Post: #1

Hey,

So I have basically no knowledge of coding, at all.

I'm interested in learning Ruby, and possibly other languages, to be able to design websites for my own personal interests as well as the possibility of it being a skill that can help me become location independent.

I just started code academy yesterday.

My plan right now is to basically focus on code academy only, and complete it, without getting into other resources. I know basically nothing, and can learn an infinite amount. But I think keeping focus on one course for now is a good way to learn *something* and do it in a linear fashion.

Of course, after that, I plan to move on to more advanced sources of learning.

For guys who've done this, does this seem like a good path? Any ideas?

Much love,
Sonso

Post: #2

Short answer: No

Long answer:

If you are a beginner in programming, Ruby is a great first language: it is high-level (very), very clean syntax and has a very nice learning curve and is great for rapid prototyping. There are some other great languages out there, but lets not get into language wars as that would be off-topic.

Sticking to one resource is fine as long as you have some basic idea of how to go from there. My recommendation is that if this starter course is boring or uninspiring, chuck it out of the window and look for something else. The important thing is to not get tied down to one resource and waste time (that's how Ruby works too). I highly recommend Why's Poignant Guide to Ruby (http://mislav.uniqpath.com/poignant-guide/) for an absolute beginner.

Once you get comfortable with the syntax and the constructs, write some small programs, head over to the ##ruby channel on IRC (freenode) and scour the pages on StackOverflow to find questions and answers that pique your interest. Good luck!

Post: #3

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I am going through codecademy right now.

I am tempted to try http://www.onemonthrails.com just to hack together an idea I have for a student loan debt hacking calculator that syncs up with monthly savings potential as an English teacher in Taiwan/Thailand/Vietnam/China/Japan/Korea.

Post: #4

(07-25-2013 07:04 AM)youngmobileglobal Wrote:  -

I am going through codecademy right now.

I am tempted to try http://www.onemonthrails.com just to hack together an idea I have for a student loan debt hacking calculator that syncs up with monthly savings potential as an English teacher in Taiwan/Thailand/Vietnam/China/Japan/Korea.

Interesting idea, and a good one I think, but earning potential in Thailand is not enough to pay off student loans. I have several friends who are English teachers, and even went to a couple interviews myself but turned them down.

My buddy has taught for 4-5 years, a couple of those in Japan. He has a degree in Education from Canada, is young, decent looking white guy. Lots of legitimate credentials. Best job he could get is 45k this year. He had an offer in Japan for about 4-5k US per month, but turned it down because he has a girlfriend here.

I didn't see any English teaching jobs for a higher salary than 45k. Most people with a TEFL can expect 30-40k in Bangkok. You NEED 30k to live in Bangkok, preferably 45k.

I have never heard of a TEFL teacher getting more than 45k. Most don't get that. There is just far too many white people here teaching English to supplement their income.

I have another buddy who has been here for less than a year, and he makes 60k per month or so. However, he teaches at a language school in Siam and works 7 days a week. Some days he has to teach in the morning/day and then go back at night. His schedule is all over the place. I think he gets around 500 baht per class, so you can imagine he teaches a lot of classes.

His friend who got him the job makes a bit more, and also teaches 7 days per week. Only has days off during Thai holidays. He makes 40ish K per month for his typical school day job. Then he makes 20-30 per month teaching back to back to back to back classes all weekend. Not sure how many, but it's a lot. He has two kids and a wife, so he needs the cash. He has been here for years, so not sure someone just coming here without connections and experience could get a gig like that right so easily.

I think your calculator could be a good idea, but I saw you mention people paying off student loans by teaching in Thailand a couple of times, and wanted to make sure you knew how it really is out here. There is just far too many people willing to work for peanuts to supplement their pensions, or live on the cheap so they don't have to go back home.

The English teachers I know making decent coin out here are legitimate teachers who moved out here to teach at international schools. They are actual teachers from back in the UK and US, not guys who got TEFLs to teach English.

Saving any money by teaching English in Thailand is not going to be practical.

Post: #5

(07-25-2013 07:46 AM)RioNomad Wrote:  

(07-25-2013 07:04 AM)youngmobileglobal Wrote:  -

I am going through codecademy right now.

I am tempted to try http://www.onemonthrails.com just to hack together an idea I have for a student loan debt hacking calculator that syncs up with monthly savings potential as an English teacher in Taiwan/Thailand/Vietnam/China/Japan/Korea.

Interesting idea, and a good one I think, but earning potential in Thailand is not enough to pay off student loans. I have several friends who are English teachers, and even went to a couple interviews myself but turned them down.

My buddy has taught for 4-5 years, a couple of those in Japan. He has a degree in Education from Canada, is young, decent looking white guy. Lots of legitimate credentials. Best job he could get is 45k this year. He had an offer in Japan for about 4-5k US per month, but turned it down because he has a girlfriend here.

I didn't see any English teaching jobs for a higher salary than 45k. Most people with a TEFL can expect 30-40k in Bangkok. You NEED 30k to live in Bangkok, preferably 45k.

I have never heard of a TEFL teacher getting more than 45k. Most don't get that. There is just far too many white people here teaching English to supplement their income.

I have another buddy who has been here for less than a year, and he makes 60k per month or so. However, he teaches at a language school in Siam and works 7 days a week. Some days he has to teach in the morning/day and then go back at night. His schedule is all over the place. I think he gets around 500 baht per class, so you can imagine he teaches a lot of classes.

His friend who got him the job makes a bit more, and also teaches 7 days per week. Only has days off during Thai holidays. He makes 40ish K per month for his typical school day job. Then he makes 20-30 per month teaching back to back to back to back classes all weekend. Not sure how many, but it's a lot. He has two kids and a wife, so he needs the cash. He has been here for years, so not sure someone just coming here without connections and experience could get a gig like that right so easily.

I think your calculator could be a good idea, but I saw you mention people paying off student loans by teaching in Thailand a couple of times, and wanted to make sure you knew how it really is out here. There is just far too many people willing to work for peanuts to supplement their pensions, or live on the cheap so they don't have to go back home.

The English teachers I know making decent coin out here are legitimate teachers who moved out here to teach at international schools. They are actual teachers from back in the UK and US, not guys who got TEFLs to teach English.

Saving any money by teaching English in Thailand is not going to be practical.

I'd be making this my first project not because I will actually use it or try to make it commercially viable.

I'd be doing this because I want to learn RoR by actually implementing a project of my own. Nobody would actually ever use a web app like this.

I know plenty of people in the 22-26 year old demographic who are saving 700 USD per month by teaching in Bangkok and Chiang Mai.

It sounds like the people you're talking about are older and have other commitments.

Having said that - they are living in really cheap rooms, eating cheap Thai food, and certainly not living the budget baller lifestyle.

Post: #6

Hey sonsowey, do you live in Colombia by chance?

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About 2 weeks, I started learning Python. I've been using this site as my instruction: http://learnpythonthehardway.org/

I'm happy with the instruction so far but I'm only about 15 lessons in. Admittedly I need to be more disciplined.

Edited to add, the site I use also has a manual for learning how to use Ruby: http://ruby.learncodethehardway.org/book/

Do any of you programmers out there have opinions about Python? What's a good language to learn from ground zero and what are different languages good for? I have experience with financial modeling in Excel, but this is a whole 'nother world....

Post: #7

Some additional free programming resources that I've used:

Life Hacker

Coding Bat (Java)

Try Ruby (Ruby)

Coursera

Udacity

Post: #8

(07-25-2013 01:49 PM)arafat scarf Wrote:  Do any of you programmers out there have opinions about Python? What's a good language to learn from ground zero and what are different languages good for? I have experience with financial modeling in Excel, but this is a whole 'nother world....

you motivated me to make a thread on this topic ive been putting off for a bit , check it out /thread-26260.html

Post: #9

Quote:you motivated me to make a thread on this topic ive been putting off for a bit , check it out /thread-26260.html

wow thanks. see you over there!

Post: #10

(07-25-2013 11:33 AM)youngmobileglobal Wrote:  I'd be making this my first project not because I will actually use it or try to make it commercially viable.

I'd be doing this because I want to learn RoR by actually implementing a project of my own. Nobody would actually ever use a web app like this.

I know plenty of people in the 22-26 year old demographic who are saving 700 USD per month by teaching in Bangkok and Chiang Mai.

It sounds like the people you're talking about are older and have other commitments.

Having said that - they are living in really cheap rooms, eating cheap Thai food, and certainly not living the budget baller lifestyle.

Only one of the guys I know has kids, the rest are all unmarried and in their 20s or early 30s.

How many people do you personally know who are saving $700 per month teaching here?

People who are able to save 20k baht per month here are living on less than 30k baht per month, probably 20k. That is a shit lifestyle in BKK or in CM.

I don't want to come off as rude, but people are going to get their hopes up reading that, and it isn't realistic to come here and expect to save $700 per month. TEFL teachers here are living paycheck to paycheck.

A realistic salary to expect is 30-40k. The supply of people teaching English here is far too high.

To anyone looking to come here to teach, you should read http://www.ajarn.com/ or some of the other forums and draw your own conclusions.

I do know people making 60-75k teaching Science, Art and another teaching some computer classes with only their bachelors degree in the related field. They are at a very good Thai private school though, but some of those jobs are available for certain subjects.

Post: #11

(07-26-2013 11:14 AM)RioNomad Wrote:  

(07-25-2013 11:33 AM)youngmobileglobal Wrote:  I'd be making this my first project not because I will actually use it or try to make it commercially viable.

I'd be doing this because I want to learn RoR by actually implementing a project of my own. Nobody would actually ever use a web app like this.

I know plenty of people in the 22-26 year old demographic who are saving 700 USD per month by teaching in Bangkok and Chiang Mai.

It sounds like the people you're talking about are older and have other commitments.

Having said that - they are living in really cheap rooms, eating cheap Thai food, and certainly not living the budget baller lifestyle.

Only one of the guys I know has kids, the rest are all unmarried and in their 20s or early 30s.

How many people do you personally know who are saving $700 per month teaching here?

People who are able to save 20k baht per month here are living on less than 30k baht per month, probably 20k. That is a shit lifestyle in BKK or in CM.

I don't want to come off as rude, but people are going to get their hopes up reading that, and it isn't realistic to come here and expect to save $700 per month. TEFL teachers here are living paycheck to paycheck.

A realistic salary to expect is 30-40k. The supply of people teaching English here is far too high.

I know 5 people specifically who are doing this in CM and BKK. And they tell me that they know other people who are pulling it off.

I should add that I didn't accidentally run into them - during my time there I actively sought out people who were using teaching as a lifestyle/budget hack. So it wasn't necessarily a frequent occurrence.

As I mentioned, their lifestyles are not great. We are not disagreeing on that. I never said that their lives were great - I just said that they are pulling it off.

One of them is writing an ebook about that topic right now.

All things considered, RioNomad is right. I don't want to blow smoke up anyone's asses about this.

The reason this is happening is because I have been clumping these countries together - [Korea/Taiwan/Vietnam/Thailand/China/Japan]

With the goal of:

1. Hacking student loan debt

2. Building digital skill sets

It probably would have been more appropriate to specify that certain countries are better for lifestyle but worse for savings and certain countries are worse for lifestyle but better for savings.

I think Taiwan is overall a big winner for all of the above, based on anecdotal evidence.

I don't know how hard I've been pushing Thailand specifically in those "hack your debt with English teaching" posts I've been making.

Taiwan and Korea are better bets if your goal is specific to savings or paying off debt.

If your goal is to live cheap in the tropics and pay your living expenses while teaching yourself digital skill sets such as coding, SEO, design, etc - check out Thailand/Vietnam.

If your goal is to more aggressively hack at your debt, consider Korea/Taiwan.

Sorry to hijack this Ruby on Rails thread. I hope this clarifies things.

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Post: #12

For those who are unaware:

When applying for cs/engineering positions that involve programming, the technical interviews typically involve multiple phases and are grueling. Essentially, it's like taking a standardized test (there is a comprehensive pool of commonly asked questions and topics you can brush up on), except you're using a white board or communication software like Skype (typically in initial screening interviews) and asked to tackle difficult questions on the spot in front of other engineers.

Some helpful resources in order to attain a better idea of what you're in for:

Cracking the Coding Interview (pdf)

Programming Interviews Exposed (pdf)