Wishing you the best!
Iām much more of a beginnerāIām using his āGet Job Readyā one, to be supplemented with the āWeb Development with CS Foundationsā one as I go along/get better at all this. Just his recommendation of the Shay Howe HTML/CSS course, and of how to set up your own text editor/a Github account/etc. (as noted, Iām a complete beginner) has been incredibly helpful; I was starting to get very frustrated with āOkay, here you are, hereās a thing called Bootstrap, hereās how you make a row of buttons in Bootstrap, now go build something!ā, and felt stupid to wonder, āButā¦what if I donāt have Codepen, how do I upload myā¦ā Already Iām getting a far better sense of why these things work the way they do, and the actual reasons for instance that ID selectors āoutweighā class selectors, etc. Soon Iāll have no excuses left not to start digging into JavaScript.
57 here, been teaching psychology for the last 10 years. Back in the 80s, I minored in computer science and learned things like COBOL and FORTRAN. Did an Open Source Web Developer certificate at the local tech college a few years back, but all we did was copy code. So, I am trying again to make myself more useful.
I am 50 and I have a bachelorās in logistics. I wanted to reinvent my self also and I did quit a job in supply chain to pursue web developing. In the past few months I have learned responsive web development, html, css, javascript and now Iām learning Python on codecademy and basic algorithm scripting on fcc. I enjoy learning and Iām taking advantage of every opportunity to learn and build up my skills to get a good job.
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Hello!
Iām 44 years old, and a graphic designer by trade, hoping that getting some coding under my belt will increase my marketability. I learned basic HTML back in the day, and am happy to see that things have improved so much. I donāt know if I will ever be a full blown coder but Iād like to learn enough so that if I use a front end engine I can fix things if they break.
Curious why Italy? You can definitely make good money teaching ESL in China (while you study programming on your own time).
To the OP, Iām not quite as old as some here, but at 34 am older than Iād like. More than a few grays. Iām in the middle of attempting to make a career out of what was previously a hobby of tinkering/programming computers.
I do encourage people that are thinking about attending meetups to just go! Most people will be cool.
Iām 64 and have been a C programmer for the last 15 years. There donāt seem to be many C jobs anymore. Iām hoping to learn new skills.
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OK, here goes. Nice to (remotely) meet you guys. Iām 10 yrs older than the oldest of you. Retired now, hereās the list: PhD theoretical physics, experimental spectroscopy, lots of Monte Carlo and Molecular Dynamics simulations, 50 refereed papers, book on research, book on parallel programming (late 80s, way out of date now), industrial-strength computational linguistics and NLP, technical sales and marketing for a while (disaster!), elaborate mathematical financial simulations for risk management on Wall Street, two photography gallery exhibits. Widely read including poetry. Composed music for a one-act science fiction opera (also wrote libretto) using electronic sounds and recorded voices. Created music synthesizer with Native Instruments Reaktor. S/W experience: some Lisp, Fortran, Smalltalk, C, C++, some Java, Objective C, some proprietary languages, now Javascript. Goal is full-stack web development, IOS apps with Swift/Obj C, hopefully Python (probably too aggressive). The goal is to consult starting in about 9 months - 1 yr.
Iām 43. I used to enjoy programming my Commodore 64 when I was a teenager. I did a degree in maths, which included a tiny bit of C programming. But my career took me off into finance, then public relations, then copywriting. I discovered fCC at the beginning of the year, and here I am, rediscovering the joys of coding and logical thinking.
@Time4change Hey! I am a long time PA too! Just turned 50 this year. Retired from the Army in 2009 after jumping out of airplanes and stuff, worked in Ortho surgery, trauma, emergency, now urgent care. While I love it, I have always loved tech since the old VIC 20 then Commodore 64 back when I was a kid, and am now learning it when I can. Not really looking to change careers or make money, more for the challenge and the fun.
I am dong an iOS/Swift course and have taken a break from FCC, but plan on coming back to it!
Good luck to you and every one else!
cooperkyle@me.com
Turning 40 this year, but my hair is completely gray. I have been working in Software development for the last 12 years and IT prior to that. I have been mostly doing business software modification and development, so while I see a lot of bad code and am really good at debugging, I rarely get to actually write anything from scratch. I have been doing a lot of these online courses to expand my knowledge base and correct bad habits or assumptions.
The one thing about being older is you will have seen things a lot of younger developers wonāt. Iāve done a smattering of work in a wide range of languages, C++, C#, Objective C, Swift, ActionScript, Python, Lisp, Ruby and Java. Most of my work has been with databases, PL/SQL, SQL Server, D3 Pick, and a bunch of obscure proprietary database systems that I ended up becoming one a few people in the US who knew how to navigate. Amusingly, I never really looked a JavaScript as a useful language until recently, the only time I ever touched it was when doing some front-end work.
We all should be happy with this article in NY Times Sunday review today: āTo be a genius, think like a 94-year old.ā The article makes the point that, based on patents, the most creative period is ages 50-60. Heartening!!! Hereās a quote: " Inventors peak in their late 40s and tend to be highly productive in the last half of their careers." How old was Steve Jobs when he developed the iPhone?
This is well in line with the comment by echtogammut.
44 yr old here. Nice to see I am not the only one switching gears.
Hey buddy,ā¦first off thank you for your service and sacrifice in the Military. Youāre enjoying both worlds. Healthcare and technology lol. Iāll keep on trucking through FCC and other on line resources. I must !
See you around!
Iām turning 44 in 11 days. I got a B.A. in Theatre Arts back in '96 that Iāve never done anything with. Been working in customer service all this time.
I learned Pascal in high school, and took C as an elective in College. Most recently, before starting FCC, I wrote several Windows programs in Autohotkey. In retrospect, I really wish I had gotten into programming as a career a lot sooner. Now, Iām working my way through the Computer Science guide from @P1xt.
Hi All,
I just joined FCC. Iām 54. I currently work in IT as a developer and administrator of a large enterprise application. Iāve been working in the area of web application development for almost 20 years. Iām doing FCC to get up to speed on the newer web technologies as well as to contribute my skills to the non profit sector. Iāve been involved with other Learn To Code sites but none of the have the FCC community, which I find helps to motivate and inspire me to keep going. Best of luck to all of you!
Hi All,
Iām 59.
I joined a couple of weeks ago.
First computer I programmed - as part of my Maths degree, here in the UK, in the 70ās - would only listen to instructions that were presented in the form of punched cards. Youād hand in a program at 5pm and come back the next morning to discover youād mis-typed something on the first card.
Iāve worked in finance/math related fields pretty much my whole working life, including a spell as a Maths teacher.
Have goofed around on personal computers for years, dabbling in various languages, usually trying to write simple games (Sinclair Basic, Visual Basic, C#, Objective C, ActionScript, Java, C++, Python.)
Learned enough HTML/CSS a few years ago to cobble together a simple website in support of my tutoring business. I love learning new stuff and recently decided it would be fun to learn the full stack. Have no idea where this might lead, but Iām sure itāll be interesting.
Good Luck to You All.
My fatherās side of the family is Italian, and when I was 18 years old I was stationed in Sicily while I was in the navy. I love it here, and have always wanted to return. Asia is not my thing, Europe is. I guess I figured that I have nothing else I can possibly lose (except my healthā¦), so I decided to take the plunge.
Thatās exactly my experience with programming: I became a world-class bug squisher, which really didnāt help me at all in becoming a world-class programmer. Because squishing bugs was what ātheyā discovered I was good at, I ended up in QA, which was torturously boring for me.
Retired at 70, 4 years ago: Masters in Broadcast technology. 30 years as Broadcast engineer and 14 years running a video production company. Struggling with the FCC course for past 16 months. I have found it hard going but very rewarding. I did a little blog, recording my journey through the frontend certification. I am sure many of you will be able to relate with my journey.
It is still hard going but really worthwhile.
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Sounds like my experience too. I think over time you get better at debugging. When I was first starting out I didnāt know where to start but overtime have gotten much better at it. I rarely write stuff from scratch and FCC is a good way to ramp up on current technologies. Iām looking forward to learning more about bootstrap and node.js. Just starting the bootstrap module nowā¦see ya!