Post: #76

(03-31-2014 09:59 AM)TravellerJay Wrote:  I am using Head First Programming and Head First Python series. The books combine heavily visual aids, I am a super visual guy and have lots of trouble reading awful boring dull books. So far the visual help has been effective. Working on the programming book first, uses Python as reference. Then I will use the 2nd book, Python exclusively. Then I will follow FC recommendation about Django and probably the other guy s Django and Rails online tutorials (http://ruby.railstutorial.org/ruby-on-ra...orial-book) and (http://www.tangowithdjango.com/book/)
Then I will start LPTHW book, 3rd edition and try solving problems and luckily by end of this year I should have a pretty good solid background. I am aiming for a Jr Developer job

I am the same way, I remember things if I see them primarily.

Post: #77

I mentioned I was learning C to get into finance, I didnt mention that ive been doing tutorials for a python framework called pandas, which allows for numerical/visual analysis of large datasets. it can readfrom/write to csv files, interact with a most sql databases (mysql,sqlite,postgres etc), interact with excel files and so on and so forth. Its built on top of another python package called numpy

I started with this tutorial https://github.com/jvns/pandas-cookbook, and and now about to start this set of tutorials https://bitbucket.org/hrojas/learn-pandas

Post: #78

(03-22-2014 04:38 PM)BLarsen Wrote:  

(03-21-2014 07:11 AM)frenchcorporation Wrote:  found a post that echoes my initial post, the author details a similar path with python/django, and ruby/rails (its not me, honest)
http://peteh.me/posts/from-zero-to-summe...ne-months/

This post is great stuff, but I noticed he did a ton of Computer Science shit (Data structures, algorithms, Big O notation).

Obviously you'll need to study algorithms to pass the coding challenge during interviews, but data structures?? Big O notation??? WTF does that have to do with slinging web pages?

Hey there, I wrote that post.

To get software engineering internships/jobs, you will need to know data structures and big-O. If it's just some software developer or web developer position, you might not get tested on that. The final round that I failed was a software engineering position, while the offer that I got was a software developer position (and didn't really test data structures).

If anyone has questions, I'm all ears.

Post: #79

(03-31-2014 10:37 AM)Moma Wrote:  

(03-31-2014 09:59 AM)TravellerJay Wrote:  I am using Head First Programming and Head First Python series. The books combine heavily visual aids, I am a super visual guy and have lots of trouble reading awful boring dull books. So far the visual help has been effective. Working on the programming book first, uses Python as reference. Then I will use the 2nd book, Python exclusively. Then I will follow FC recommendation about Django and probably the other guy s Django and Rails online tutorials (http://ruby.railstutorial.org/ruby-on-ra...orial-book) and (http://www.tangowithdjango.com/book/)
Then I will start LPTHW book, 3rd edition and try solving problems and luckily by end of this year I should have a pretty good solid background. I am aiming for a Jr Developer job

I am the same way, I remember things if I see them primarily.

I remember things when I do them. Listening for me is the worst and why I never felt comfortable in lecture settings.

I learn like this: Do -> Fail -> Read -> Do -> Fail -> Read.

I've been going through the Codeacademy Python course recently. I have a project I want to do because a free service shut down, which involves scraping, which I think Python is very good at right?

Post: #80

(04-04-2014 01:15 PM)berserk Wrote:  

(03-31-2014 10:37 AM)Moma Wrote:  

(03-31-2014 09:59 AM)TravellerJay Wrote:  I am using Head First Programming and Head First Python series. The books combine heavily visual aids, I am a super visual guy and have lots of trouble reading awful boring dull books. So far the visual help has been effective. Working on the programming book first, uses Python as reference. Then I will use the 2nd book, Python exclusively. Then I will follow FC recommendation about Django and probably the other guy s Django and Rails online tutorials (http://ruby.railstutorial.org/ruby-on-ra...orial-book) and (http://www.tangowithdjango.com/book/)
Then I will start LPTHW book, 3rd edition and try solving problems and luckily by end of this year I should have a pretty good solid background. I am aiming for a Jr Developer job

I am the same way, I remember things if I see them primarily.

I remember things when I do them. Listening for me is the worst and why I never felt comfortable in lecture settings.

I learn like this: Do -> Fail -> Read -> Do -> Fail -> Read.

I've been going through the Codeacademy Python course recently. I have a project I want to do because a free service shut down, which involves scraping, which I think Python is very good at right?

Berserk, I tried the codecademy courses and although they are ok to start with, i dont recommend them beyond certain point. I do believe your approach is right, try and if fail read, if OK then continue.
for me there is no better way. Sometimes you pick it up faster or slower but learning is different for all humans.

I d recommend you try the Head First lab series of python and or any other python book, tutorial or not that helps you.
I was told stay away from the new boston videos, i tried following the python videos and after 20 some I must say, the person who gave me advice wasnt wrong. I mean, it s nice to start but hardly a tutorial you can follow step by step.

Post: #81

I've done about half of the Python course on Codeacademy. The main benefit is learning some syntax fast instead of messing about with notepad++ and the powershell like LearnPythonTheHardWay.com does before anything else. I plan on doing that afterwards, but the guy writing it seems to suffer from the usual semi-asperberger obnoxious attitude that is fairly common with developers. I figure actually, that if I ever make it into coding, I might have a shot at being project manager or some other management position, just from not being an obnoxious arrogant.

That was a sidetrack. I mostly just want to get started, but I want to know the basic syntax and rules first. I already know most of the basics and logic of programming, just not syntax, so a bit tedious to follow these beginner courses.

Post: #82

(04-15-2014 02:58 PM)berserk Wrote:  I've done about half of the Python course on Codeacademy. The main benefit is learning some syntax fast instead of messing about with notepad++ and the powershell like LearnPythonTheHardWay.com does before anything else. I plan on doing that afterwards, but the guy writing it seems to suffer from the usual semi-asperberger obnoxious attitude that is fairly common with developers. I figure actually, that if I ever make it into coding, I might have a shot at being project manager or some other management position, just from not being an obnoxious arrogant.

That was a sidetrack. I mostly just want to get started, but I want to know the basic syntax and rules first. I already know most of the basics and logic of programming, just not syntax, so a bit tedious to follow these beginner courses.

the guy who wrote learnpythonthehardway is called zed shaw, he's a prominent ruby-on-rails dev, and they are notorious for having big egos

however his reccomendation to get comfortable with the command line and a text editor from the start is spot on, I'd also reccomend getting comfortable with linux.. if you have a windows/apple machine you can run linux in a virtual machine, without having to dual boot

Post: #83

Btw, how much can a python dev make these days?

Post: #84

(04-15-2014 06:34 PM)roid Wrote:  Btw, how much can a python dev make these days?

http://www.efinancialcareers.co.uk/jobs-...id00771055

1 year contract * 750 pounds per workday , assuming you dont get paid for the standard 4 weeks of holiday, thats around 180,000 pounds

definitely doable

Post: #85

(04-16-2014 02:24 PM)frenchcorporation Wrote:  

(04-15-2014 06:34 PM)roid Wrote:  Btw, how much can a python dev make these days?

http://www.efinancialcareers.co.uk/jobs-...id00771055

1 year contract * 750 pounds per workday , assuming you dont get paid for the standard 4 weeks of holiday, thats around 180,000 pounds

definitely doable

That's a sh*tload of money and much more than the 70K or so I saw at Silicon Valley averages?

I suppose Python being the preferred language for math stuff means there are jobs available in finance and IB?

Btw mate, when do you recommed learning Django and am I correct in assuming it is like a low level CMS similar to Drupal?

Post: #86

(04-17-2014 12:27 PM)berserk Wrote:  

(04-16-2014 02:24 PM)frenchcorporation Wrote:  

(04-15-2014 06:34 PM)roid Wrote:  Btw, how much can a python dev make these days?

http://www.efinancialcareers.co.uk/jobs-...id00771055

1 year contract * 750 pounds per workday , assuming you dont get paid for the standard 4 weeks of holiday, thats around 180,000 pounds

definitely doable

That's a sh*tload of money and much more than the 70K or so I saw at Silicon Valley averages?

I suppose Python being the preferred language for math stuff means there are jobs available in finance and IB?

Btw mate, when do you recommed learning Django and am I correct in assuming it is like a low level CMS similar to Drupal?

yeah python is popular due to its wide range of libraries, its maths ones such as pandas/numpy/scipy being the main pull for finance software development

django is a framework to make web applications, you could use it to make a CMS, but you can also use it to make whatever you want

and example of a django cms is wagtail , heres a link http://wagtail.io/

also, could you post links to the silicon valley jobs that you said are averaging at 70K? would like to have a look

Post: #87

I was mistaken, the average salary of Python devs in Silicon Valley is 120K a year or so. Junior positions around 95K which I suppose is quite good, but not extraordinary, though I assume many take shares as well.

There is a big infographic about salaries and languages here: http://venturebeat.files.wordpress.com/2...700&h=5347

Won't post it because of huge size.

Post: #88

(04-17-2014 12:44 PM)berserk Wrote:  I was mistaken, the average salary of Python devs in Silicon Valley is 120K a year or so. Junior positions around 95K which I suppose is quite good, but not extraordinary, though I assume many take shares as well.

There is a big infographic about salaries and languages here: http://venturebeat.files.wordpress.com/2...700&h=5347

Won't post it because of huge size.

Thanks for the link .. will definitely be moving to california or new york in the next couple of years, too much of an opportunity to pass up.

Post: #89

(04-04-2014 10:53 AM)petehd Wrote:  

(03-22-2014 04:38 PM)BLarsen Wrote:  

(03-21-2014 07:11 AM)frenchcorporation Wrote:  found a post that echoes my initial post, the author details a similar path with python/django, and ruby/rails (its not me, honest)
http://peteh.me/posts/from-zero-to-summe...ne-months/

This post is great stuff, but I noticed he did a ton of Computer Science shit (Data structures, algorithms, Big O notation).

Obviously you'll need to study algorithms to pass the coding challenge during interviews, but data structures?? Big O notation??? WTF does that have to do with slinging web pages?

Hey there, I wrote that post.

To get software engineering internships/jobs, you will need to know data structures and big-O. If it's just some software developer or web developer position, you might not get tested on that. The final round that I failed was a software engineering position, while the offer that I got was a software developer position (and didn't really test data structures).

If anyone has questions, I'm all ears.

Pete, your post as well as frenchcorportation really inspired me. Since I am not going for the engineering jobs, do you think the developer ones will be less harder and with no data structures and the big O?

thanks, you and FC really inspired me to take a giant leap of faith on pursuing better careers and salaries. Hope we see you more often here and definitely will be bombarding you with tons of questions, ask FC, dude i sent tons of PM asking stuff. Maybe total newbie but it really helped me.

P.S: when I think in Big O there is another form of BIG O that comes to my mind hehehe

Post: #90

(04-21-2014 10:51 PM)TravellerJay Wrote:  

(04-04-2014 10:53 AM)petehd Wrote:  

(03-22-2014 04:38 PM)BLarsen Wrote:  

(03-21-2014 07:11 AM)frenchcorporation Wrote:  found a post that echoes my initial post, the author details a similar path with python/django, and ruby/rails (its not me, honest)
http://peteh.me/posts/from-zero-to-summe...ne-months/

This post is great stuff, but I noticed he did a ton of Computer Science shit (Data structures, algorithms, Big O notation).

Obviously you'll need to study algorithms to pass the coding challenge during interviews, but data structures?? Big O notation??? WTF does that have to do with slinging web pages?

Hey there, I wrote that post.

To get software engineering internships/jobs, you will need to know data structures and big-O. If it's just some software developer or web developer position, you might not get tested on that. The final round that I failed was a software engineering position, while the offer that I got was a software developer position (and didn't really test data structures).

If anyone has questions, I'm all ears.

Pete, your post as well as frenchcorportation really inspired me. Since I am not going for the engineering jobs, do you think the developer ones will be less harder and with no data structures and the big O?

thanks, you and FC really inspired me to take a giant leap of faith on pursuing better careers and salaries. Hope we see you more often here and definitely will be bombarding you with tons of questions, ask FC, dude i sent tons of PM asking stuff. Maybe total newbie but it really helped me.

P.S: when I think in Big O there is another form of BIG O that comes to my mind hehehe

Jay, as much as I want to say "no, you don't need to know it", I can't because I don't really know for sure. You might or might not. I have two data points of personal experience: a software engineering set of interviews that was all data structures and a software developer phone interview (where I got my offer) that didn't have data structures. That still doesn't tell me anything because I got to skip the final round for the software developer internship. Maybe they would've asked data structures questions in the final round had I gone to it.

I would be safe and program at least a little bit of time to study that sort of computer science stuff. That way, you don't completely embarrass yourself if you run into it in your first couple of interviews, where you would know for sure if you actually need to know it or not.

As for sticking around, I'm not a fan of Roosh V, but I made an account just for this thread and to answer any questions. You can find other ways of getting to me longer term.

Post: #91

Pete, thanks. I dont have an IT or maths background. So do you have any reference or tip regarding where can we come up with data structures info? is there an online course, free of course? anything you can add, thanks.
You are right, I should have not assumed that there will not be asking about data structures.

Jay

Post: #92

The two textbooks I've heard about most (but I may be missing some) are CLRS (the bible itself) and Sedgewick's Algorithms, 4th ed. If you're down for a super in-depth read, CLRS is the way to go. It's THE academic text on data structures. I think Sedgewick's text is a bit more applied. Princeton's Data Structure course uses this.

For courses, Coursera has an algorithms course, which uses the Sedgewick book. It's taught by the book's authors themselves.

Post: #93

Thanks Pete. I still believe that there is not really a limit and we can learn and apply, sometimes easier sometimes with more difficulty. The job market is truly indeed in wanting more and more developers. With the per year salary even if is just an average, is more than enough to materialize anyone s dreams. Working remotely and travelling to sites for business reasons is one of my dreams. Hope one day I can make it happen. I have a PMP background and with the upcoming exam for PMI certification plus a Python - Django experience even as junior can really do wonders.. who knows what can happens next?

Cheerios

Post: #94

I got into the software development industry over 7 years ago, without a CS degree. But did quite a bit programming before since high school. Anyways - one mistake I made (but I am trying to correct right now) is to stay in one job for too long. I'm still working in my first job, although I started at $50k in 2007 and now I'm in mid 80s, I should be making at the very least $95k with my skill set and experience in this location (Arizona) . Frenchcorporation played it very well with moving up after only 6 months for +30%. So guys - try to change job at least every 2 years, especially now when the "engineer crunch" makes the things very good for us. 2 yrs and GTFO unless you are really killing it (getting 15-20% or more raises every year). Somewhere I read that in Bay Area wages were growing on average 10% for the last 3 years - that means that if entry level salary was 100k one year, it would be 110k the next year for the same entry level job. This industry simply doesn't reward loyalty at all, quite the contrary.

My plan right now - get a job in the Bay, work there for a few years, build up a network and name, save some money, and then it should be quite easy to work remotely from outside of USA while commanding Bay-level wages (or close to it) while living in cheap SA, EE or SEA location.
Or - alternatively striking it rich with the right startup - then the same plan, only sans the need for a job :-)

As for languages that were discussed here:

PHP - I would stay away from PHP as a noob - it is still used a lot, but importance is declining. Also - it's simply not a well designed language.

Python is solid and with a bright future, definitely a good choice. Very well designed language.

Ruby is good as well, but I would probably prefer Python as it's a more general language, while Ruby basically equals Ruby on Rails.

Javascript - definitely quite the flawed language, HOWEVER if you are doing web stuff you simply cannot avoid it. In the past 5 years or so there has a been a massive Javascript renaissance, mostly driven by modern browsers like Chrome and Firefox, Javascript is now probably the fastest scripting language out there, Node.js (server side JS) performs extremely well due to this and it's non-blocking nature, it is getting hugely popular and I think it's peak is still far away, it's like Rails around 2007 right now. Also NoSQL DBs like Mongo use JS as their scripting language. I'm myself venturing this direction as I'm simply a fan and believe in it and it is my go-to tech for personal projects. (Currently at my job I'm doing Java backend and heavy JS frontend, previous experience was with Perl and Flash).

As for the CS stuff - good grasp of CS concepts is something that separates the average code monkeys from the truly great developers. I myself don't have almost any formal CS or SE education, however over the years that practical application of these concepts helped immensely. One "advantage" as a self-taught dev was that I learned these concepts after I already had some programming experience and it was a real eye-opener since I understood the problems they were trying to solve very well and it made a lot of sense - this might not be a case for somebody who is in a CS program without a lot of prior programming experience.

Post: #95

SVK, great post. Another non CS guy that proves that with programming skills you can make your way.
It s all about learning and improving. Thanks to internet we can now access tons of free stuff and download books, pdfs and see quality content videos.

SVK, was it difficult for you to sell yourself without a CS degree to the hob hunters and the HR recruiters for the IT jobs? do you have any degree at all? Because I had a discussion with an engineer who told me once that he knew more with hands on the job than what he learn from the formal university education.
I studied Political Science but ended up in IT and now in Project Management but looking to be a coder, junior dont care but aiming to work remotely and make a name and a portfolio.

Post: #96

SVK, I agree with Python. EXperts claim that you can do with Python the same thing you can do with Ruby.

Post: #97

TravellerJay

I have a Masters in Management, so yeah I do have a degree. And actually I have *some* formal CS education from high school; I went to high school with a very strong Math program, and there was a pretty good basic CS as well, but this was in Pascal and not even object-oriented - just stuff like recursion, etc.. But I've been always coding here and there since age of 15 or so and had good aptitude for it. I do wish I went for a CS degree instead though, it will definitely help you *if* you have the talent. But definitely the vast majority of my knowledge is self-taught.

But during my career I have seen some pretty useless CS grads - usually they were the kids that didn't work on any side projects, and had knowledge of CS but couldn't apply it in practice. But on average CS grads would be better than non-CS grads, sometimes the absolute lack of even basic CS fundamentals in some (even senior) developers is staggering. Usually it doesn't really matter, but when it does, results can be disastrous - e.g. not understanding computational complexity and implementing some feature in an extremely inefficient way that will cause production issues. Don't be one of those guys, learning the fundamentals is not that hard.

Right now I'm going through the Cracking the Google Interview book, pretty good refresher on CS basics, esp. for us self-taught guys. This is what the author thinks is a list of the absolute, must-have knowledge (mind you this is for top-tier jobs like Google):

Data Structures:
Linked Lists
Binary Trees
Tries
Stacks
Queues
Vectors / ArrayLists
Hash Tables


Algorithms:
Breadth First Search
Depth First Search
Binary Search
Merge Sort
Quicksort
Tree Insert/ Find /e.t.c

Concepts:
Bit Manipulation
Singleton Design Pattern
Factory Design Pattern
Memory (Stack vs.Heap)
Recursion
Big-OTime


It's def. doable and it's fun, at least for me.

Post: #98

Guys, I am done with Python in Codeacademy and doing the API courses. I think I am almost ready to start coding and learning from that. What is your recommendation for IDE or not? There seems to be two suggestions: SublimeText with addons or PyCharm. I'd like to have a terminal in the same program as my code is in, is this possible with SublimeText?

Post: #99

(04-30-2014 02:11 PM)berserk Wrote:  Guys, I am done with Python in Codeacademy and doing the API courses. I think I am almost ready to start coding and learning from that. What is your recommendation for IDE or not? There seems to be two suggestions: SublimeText with addons or PyCharm. I'd like to have a terminal in the same program as my code is in, is this possible with SublimeText?

Sublime text does have a built in console , the one in my version of sublime text (sublime text 3 for osx) seems to be running python3.

I use Pycharm for work, it's much better if youre working with large codebases, allows you to look up variables and parent classes very easily.
Pycharm has a lot of useful features that could serve as a crutch if you dont understand the code

However when Im working with simple scripts i use sublime text, as pycharm is memory-intensive, and is not worth it for small scripts, so I use both every day.

Post: #100

How high can a salary be in remote software engineering jobs? I heard that remote jobs top out around 100k/year. Is this true? How hard is it to progress up the ladder if you are working remotely? Is it impossible?