Turning into a hacker aged 27

I started learning how to code at 27 and am 29 now, still going strong. Frankly I wanted to do a web-startup, but realized that unless you can code, you're nerfed. Learning how to code completely free's you from being permanently stuck in "idea mode".<p>The exception to that is if you have a lot of cash, and are willing to hire someone to build something for you. That's very expensive of course, since you're competing with companies offering them $80k - $150k+ /yr. jobs plus benefits. You can find cheaper labor, but you'll get what you pay for.<p>Have lots of fun learning! Programming can be extremely rewarding! :)

I have huge respect for your drive and ambition, but there's something I just don't get (and it applies to many aspiring hackers/entrepreneurs, not just you). Why do you need a mentor? Why "cold emailing startups"? Why do you need somebody to "take you in"? Why not just hit the books and start hacking away?<p>This isn't meant to be a personal attack on you by any means. I've noticed a huge movement toward "mentorship" lately, and I'm just not seeing the purpose. Even worse, those who do not get these <i>critical</i> mentorships wither away and blame others for their shortcomings and failures. Obviously you were fortunate enough to find a group who "took you in", but what would happen if you didn't?<p>Downvote if you want, but I'm honestly curious as to what's going on with this mentorship trend.

I'm 25 years old and I'm pretty much doing the same thing. Taking time off to work on my programming chops instead of jumping into another idea again as the "business guy". It sure beats spending six-figures getting an MBA or going to grad school these days... and I'm learning a ton. I'm absolutely loving it.<p>I learned Python first, then learned how to use linux and emacs, played with firefox add-ons to learn Javascript better, then started building web apps in PHP/MySQL, and now my plan is to spend my days learning and building stuff in Ruby and my nights working through these four books: <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/414779/what-should-a-self-taught-programmer-with-no-degree-learn-read/4473810#4473810" rel="nofollow">http://stackoverflow.com/questions/414779/what-should-a-self...</a><p>Best resource ever is from @yegg, I always check this for guidance before learning anything new: <a href="http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/startupswiki/Ask_YC_Archive" rel="nofollow">http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/startupswiki/Ask_YC_Archive</a><p>I've come a long way since I first set up my server on Slicehost. Good luck on your journey too.

That's the age when I really started coding. Now I'm in my second full-time programming job and building a pretty great resume.<p>My tips:<p>1) Study and practice. Pick a topic you don't know, choose a book that's well reviewed, and learn it.<p>2) It's better to ask a dumb question than to never know the answer.<p>3) Do a bit (not too much) of reading on things like HN and JoelOnSoftware, etc, to help you pick what to study next. (Like when I read Spolsky's argument for why distributed version control is better than centralized, I eventually decided to learn Git. Or when I saw all the buzz about Rails, it pointed me that direction.)<p>3) Learn the crap out of your tools. I started out with a Windows HTML editor. A couple years later, I was using Vim in Unix and I'm way more productive. But I'm still learning new stuff about it every day. I intend to know it backwards and forwards eventually.<p>4) You'll never know everything - don't get discouraged.

I'm taking a wild guess here, but I suspect there are many people who need that entry level/internship opportunity to cement some concepts while working on a team.<p>The problem is, like the rest of America, junior positions seem to have vanished. At least on job boards and hiring pages.<p>Can anyone point us to a good resource to find junior positions or even internships in front-end coding or UX design?<p>I'm not asking for any company to completely teach me stuff. The ideal position would require a portfolio but maybe one that isn't completely cross-browser, production-quality code.

I really like the idea of looking for someone to apprentice with. It's awesome that he found someone to take him in. "look to the master, follow the master, walk with the master, see through the master, become the master."<p>I started coding HTML/CSS/Javascript when I was 15. When I was 18 I was working on a $14M project doing HTML &#38; jQuery. 19 and 20 rolled around and I thought I was hot shit and could get away without knowing much about object oriented programming and database design. Boy, did experience beat me with a heavy stick.<p>After blowing through a lot of money paying other people, and not being able to evaluate what they were doing, I started learning to program myself a little over a year ago (December 2009). It has been, by far, the best investment I've ever made.<p>You HAVE to have mentors, though, bookwork and experience alone don't cut it. Some of my mentors, didn't do anything but talk to me - and ingrain in me the importance of fundamentals - and some basic vocabulary. Some stuff that didn't make sense when I heard it, but produced those "Aha" moments later. Other stuff, like the importance of pre-planning, prototyping, code readability, and NEVER using code you don't fully understand, I was told from the beginning were very important.<p>Plus, mentors can be different types of people in different types of situations. One of my mentors was an experienced programmer who I lived with for a few months. Others were dudes on stackexchange and serverfault (Yes, that counts), and others were those I read.<p>The bottom line is, you need to see yourself as an apprentice, always looking for a master to learn from.

10,000 hours. From Outliers and others as the number of hours you have to do something to be proficient at it. The common thread for most hacker coder types is that they just really really liked the "power" associated with writing code that could do anything, and so they started spending all of their time writing code doing all sorts of things.<p>All night debug sessions? Check. Several complete rewrites from scratch? Check. Using a language feature considered "unsafe" because it was the only way to get done what one needed? Check. Figuring out what "unsafe" meant? Check.<p>Once people are writing all of this code many want to know exactly how their code gets translated into what the computer does and they go off into their 'compiler' stage (some stay there for ever :-). This is where folks write their own compilers, by first writing their own lexical analyzers, then needing to parse those, and then needing to take those parse trees and generate new code with them.<p>There is a lot of exploration to do in 10,000 hrs. That's coding 6 hrs a day (and by that I mean coding, not checking Facebook or reading HN :-) for 5 years. There aren't a lot of short cuts. Sure there are CS programs which will show you what other people learned in their 10K hrs and help distill the concepts down for you but, like playing Piano, its not "known" until its in your finger bones.<p>Mentors are great for helping you get unstuck (since being stuck means you aren't coding which means you're not clocking your 10K hrs) and they can sometimes give you a heads up on road your travelling down, but mostly I think they are best for just sharing your enthusiasm and adding energy.

Any advice for a 24yr old trying to work in high performance computing?<p>Decided about a year ago to switch careers, and I've been getting familiar w/ a few low level languages (C, C++, Java), and working my way through a few books like SICP, Cormen's and Skiena's algorithms books, Code Complete, etc.<p>The OP seems to have landed an internship already, whereas I have been failing miserably at this. I've been cold emailing companies, applying for internships, etc. I've written a few basic beginner type programs, nothing large scale or real world yet.<p>I have a ways to go, but it sure would be nice to have some sort of mentoring and/or get involved with real projects of some kind. I'm doing great self-teaching, but there's obviously value in working with more experienced developers. I know having code to show is important (github, opensource), but what else should I be doing to land that first software job?

As important as reading and learning tools is; my experience is that you'll absorb much more by starting hobby projects and hacking your way through them.<p>After you've set up a development environment (on your home machine / laptop will do), pick a project that's been on your mind and just start. Everytime you run into something you don't know how to do, hit stackoverflow, read through APIs, and figure it out. Piece by piece you'll become a programmer.<p>Good luck!

Started 1 year ago, but more seriously last August and did a handful of projects from the ground up to learn. <a href="http://democratic.ly" rel="nofollow">http://democratic.ly</a>, <a href="http://contexium.com" rel="nofollow">http://contexium.com</a>. I think my most interesting work is an email based knowledge base app which I haven't released. I also did 2 other email based group communication applications.<p>Overall I doubt I will ever be a programmer, but at least now when I think of an idea, I do not think "Who can build this? For how much?", i think "Do I like this idea enough to build a working prototype?".<p>And the best part about being a newbie is not knowing your limitations.

Seems like there is a lot of this going around. My technical co-founder quit and now we're facing the question of getting another one or learning to code myself, since my other co-founder can't/won't. I remember being interested in coding at age 13, but for whatever reason I never followed up with it. I literally remember sitting in front of my Performa 636 CD looking at a web page telling me "How to become a hacker" and thinking eh...<p>Now I wish I had taken the leap. python at age 29 is no fun. But I am looking forward to learning it and becoming comfortable, much like when you move to a new city...or at least I hope.

Nai: Congrats for taking the plunge. Getting a faux internship will be immensely helpful. 18 months ago I did the exact same thing, begged a startup to let me work for them for free. Having someone who is invested in your success, interested in making you better, available for you to turn around and ask questions makes the process way faster.<p>18 months later, I still suck, but most importantly, my mentors taught me how to learn on my own, where to look for documentation, what sorts of problems to look for. I'm definitely not a 'hacker' in the way you're talking about, and every time I think I know something, I get slapped back to reality, but the REAL satisfaction is being able to just keep making forward progress. To be able to sit at a terminal and feel like your startup's destiny, YOUR destiny is in your hands is immensely empowering and a far cry from waiting and hoping your developer is on the same page as you.<p>One piece of advice, which I still struggle with: don't try to bite off too much. There's a compulsion to understand the entire codebase before you commit to that host startup's project. Don't. Figure out heat you want to get done and just try to understand a tiny corner of that codebase in isolation, then fix it. Keep doing that and you'll eventually have covered the whole codebase.<p>It's a long journey going forwards, but you'll look back and it'll seem like time has blasted by. Having good mentors in your startup will make all the difference.

It doesn't matter how old you are-- you can be 5 years old or 48-- there is no denying that computer programming is good mental exercise, an amazing creative outlet, and (if you're any good) a skill that can make or break your career.<p>I'm 23 and I never got any compsci/programming training in college. I'm now working part-time and learning programming (Java, .NET, SQL, web scripting) full-time.<p>Why? 3 reasons.<p>1) I am sick and tired of not knowing how to create solutions that add real, measurable value to almost any human task imaginable. In 2 years, I'll be able to do so much more than I ever imagined in any office setting.<p>2) Good programmers have the job I dream of: being able to use their <i>minds</i> all day to create cool stuff that other people depend on. Top talent gets paid pretty well.<p>3) The big secret that no one tells you in college is that if you want any decent office job in which you'll be using your mind instead of bullshit "management" or "leadership" (i.e. wielding social prowess to get what you want) skills, you're going to be programming. Want to make a spreadsheet? Guess what, John Walkenbach, the maker of the Excel Bible, says that even if you're just making a basic spreadsheet, it helps to think about it as object-oriented programming. And he's right. Especially if you're a power user of Excel, Excel == Programming. Period. Same with just about any other MS Office program.<p>The bottom line is that if you use a computer at work, like it or not, your freaking livelihood hinges on your ability to create and manage software and/or hardware. You might as well know what the hell you're doing.

I wish more people on the business end of things had realizations like this. Kudos to the author for being honest with himself, and being willing to do what it takes to address a short coming.

Now we just need to turn 27 year old hackers into learning a bit of the business side (like myself).

Do you think it's possible to become a programmer at age 43? I've always loved computers and have written programs in BASIC, VB, WordBasic, and the like, but never got into C or OO programming.<p>Would anyone hire a freshly-minted 43-year-old developer? Or is this a fool's errand?

Brilliant - I'm in a similar position (other, very useful and valuable, business skills that aren't worth nearly as much if I were to commit to a tech start-up, and next to no coding experience). I look forward to the journey, and perhaps some inspiration.

I saw a another post just like this on Quora. I wonder if its part of a larger trend?

If you don't want to code, oDesk can help you prototype quickly...just stick to a budget!

Is there anyone else looking for a programming apprenticeship? I'd like to offer one.

commented on your post.<p>I'm experiencing the excruciating pain of not being able to get your hands dirty... having great devs is great.. but the whole process of turning your vision to reality through code is something I'm embarking on as well.