That is it : I am becoming a programmer.

[Zippy]

I don't suppose you look anything like this one?

There is a slight resemblance

[Gonzo]

WHS

Programming is not really something you can just pick up. Try getting into virtualization technology, or become a CISCO bod.

Aren't computeach still going?

I know two non-IT people that went through them.

One ex forces bloke worked as a permie developer for a bit before going contracting and now lives as a gypsy somewhere in Eastern Europe.

The other never completed the course and went back to working in a warehouse.


Hmm, I'm not really sellling it am I?

[NickFitz]

Can you write FizzBuzz? If not, don't just grab an implementation from the comments on Jeff's site: contrary to popular belief, grabbing code examples from assorted web sites and nailing them together doesn't make you a programmer. But if you can, then go for it - you'll be better than many

Last year I was looking at some legacy code on a client's existing site - when I say "legacy" I mean it had been put on there by the outsourcing mob who battered together the existing site in 2006.

I was so stunned by one piece of JavaScript that I googled it and found that it came from a "JavaScript tutorial" site... written in 1997

It was written to work with the very basic first implementation of JavaScript in Netscape Navigator 2, which was already obsolete by the time the "tutorial" was published. Yet some supposedly professional outfit was employing front-end developers who used this crap ten years later

I'm not surprised some people think JS isn't a "proper" language, or that front-end developers aren't "proper" developers, when I come across crud like that.

Of course the people who think such things are still fools - but you can see where they find justification for their folly

(Oh, BTW, even for 1996 and the limitations of NN2 JS, it was still really crap code.)

[EternalOptimist]

The trick with programming is to get your table structure right. If you dont have control of the table structure, and its not right, you can be in line for a world of pain.
I am working on a legacy system, two main tables
table1 primary key is a long
table2 foreign key to table1 primary key is a varchar

some days I just want to die

[RichardCranium]

get your table structure right.

two main tables
table1 primary key is a long
table2 foreign key to table1 primary key is a varchar

In my interview last week I was asked "Explain how you would create a database".

When I got to "Each table typically requires a primary key which should be a unique ID that does not exist in the real world" the boss man stopped me and asked me to explain.

He could not grasp that using someone's name, for example, as a primary key won't work.

"But women change their name when they marry" says I.

His answer? "So you just change the primary key. What's the problem here?"

Maybe I should have done my presentation on fourth normal form.

This boss man is the head of a data analysis section.

[EternalOptimist]

In my interview last week I was asked "Explain how you would create a database".

When I got to "Each table typically requires a primary key which should be a unique ID that does not exist in the real world" the boss man stopped me and asked me to explain.

He could not grasp that using someone's name, for example, as a primary key won't work.

"But women change their name when they marry" says I.

His answer? "So you just change the primary key. What's the problem here?"

Maybe I should have done my presentation on fourth normal form.

This boss man is the head of a data analysis section.

ahh
the correct answer

'My name is Richard Cranium, and you sir, are a d1ckhead.
A primary key can not contain two d1ckheads'

then I would have nutted him, sh@gged the secretary and left.



good luck btw, keep looking

[VectraMan]

The trick with programming is to get your table structure right. If you dont have control of the table structure, and its not right, you can be in line for a world of pain.
I am working on a legacy system, two main tables
table1 primary key is a long
table2 foreign key to table1 primary key is a varchar

My table is a complete mess. Bit of paper with old scribbled notes. Some change from my pocket. A toothbrush my dentist gave me the other day, and some books I haven't looked at in ages. Plus a coffee stain I should really clean up.

Is this why my C++ code won't do what I want?

[RichardCranium]

'My name is Richard Cranium, and you sir, are a d1ckhead.'

I can see my interview technique is lacking a certain openness. I can think of at least three interview occasions when that sentence needed to be said, and I didn't.

I'll try it next time.

[EternalOptimist]

My table is a complete mess. Bit of paper with old scribbled notes. Some change from my pocket. A toothbrush my dentist gave me the other day, and some books I haven't looked at in ages. Plus a coffee stain I should really clean up.

Is this why my C++ code won't do what I want?

No. You have comments, change control, denta clean and you dont rtfm.

sounds normal to me

[Diestl]

Goto You Tube, search for standford. They have 3 courses of video lectures that take you from non programmer to expert.

1 course Java - introductory
2 course C++ - Abstractions
3 course C, Scheme, Python - Paradigms.

About 70 lectures from the place where the graduates are hoovered up by Google, Facebook etc.