Sure thing. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/3d...

As someone who learned how to code without school, and gradually since the early days of the internet, I think I come to the table as someone with a lot of practical experience on this subject. Practical experience is great. But when you are a self taught programmer, you're (at least initially) going to speak a slightly different dialect than your counterparts that spent years in school learning how to do this stuff. And that's okay, because it's something that's workable.

You're also going to end up with a lot of experience that revolves around the way you think, and the way you, personally, happen to solve problems. This is going to be an issue for you until you have about a decade of experience or so in the corporate world. The advantage here, is that there will be certain areas where you run circles around the college guys, which is great for your ego, and strong egos are important in young programmers.

The drawback is that there are going to be other areas where the college guys can expound on a subject at length, and you'll have no idea what they're talking about. If you're smart enough to keep up, you'll get it; just bear in mind that there will be things that you'll have to begin learning that the college guys spent half a decade studying.

The best thing you can do, as someone who teaches yourself code is remember that everything you're doing, and everything you have done is part of the learning process. Unlike a lot of the guys who earn degrees, you're never going to stop learning, and for simple reasons of economy, you're going to have to remain faster, stronger on the practical matters of your trade, and more open minded to changing platforms and workflows than your counterparts. This is what makes you competitive in the marketplace.

In the event that you do end up going back to school, usually because you've convinced yourself that you need an expensive piece of paper, I urge you not to make the mistake that I've seen some of the best self taught programmers make. Don't unlearn what you know. Don't forget what you've done, or the practical experience you have. Just because you happened to hear it in a CS lecture doesn't necessarily mean that this is the most accurate or up to date information on any given subject.

If you decide not to pursue the academic route (like I did), my best advice would be to take your craft seriously. Young programmers are like cats with imposter complexes, and they can make the mistake of seeing other programmers as competition. What I'm telling you is that you need to run directly against that instinct, and go out of your way to find good mentors. Most people that would mentor you work day jobs, and with a little cyber stalking, it's not really especially difficult to get yourself on their teams.

Comb through big open source or high profile proprietary products that you can verify are much stronger programmers than you, who may work in areas you're interested in. Seek these people out, stalk them, try to learn from them. Apply for jobs where they work. Try to get jobs on those teams. Then... learn how to take orders, and let them teach you what they know about programming and life. Of all of the options available to you as a programmer, this is the most challenging. But in my experience, it yields the greatest rewards... even if it is an exercise in humility at times.

There will be days when you feel the job has beaten the shit out of you, but that's how you know you're learning.

Don't give up.
Don't pretend you don't belong there. It's never your place to make that call.
Rinse, repeat.
Do this for a years, and you'll be among the best.

Hope that helps.

This is cool, but the Israelis are ten generations beyond this.

We're already there my friend. That's the problem they're trying to solve. When a beat cop has the power to be judge jury and executioner, there's something seriously wrong with the system.

Exactly. That would be the ideal setup, but I don't think that's going to happen.

Of course, it helps if it is working. That way, if there's ever a disagreement about the events, you can refer back to the footage and make a sound decision about it.

Have you been watching the news the last decade or so? Missouri cops are far more dangerous than the LAPD on their best day. Three summary executions this month. As a point of fact, most people in California are Liberals, so it stands to reason that the police force is demographically liberal as well... unless you've got some kind of evidence to the contrary. Would love to know what "proven" means here. And even if you were right, you're still talking about California Republicans, which would be considered "far left" in a place like Austin, or anywhere outside of California, if you want to be intellectually honest about it.

And in what way do you perceive that as being a good thing? But do you seriously believe this nonsense?

No, you're absolutely right. They would be self entitled, racist liberals, that spew offensive dribble like this on Slashdot.

I haven't been constantly monitored at work for awhile, but I've never been given a gun and permission to kill people either. We either need to monitor police officers on the job; especially in dangerous situations, or we need to strip them of their right to kill.

At the very least, we should be able to audit whatever a police officer does in the line of duty. A single $900 camera can stop a riot. Somehow, we've got the money to outfit these guys with military equipment, but we're balking at cheap cameras? Come on now.

I wonder, are they holding him as a witness to a crime that doesn't happen for 900 years? How are they taking this seriously?

At the end of the day, whether or not you play video games is a choice. You have the right to decide not to buy a game. You have the right not to agree with the context or subject of the game. What Anita does is assume that since she's offended, that the games have no right to exist.

Whose word do we have on this other than hers? Answer: Nobodys.

This is a woman who has been caught lying about this kind of thing in the past. She's getting criticism, she doesn't like it, or know how to deal with it; so she makes up stories like this. She's done it before. She's been caught. Don't buy into this woman's attention whoring.

Hard to say. I would almost consider building new wheels to be part of the learning process for a new programmer. And I think there's value in it. Not just in the base problem solving skills that comes with re-inventing the wheel a few times, but in the perspectives that come along with it. If you don't re-invent the wheel at least a couple of times, then you will have no basis for forming a valid opinion on the best way to implement a wheel. Which, granted, may not sound like much, but it makes a difference in so many other areas. Besides, even when you're talking about literal wheels, those get re-invented all the time. If they weren't we would never have gotten innovations like the rubber tire, or the memory foam insert for armored cars. We would still have wooden wagon wheels, which, while useful, aren't especially interesting or versatile. I think, in the long run, the same is true for code. If someone wants to write a big new shopping cart product, based on what they think are the best practices for such an implementation... let them. If someone wants to think out a new way to write a blog, or send an email, that's fine too. If I were bringing young guys onto my team, I would honestly prefer to work with people who had that kind of experience, over people that didn't. Just my 3800 satoshi.

The other thing I wish I had known earlier as a programmer is that while open source is nice for developing skillsets, it's also nice to make a few bucks with the things I create. Had I been a little more business minded in my early years as a programmer, I would have been a lot richer, a lot sooner. This also relates back to mentoring. As a young programmer, it's very important to seek out and work with grizzly old programmers who have been where you are, and experienced the things you might be trying to figure out right now. Personally, I didn't even realize I needed mentors until about five years in. I should have looked for them earlier.