the time.

[Guido]

Well, I kind of spent all my teenage years on programming and hacking. After that I decided to do other stuff like partying and focusing on music because programming can be very rewarding but it's such a lonely and unemotional hobby (in a way). I have self-taught myself different variants of Basic, C/C++, assembler/machine language and PHP. My main fields of interest were compression and polymorphism in viruses. I have studied the assembler source code of many viruses, did a lot of low level size optimization, have reasonably good knowledge of Windows and Linux kernel internals. When I was 16 I coded an ERP application for a company in Visual Basic, SQL and C. In recent years I have coded a part of an X86-32b processor simulator (which simulates all processor instructions and virtualizes RAM) with the ultimate goal being able to apply heuristic analysis to detect whether a given program is malware. Advanced versions of these programs are in use by anti-virus companies but I doubt there is any open source alternative (open source virus scanners exist like Clam-AV but these don't apply (dynamic) heuristic analysis to my knowledge), so I'm considering continuing it and making it open source.

I'm currently refreshing my knowledge of especially PHP because I want to work as a PHP programmer.
Anyone know what other job prospects there may be with my skill set? Dono?

[Cupz]

I'm learning small basic, php and html at school. I love programing!

[dono]

Guido, you could do work for my security company

Edit: inserted *could

[turquoise70]

On second thought... i hate my life. Not one programmer in EXISTENCE has ever told me anything REMOTELY encouraging. Fuck this profession, I hope I die before I graduate, I hope code eats my body literally skin to bone until there is nothing left.

Is this seriously the thing people take up when they want to die? HONESTLY?

SOMEBODY SAY ONE MOTHERFUCKING THING THAT IS REMOTELY MOTHERFUCKING GODDAMN ENCOURAGING TO SOMEBODY WHO IS JUST STARTING IN THIS AREA

the only thing i hate about programming? THE PEOPLE WHO ARE INVOLVED IN IT.

[Cupz]

it is satisfying when something finally works

[dono]

Turquoise man, it's alright. Programming is great, it's fascinating and it stretches your mind in so many ways. Heck man, I run servers here at my house, if you want some space on there to play around with development, and shells and stuff. There is so much good about programming and just the profession in general. I LOVE my job. I just said that a lot of the time it is a headache, and it is, but that is because it's so logic and reason intensive. Nothing wrong with that.

ProFranking and music go hand in hand... Look at it as another expansion of yourself. Use it as a tool for self exploration. Music is math, man.

[rik0000]

ah.. a lot of programmers! Here another one, currently mostly working on php/mysql/html/css/javascript, of which I like the last ones the best and work most with. I have also done some C++/Obj-C/Python/java/mssql/actionscript in the past, but those are kind of rusty by now... I think I prefer the client-side and user-interaction above php-stuff, which seems a bit odd compared to other programmers I've met so far.

Turquiose70: I saw you had some trouble with JS, if I can be of any help..... nice to see some other people using Python, don't meet those that often. If I remeber correctly, it was a nice and easy language to work with.

Guido: I think your description of your knowledge above, is a nice summary for the letter we talked about.

[Guido]

Cole, like I said, just ask me on MSN if you need to know something.

I can imagine that programming and its scene can be daunting at first. One encouraging thing I can say is that like with most crafts it imposes a logarithmic learning curve. That means that the beginning is hard, especially because programming requires an unusual degree of logical thinking which usually isn't present anywhere in life but the exact sciences and because computer science is such an incredibly vast and complex field of expertise which can make it puzzling for a student where to start. But the good news is, once you got the hang of one or two languages the other fifty are not too hard to learn. One good thing about programming is that many languages are all based on the same mathematical axioms, ie. they all impose a logic which is consistent throughout most of computer science. Effectively that means that with my current knowledge I could in theory probably learn a new average programming language in a day or two and become fluent at it with little practice. It would just be a matter of learning some new symbols and conventions but the inherent logic wouldn't be any different from any language I already know.

So, once you get through the basics of programming, things will only become more easy and fun and you´ll arrive at a point where you feel like an omnipotent wizard in a magical world.

On a related note, I think my wizard analogy actually points out what the main driving force behind most (self-taught) programmers is. Programming is often severely underestimated as a creative occupation. Programming actually does require a great amount of creativity and dynamical thinking. And I'm quite sure you have plenty of that .

[GrangalanJr]

Bumping this thread.

I'm currently in school for an AAS in Web Programming. I'm learning HTML/CSS on the markup side, and Python and JavaScript on the programming side. Later i'll be taking courses in PHP, .NET, SQL, Java, Ajax and a few others I think.

I have no freaking clue if this is going to pan out or what. I love Python so far, it's fun as hell. I like JavaScript too but it's way more challenging to me. Then again, I've almost been teaching it to myself cuz my teacher is more or less hands-off.

Cool, another beginning programmer.

I am starting out with Ruby, but I also got a book on Python.

[turquoise70]

Sorry When I wrote that last post I was drunk and caught up in depression and anxiety about lots of other things, programming is really not the main thing that made me feel that way, it was just something I happened to be thinking about and it got used as an outlet.

If I may reformulate and re-state the kernel of truth that I suppose I meant to say, it does bother me how often learning how to program can feel like you're trying to learn another language from people who speak that language, but don't speak yours. Like getting dropped in the middle of Siberia and trying to learn Russian, in a town where almost nobody speaks English. It's the "barriers to entry" that get me so frustrated, how of all the programmers I talk to, some are very helpful and friendly, some mean to be helpful but can't communicate what they know in a way that someone who doesn't already know it would understand, and then the rest are arrogant, unhelpful, unkind, and generally condescending.

The programming languages and their logics don't upset me. Those just require learning. But I must admit, I'm not a self-taught type of guy - I need the structure of a curriculum to introduce it to me, and some helping hands to tell me whether I'm getting the fundamentals down the way they should be or not.

[GrangalanJr]

I have a hard time with self-teaching, too. But that is my only real option at the moment. I can't get in to any of the worthwhile schools around here, and the ones I can get in to have little worth taking. So I am trying to make my own way through some books as best I can.

[Green Pylon]

good to see a lot of codemakers here.. now I try with C, java, ada, and python. How about control languages like prolog?