Any outcome independent self learning programmers here?

Posted by PhilosopherNervous63@reddit | learnprogramming | View on Reddit | 27 comments

Even though the market is shit, even for CS grads I decided to still learn and do coding even if I will never get a job in it. Yeah AI might replace so many jobs. But at the same time I do not want to give up coding just because I stand no chance to get a job in this and future markets.

My job can be something completely different. I can do that job to have an income and still do coding as a hobby. No pressure. No "newest frameworks" that I need to learn by the end of the week to optimize my freaking resume for this month's trends. No one will hire self taught devs with no degree... and so what.

I still like to code. I still want to learn, and do it. But now, only for me, as a hobby. I still want to keep learning and do cool stuff with Python and Linux. And learn rasberry Pi etc. Automate boring stuff. Make my own small programs for specific tasks that I need. Im still going to do that and also play with AI as well.

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lottspot@reddit

This is how I discovered my career

luckynucky123@reddit

awesome. i love this. you're still crafting and honing your skills. this is a mindset that builds adaptability and resilience. imo you don't need a company or employment to validate your skills and who you are.

as society gets more dependent on software, your skills and knowledge from computer science will still be valuable. bigger than CS is a solid understanding of systems - especially when software reflects such systems. if you reflect deeply - you're probably still using your training to solve problems.

Automate boring stuff.

hell yeah - and keep making good decisions. keep learning. make life better for yourself and people who you care. be ready when opportunity comes. and if its not - improve your own situation by applying the sum of who you are.

side note: like video games, there's hidden opportunities everywhere.

for instance: embrace the suck of excel and explore into excel. the world runs on excel. load excel data into a personal sqlite db to outperform your peers. use python to automate the boring stuff. dazzle your colleagues with jupyter notebooks. outperform your peers.

bird_feeder_bird@reddit

Hello its me👋I actually lost my job a couple years ago due to my worsening health. I started with making games Python, then html/JS, now I’m working through nand2tetris and learning C and assembly. I just ordered a raspberry pi to start with embedded systems and hardware. Im not sure if I’ll ever be able to work again, so right now I’m just focused on having fun and my personal education.

Own_Egg7122@reddit

I'm a legal researcher/associate for a small company. My work itself doesn't require coding but I'm self learning to make my legal work easier. I learned to create basic python scripts to merger, convert, format large number of documents (because I don't have access to Adobe and my work device can't even convert pdf to docx through "save as" for some reason or merge without fucking up the format)

franker@reddit

I'm an attorney working as a librarian and am always meaning to learn Python too. Then I think maybe I want to learn Javascript to make web sites instead. And end up doing neither, lol.

I use JavaScript for Google sheets when I need something specific but no functions exist. I also don't have access to APIs on Google cloud, so appscript is my only way. Plus, visual charts and basic web scraping . Maybe that could be your usecase for JavaScript

thanks, I'd never heard of Appscript. That might be a fun way of getting a handle on my huge Gmail account.

Also for Google docs. Google docs sucks at a lot of things e.g. even a simple thing as Placeholder doesn't exist yet on Google docs, and you can create your own features for it.

reminds me that today the legaltech folks on LinkedIn are all over this new Claude plug-in for Word that I guess reviews and edits contract docs. They'll probably have one for Google docs soon too.

Caaolmii@reddit

Nothing wrong with that at all. Coding as a hobby is honestly how a lot of people get good without the pressure of chasing trends or interviews. The job market being rough doesn’t make the skill useless. If anything it’s more valuable when it’s applied to your own problems instead of just building resume projects.

Also takes away the burnout. You can actually enjoy learning again instead of forcing yourself through whatever is “hot” that month. And realistically, people who keep building stuff on their own usually end up ahead anyway, whether it stays a hobby or turns into something more later.

anchorito@reddit

i relate to this lmao, i had the same mindset then in the span of 4 years i’ve learned different things, game development, server sided automation and even tinkering with my own os on linux😂 never give up

danielt1263@reddit

I did that for 10 years, with no thought of ever getting a job as a programmer. I did it because it's fun. Now I've been programming professionally for almost 30 years and it's still, in general, fun.

Ok_Assistant_2155@reddit

100%. I think we forgot somewhere along the way that coding can just be... a hobby. Like woodworking or gardening.

win10trashEdition@reddit

Money is not "outcome". Do u cook food or play games for money? No, u do it do make something or engage your mind. Coding is a activity just like guitar, jigsaw puzzles or anything.

Some of most incredible software is open source and unrelated to money or what ever

National_Tale5389@reddit

I hit this point earlier today too except I’m still gonna try to freelance and I’m kinda betting against AI. I don’t believe the hype and if I’m wrong then we’re all fucked anyway. But idk people still make pottery and knit even tho machines can do that

HurtyGeneva@reddit

I told this to my mom when I said I was going to become a steel driving man building railroads. Well show them, no machine can beat a man’s will!! Oh, what’s that? Oh it did

oclafloptson@reddit

They say as if no one ever drives nails anymore and the steam hammer is still a current and useful technology

Aromatic_File_5256@reddit

I wish I were you. extrinsic motivation is killing me. Your mindset is ideal and I wish to one day have it

ParadiZe@reddit

me, im learning stuff that wont get me employed (low level concepts and rust) and building projects that serve zero practical purpose other than me finding it super cool (TCP from scratch)

dyslechtchitect@reddit

First off cuddos you'd be surprised how many professional programers lack the basic love for the trade you're exhibiting, and you'd be surprised what an edge that is when recruiters evaluate young talent. Pro tip - do a uni course on DSA and another more low level course like "Nand to Tetris". The sky is the limit for pips like u 🫶

Conscious_Bank9484@reddit

I feel like I do a lot more coding than my friend that does it for work while I do it for fun. I’m sure I have a lot more personal projects than him. My job has almost nothing to do with coding, but I made lots of tools to make my job easier as well for my side hustles. I think getting paid for it might take the fun out of it.

AI still makes lots of mistakes and it really takes a coder to be able to catch them, so I don’t see AI taking programming jobs. I see it as just a tool for programmers.

nicodeemus7@reddit

That's me. I'm learning Python just to learn it

Both-Dragonfruit3154@reddit

That's an awesome mindset my friend. I am (was) almost same as you but a little bit different. I was 19 fresh outta college learned basic programming commands, got looped into tutorial hell, I got extremely good at copy pasting codes and kinda thought I knew everything. Then got bored and switched to Aecurity, Networking almost worked there till COVID & almost completely left the computer field and tried other jobs out. After years of experiencing other jobs I've figured out that I am built for this. I do it for hobby, I don't give a crap if they hire me or not the future looks dark anyways in any field you wanna put your feet in. They wanna pressure the working class anyways.

I never take a look at any tutorial at all. I think what I wanna do with my program and think how to communicate with the PC itself without AI. I use AI only when I don't understand any word. I go to libraries spend hours just trying to understand why and how the code works and how do the data structures work, if, functions, loops and made my first very basic GUI model on python.

YOU HAVE TO WRITE CODE IN ORDER TO GET GOOD AT IT.

I will never EVER look at tutorial HELL LOOP ever again. Just read and write read and write till you finally grasp ideas and make your brain think like a PROGRAMMER.

mcidclan@reddit

I think that's a healthy way to get into it. When you remove the job pressure, coding becomes just a tool to build, automate, and experiment. Even with AI changes, being able to write small scripts, automate tasks, or play with Linux/Pi is still useful and fun. Learning it as a hobby definitly makes it more sustainable long-term than forcing it