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From: neil on 4 Aug 2010 19:25
I realise that a few of you elite programmers do it for a living. But i
am only a hobbyist. Will I ever be able to gain the depth of
understanding needed to be classed as a 'good' programmer by self study?
Am I fooling myself and trying to achieve the impossible? It all seems
so difficult. :(
From: Ian Collins on 4 Aug 2010 20:04
On 08/ 5/10 11:25 AM, neil wrote:
> I realise that a few of you elite programmers do it for a living. But i
> am only a hobbyist. Will I ever be able to gain the depth of
> understanding needed to be classed as a 'good' programmer by self study?
> Am I fooling myself and trying to achieve the impossible? It all seems
> so difficult. :(

That depends on your ability. There are also a lot of average
professional programmers.

Find your self a meaty projects (either something opens source or your
own) and get stack in!

--
Ian Collins
From: Francesco S. Carta on 4 Aug 2010 20:12
neil <invalid(a)invalid.net>, on 04/08/2010 23:25:17, wrote:

> I realise that a few of you elite programmers do it for a living. But i
> am only a hobbyist. Will I ever be able to gain the depth of
> understanding needed to be classed as a 'good' programmer by self study?
> Am I fooling myself and trying to achieve the impossible? It all seems
> so difficult. :(

First of all, think positive. If you think you'll never make it, you
_will_ _never_ make it.

Then, you can look at what others have achieved. I am a hobbyist too,
and I started doing C++ around four years ago - never got "classes", I
pretty much did all by myself and with the occasional help of some
friend - and with the help of these groups, of course, but only these
last two years.

At the very beginning, I started studying Bjarne Stroustrup's "The C++
Programming Language" (a book which you really have to read) and six
months later I implemented the program you can download from
http://fscode.altervista.org

To be fair I must say that, before starting with C++, I programmed for
years using other languages (BASIC and Visual Basic, mostly), but in
some sense that has been an obstacle for me, because I had some bad
habits and some misconceptions to fix in order to get a good grip on C++.

Having a lot of perseverance, of curiosity and a mathematical mindset is
almost necessary in order to do non-trivial programs, so be sure to
"feed" those attitudes.

By the way, I never truly did coding for a living, sadly.

Tomorrow morning I have a job interview for a C++ programmer position,
and look: I cannot sleep, I prefer wandering among C++ related groups to
feed my curiosity ;-)

Wish you the best of luck, and by all means take advantage of the people
that hangs around here to ask your questions and overcome any difficulty
you might find on your way.

--
FSC - http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/59948
http://fscode.altervista.org - http://sardinias.com
From: Francis Glassborow on 5 Aug 2010 05:00
neil wrote:
> I realise that a few of you elite programmers do it for a living. But i
> am only a hobbyist. Will I ever be able to gain the depth of
> understanding needed to be classed as a 'good' programmer by self study?
> Am I fooling myself and trying to achieve the impossible? It all seems
> so difficult. :(

It depends on a lot of things including natural aptitude, perseverance
and how good your self study habits are.

I oonly ever did a single course on programming. That was an adult
education evening course once a week for 30 weeks on Fortran. I have
never been employed as a programmer, however I gained sufficient
programming skill to be employed teaching both C and C++ to professional
programmers and by the end of the 1990's I was regularly presenting
courses on advanced C++ techniques to competent programmers. I have also
written two books on programming.

Despite the above I would describe myself as a hobbyist who made a some
money out of his hobby.

BTW, back when I was starting in the late 1970's teaching yourself was
about the only way for most of us.

The final important ingredient is to talk with other peopleand listen to
what they have to say.
From: Jerry Coffin on 5 Aug 2010 13:18
In article <1396938981302656827.501696invalid-
invalid.net(a)news.eternal-september.org>, invalid(a)invalid.net says...
>
> I realise that a few of you elite programmers do it for a living.
> But i am only a hobbyist. Will I ever be able to gain the depth
> of understanding needed to be classed as a 'good' programmer by
> self study? Am I fooling myself and trying to achieve the
> impossible? It all seems so difficult. :(

I'm not sure I agree completely with this, but it's certainly
interesting:

http://norvig.com/21-days.html

--
Later,
Jerry.
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