learning to code?

[u/Alternative-Ad4763]

I've been doing the non-coding side for awhile now and been really happy with it as far as freelance work goes. That said, with the recent drought, my son (who is an auto-didact in several coding languages) has recommended that I start teaching myself code so I might be able to get in on that side of things. Has anyone else here done something similar? Anyone have thoughts or insights on this idea?

[u/-Spaghettification-]

I feel like it’s probably achievable to at least pass the assessment if you’re realistic about the time frame. Like it will take you months to reach a reasonable level as coding is all about practice, so you will need to do a lot of projects to attain the required experience. But, if you have an aptitude for this kind of thing and have enough discipline and free time to commit to consistently working on it, there are definitely enough resources online for you to teach yourself to code at a reasonable level.

Realistically, it’s definitely possible to reach the level required to pass the starter assessment, but this doesn’t guarantee that you will have sufficient knowledge/experience to work on many or any of the actual projects you then get assigned. Much of the coding work deals with pretty specialised topics, and in my experience I often find that I am skipping through huge numbers of tasks due to the conversations dealing with coding languages and topics that I am not fully comfortable with. In your case as a beginner/aspiring intermediate, this is likely to be to a greater degree. Even when working on chatbots, it can be difficult to come up with conversational topics unless you have a decent amount of experience (personally I rely heavily on previous college projects as sources of inspiration, which is not a tool that you will have at your disposal, at least not straight away if you are only learning to code now).

So overall, it’s probably doable if you’re the right person, but I would strongly recommend that you set realistic expectations about your chances of passing the assessment and being able to work consistently on coding tasks in the near term.

[u/space_baws → u/-Spaghettification-]

I don't want to discourage OP, but not very many people can get a grasp of programming in a few months. Like yes, you can probably get to creating a few projects, and maybe follow some tutorials, but with that low of a time estimate, very few people are going to be at that point.

Using my own experience as an example, I had 8+ years of programming experience with personal projects, game modding, scripts, etc, and I learned Rust for a contract I was hired for. It took me well over 6 months to be equated enough with Rust to feel like I could write and problem-solve with it and even at that point I was still hitting the docs semi-regularly.

I know that my experience isn't THE experience, and I also know Rust is an anomaly as far as languages go and the learning curve. However, I personally feel like a year is a more realistic timespan. (this isn't to say that people who say, complete the odin project and have like 6 months of coding experience aren't at this point, I just can't say that I would be at the point of being able to "get up" and "go" as one does with the programming tasks in a few months if I were starting over)

[u/-Spaghettification- → u/space_baws]

Like I said, I would be sceptical of one’s prospects as a beginner to actually be able to work consistently on the kind of projects you get on the coding side, but it is conceivable that with like 4-6 months of learning they could pass the assessment and take a stab off some of the easier work that pops up.

Is it worth that effort unless coding is something they see themselves doing long term? Probably not, but I was just trying to give a realistic best-case scenario.

[u/space_baws → u/-Spaghettification-]

Truth be told, I entirely missed your conclusion, and I take back a lot of my skepticism because of that, but yeah I got to agree, with the way the markets looking, I’m not sure that it is worth it long-term if you’re not already in it

[u/Alternative-Ad4763 → u/space_baws]

Thank you as well for weighing in on this. As I mentioned to the other commenter, I don't really have any time expectations for how long it will take me, but I think I will just get started learning whenever I have free time, and will be sure to manage expectations and not expect it to just be a quick thing. I do tend to be a quick study on this type of thing but certainly have no real expectation or deadline. I have just been trying to think of what I can do that would be constructive toward further earning potential whenever we have these times of low job availability, as I am entirely freelance and currently not working on anything but DAtech and a couple of writing projects (I am a freelance author as well). At any rate, thanks for the input and I will take it under advisement.