Whats your level of experience??

[spyrojyros_tail]

Hey all,

I was looking at L.Spiros C++ test and it got me round to thinkin how much experience do we have in the forum? Im almost finished with my degree and i have about a year and a bit experience in C (four years experience programming) and im wondering what is everyones experience levels here in programming in general.

[L. Spiro]

10 years, starting with TI 81 calculators when I was 14.
I’m only 24 so it’s impossible for me to have too many years of experience, unfortunately, but I will get there eventually.
Patience.


L. Spiro

[mirex]

Varies here.
- I have started on on PP03 where I did not know what to do except play Katakana (or what was the game's name).
- Then I got a C64 (8bit computer) where I was playing mostly, and programming in Basic only a little.
- Then we had PMD84 (8bit computer) in school where I was learning QBasic for a 1/2 year
- after that I got finally to PC. I was learning Dos QBasic for 1 year
- then I discovered Pascal which I was using for 2-3 years
- also I was interested in assembler for 2 years approx ... coding, debugging, cracking and stuff
- then on one day when Pascal showed me an error message "Code segment too large" I decided its time to move on, and I started programming in C. And then I went into C++, win32api, MFC, OpenGl, UML, and stuff ... various compilers and developement tools ... its approx 5 years since I started with C and 11 years since I started toying with computers generally.

[spyrojyros_tail]

yeah, that was my first experience with programming, BASIC on the C64. But i never programmed on the C64 i just used the big ass book that came with the computer and programmed using an editor using Q-BASIC on the PC, i think i was about 10 but i never really got into it until i went to college. I love java, and dont really like C (though i probably would understand it lot better now), but it looks like i should get into it. But at the minute im being really really lazy and getting into things like actionscript and lingo (languages designed for people who know squat about programming). I have to laugh at that pascal error, how pissed off were you when you seen that!?

Well i wouldnt mind getting into what you guys are doing here, im sure you have a greater understanding about the languages by doing stuff like save game editors, patches, hi-res and the like. It is really all down to experience at the end of the day, and a logical head on your shoulders!

[L. Spiro]

im sure you have a greater understanding about the languages by doing stuff like save game editors, patches, hi-res and the like.

I can’t speak for others, but in my case I definitely didn’t get it from school.

Yes, absolutely you have to have personal projects in order to understand any language you want to learn.
And not just any personal project, but very specific ones.
Criteria
1: Interesting/Fun.  No matter what your level of dedication is, boring projects burn you out.  If you want to learn the language, create a small project whose results you can see quickly, and of a nature that is highly interesting to you.  This usually means games or utilities related to games you enjoy, as is the case with everyone on this board.
2: Challenging.  You want to learn right?  Then your project should have some feature in it that you don’t yet know how to do, or you want to do better than you did last time.
3: But not too Challenging.  Too much challenge just leads to frustration and burn-out, and after spending so much time on one problem rather than the global project you end up getting less out of the experience anyway.  Pick something above your level, but not too far above your level.
4: Pride.  Put pride into every project.  Every new project is better than the previous.  Take pride in making your next project more organized than your last.  Take pride because your newest project has no memory leaks.  Take pride because your newest project releases perfectly every resource it created.  Take pride because your newest project has not a single bug, and 100% solid, structured, neat, and organized code.
Having pride in your work is the single most important aspect of coding, because when you have pride, you not only take care of all the tiny details and polish/fine-tune your project, you have fun doing it.


When you can decide on a project that meets all of these criteria, get cracking.


My boss won’t hire people unless they have multiple personal projects to show.
School isn’t particularly special; anyone can be taught what a programmer is and does but passion is the only thing that can make an actual programmer.


L. Spiro

[spyrojyros_tail]

Yeah, i totally agree with everything you said L.Spiro. Im doing exams at the minute and I feel that my degree is holding me back from doing what I actually want to do.

I think the best thing to come from a degree in programming is that it teaches you the basics of the majority of programming languages (arrays, polymorphism, inheritance etc) so that you can then go off and learn any programming language, because they all have a similar structure.

As for personal projects, thats exactly what I had planned on doing after the degree for three years, with no actual employer (although it would be good to get experience in a software company) Im interested in doing some projects on this site (NPC reconstruction), and doing a mod for "madness interactive" (a flash game that i absoultley love), aside from that im thinking of doing training videos, websites and educational programs using flash, director and maya. Although that could change as I could be doing a masters in e-learning... I dunno yet, summer should be fun though!

It is all about passion, i can program til the early morning and only think that a couple of hours have passed, ive never done anything (including playing music) that I work so much on. What a f***ing nerd!!!!  

[Chrisu]

I just started programming with C# in the autumn 2005 (learning it in school)

[odo324]

Well said L. Spiro ! I've read many similar comments in programming articles over the years... Anyone who doubts that is a fuck’in idiot! (...or perhaps just works for Microsoft.)

I just started programming with C# in the autumn

Congrads

! Does that include C++? (..which basically just adds “class” structures to the lang.) Actually, the two languages flow together, one into the other.[/list:u]


My first programming experience was a High School class using Visual Basic in '98-'99. After that, I began experimenting with Unreal Script and through that I learned the powers of C. I began learning C#/C++ through an online class early in '02. (Yea, all I wanted to code was games, which is how I found Qhimm's site, lol) While I got through the course, I failed my own expectations horribly. At the time, I lacked the ability to code a window (yea, I know... just hush-up!) so I instead regressed into PHP (and tarring apart phpBB), the best alternative I could actually use during that time! Thankfully it helped sharpen my skills and now I'm attending ITT, for the sole purpose of continuing my understanding of the black magic that is C++. Although it can't be classified as a "language", if I had to pin-point the origins of my education, it would have to be back when I was 8, trying to figure out the game-logic of Dragon Warrior.

It is all about passion...

As with

anything that really matters in this life. Words to live by... [/list:u]

i can program til the early morning and only think that a couple of hours have passed

Ok, with my hand raised, I ask:

Who here has done this with out even realizing it until dawn arrived? I cant remember exactly what I was doing; it was a while ago. I think it was either a PHP concept script or some documentation...[/list:u]

…I feel that my degree is holding me back from doing what I actually want to do.

You really think so? From a learning standpoint: I suppose it depends on your instructor/professor. If you get someone that teaches out of a predefined curricular system, then I can agree because it’s just information being drilled into your head. Thankfully, some prefer to sidestep the curriculum and teach what it takes to be a successful programmer. It really depends on the learning environment, tho. I’ve never been to any major university myself but does that stuff (the school of which you obtain your degree) even matter these days when compared to a portfolio?

So what’s stopping you from starting your project before you graduate? (Besides ‘time’ because that’s exactly what’s slowing me down, right now.)[/list:u]

...but I will get there eventually.
Patience.

We all will, LS. Patience and Determination... assuming it's coupled with FUN and just a pinch of pizzazz![/list:u]




One last thing, everyone take note of this:[/list:u]

School isn’t particularly special; anyone can be taught what a programmer is and does but passion is the only thing that can make an actual programmer.

Damn straight!

[spyrojyros_tail]

spyrojyros_tail wrote:
…I feel that my degree is holding me back from doing what I actually want to do.

odo324 wrote:
      You really think so? From a learning standpoint: I suppose it depends on your instructor/professor. If you get someone that teaches out of a predefined curricular system, then I can agree because it’s just information being drilled into your head. Thankfully, some prefer to sidestep the curriculum and teach what it takes to be a successful programmer. It really depends on the learning environment, tho. I’ve never been to any major university myself but does that stuff (the school of which you obtain your degree) even matter these days when compared to a portfolio?

      So what’s stopping you from starting your project before you graduate? (Besides ‘time’ because that’s exactly what’s slowing me down, right now.)

Yeah, I was going to drop out. I didnt like the other subjects I was being taught knowing that I would never use them again (eg: real time systems, modern information management...... french!!). I kinda decided that I knew all that I wanted to know and I wanted to go off and start as a freelance programmer, but thats not the way it played out, I couldnt quit because I was on a team for my final year project and it would have been shitty if I left my friend, oh yeah and it would have been a waste of the 3 years previous. That and I hate exams, i cannot see the purpose of exams as they stand today, its all about remembering and nothing about figuring out and using your brain. I also hate the idea of lectures, you never remember anything once you step out of the lecture hall, the education system as it stands today is too damn old and needs to be changed. To be honest i never paid attention in lectures/labs, anything i know now i taught myself from the lectures notes, api's, tutorials and some help from friends.

Anyway I cant start now even if i wanted to, for the past 4 months ive been working from 9 to 10 in the labs only to come home and work another 2 hours, go to sleep, wake up and do the same thing over and over again 7 days a week. And now im in the middle of my exams, (i only have one week to go though, whoo!!) so I really cant start until i finish it. There are really two factors stopping me at the minute, training and time. I would know a fair bit about programming, but for something like patches I would need to look into it and spend some time figuring out how it works. But at the end of this month i should have some free time.

Anyway a degree matters loads. Employers wont look at you if you dont have a degree in Ireland, the majority of people here already have degrees, so if you dont have one you lose out straight away. But then again they wont hire you unless you have experience, so its a vicious circle. But im not really interested in working for someone else.

Sorry for the long post! I gotta study...

[Jedimark]

Ooooh well I guess the very first time I used a programming language was back when I had by BBC Master computer and I did a bit of BASIC. I guess that was probably about 13 years ago! I can remember making a higher or lower game where player 1 had X chances to guess player 2's number and they would get "higher" or "lower" clues after every guess!

Then I suppose I didnt do much more programming until I went and did my A-Levels where I did VBA , VB, SQL etc. In my own time I mucked around with HTML and CGI/Perl.

Then at University I was taught Java, C, C++, C#, .NET, functional languages such as SCHEME, even did a bit of microprogramming! In my final year at Uni I pretty much was doing C# and ASP.NET all the time as I was writting my disseration in that.

Since starting work I've had to learn FORTRAN and also basic UNIX scripting etc. I've also had to re-teach myself VBA *shudders* for some basic database work I've been doing.

[Chrisu]

Congrads

! Does that include C++? (..which basically just adds “class” structures to the lang.) Actually, the two languages flow together, one into the other.[/list:u]

No, i have no idea of C++ ^^  

[Caddberry]

I think a 'none' option would be nice too.. but oh well..

I'm < 5 years..  I've programmed and used to like it a lot.. After I took a few classes on it .. I lost all interest.. I programmed in BASIC, Pascal, VB..

So just very general programming languages..

I think programmers are awesome, and I totally respect what they do.. It's just not something i have any interest in.. anymore anyway..

[odo324]

spyrojyros_tail: In that last part, I wasn’t questing the degree; merely the prestigious~ness of the school. Some eye-opening comments, though. Sounds rough... (Ya, I’m still an ignorant student with only 1 year of collage. >.<)

Jedimark: VBA? Ahh, my synapses! They have trauma centers for that. Yea-know?

Christian: Eh, I wouldn't worry about it to much... Everything you can do in C++, you can also do in C#. C++ just holds a larger toolset that was appended to the pre-existing C# language.

I think a 'none' option would be nice too.. but oh well..

K...? Ya, you totally lost me on that one.

RU saying that U wish could say you had no experience? Believe me, ignorance CAN be bliss; but it seems that you already tasted the forbidden fruit.[/list:u]

[Qhimm]

Ten years. As has been said, one's age tends to be a bit of a limitation when trying to rack up experience.

Personally I'm not as interested in complete projects as I am in specific low-level implementations. I'm fascinated by meta-programming, or other approaches where you use the language to tweak/extend the language itself, in order to make the language even more high-level with you being in complete control of the intermediate abstraction layers.

My personal favorite challenge is to raise the level of abstraction with virtually no performance loss. This can then be utilized in order to speed up and increase effectivity of actual larger-scale projects, but as I said I rarely do those myself. In fact, I rarely even release my work. I simply work for the personal challenge of it, it's not important to spread it or gain any kind of recognition for it when I can instead devote my time to the next challenge.

[Caddberry]

I think a 'none' option would be nice too.. but oh well..

K...? Ya, you totally lost me on that one.

RU saying that U wish could say you had no experience? Believe me, ignorance CAN be bliss; but it seems that you already tasted the forbidden fruit.[/list:u]

Yeah.. Well not necessarily for me since I do have *some* experience, but I'm sure there are people here without any experience at all..

[ChaosControl]

I just came in the world of "programming"
I started about 6 years ago by making a small app in Qbasic with my dad, he gave me big book and told me to figure out how to do some simple thing which I really enjoyed.

Then 1 year later (after my cat pissed on my 386 and fried it) I got a 486 DX4 100Mhz (WOW!!) with Windows 3.11. I started writing some simple batch files and after a while when I got the hang of it I planned on making something for our comp downstairs so my little brother would fuck up... My great invention of a menu (redirecting to a menu redirecting to a menu etc... till you get to the desired one like "games" and boot a game from there) came to life and thus my brother (who could now only get this menu thing instead of windows when he logged on) never fucked up again, yay!

The 1 year after that i got a P3 1GHZ state of the art 1337 |-|/\|<Z0|2 machine. Thats when I started doing Visual Basic which was fun but somehow I got distracted and haven't payed much attention to it till about half a year ago and I'm playing with it once we speak.

The main thing I did while I was "distracted" from VB was HTML & PHP. I really like what you can do with some html, php and a small acces database. So now I'm thinking of web-based JAVA ^_^!

[Emerald Weapon]

Yeah.. Well not necessarily for me since I do have *some* experience, but I'm sure there are people here without any experience at all..

Like me. I do not have any experience with any code whatsoever. No wait, that would be lying. I do know how to use the one mighty program of doom.
Yes...MS Frontpage! (I know, that's not even remotely near any real coding)

So everyone can start bugging me with questions on why I decided to join. I'm ready for 'em 

[Relf]

In fact, I rarely even release my work.

Is there anything of particular interest that you have hidden away on you HardDrive?

[jeomancer20]

Hi! Im not that familiar with all the the codes in programming yet. Just interested in the world of programs and doesn't have any experience yet.








_____________________________
Shoe Paradise

[L. Spiro]

This topic is 2 years old.  Please do not revive dead topics.
Good luck with your interest in programming.


L. Spiro

[Jonnylossus]

@L. Spiro

It was just a spammer.. He advertises the link that he posted. I already wrote Qhimm (he was online yesterday), and i hope that he reacts to that. =)

[L. Spiro]

I didn’t even notice the link.  So what wasted energy went into making that bot.  Bot makers are really stupid.


L. Spiro

[dziugo]

That's not even a bot. And the link is most likely for the search-engines to harvest, not real people.

[L. Spiro]

That would explain why its message was actually on-topic.  But it is hard to imagine a guy going around trying to advertise a retarded site by manually posting one-by-one.
This guy is even stupider than I thought.  Not to mention having used no sense at all when picking his target audience.  Why in the **** would people on a site for Final Fantasy care about shoes?


L. Spiro

[dziugo]

Yes, posting manually is plain stupid. But it's probably not the advertising, it's search engine positioning. Still, manually doing it won't get him far.