Becoming a Junior Software Developer

BaronBuffoon

BaronBuffoon

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My boss told me recently that he has for a long time seen me as a programmer, and that I should not allow my lack of any formal qualifications to stand in my way, provided I am prepared to knuckle down, buy books or find online resources, and teach myself to program.

Most of our developers use C#. I realise that starting with that would be a tremendous jump, and so would like to start by building a sturdy foundation before tackling the aforementioned language. Assuming that I want to follow a streamlined, focused route towards possibly becoming a junior software developer, where would you suggest I begin?

Thanks
 
There is no substitute for a good programming course. You need lots of patience and time to teach yourself. There are good books out there and I recommend you get started on them. Maybe there are people around you who are willing to help?
Pay close attention to good programming style and methods.
 
I would start with C# - its actually a very good beginner language. Its easy to do a lot of things with it, and its easy to debug.

Start with basic C# tutorials, you will find plenty online.

Dont let how widely used a language is make you think it is obscure or difficult. C# is so widely used precisely because it is easy to use. Being easy to use doesnt make it less powerful.

In fact I would say it is more difficult to start with a language that uses dynamic typing, like javascript or vb. Dont worry, you'll soon understand all about types!

EDIT: ask your boss if he is willing to send you on a 1-2 week basic programming course. It might help a lot.
 
Without a Degree (not a course or diploma), you will find life difficult getting good software engineering jobs in other companies
 
C# is probably the easiest (or one of the easiest) OO languages I've ever come across. That being said, I did start of with Pascal back when i was 8-9 years old. What sort of programming are you thinking of doing? What software does your company develop?
 
JStrike said:
Without a Degree (not a course or diploma), you will find life difficult getting good software engineering jobs in other companies
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Agreed. If you really have the commitment, do a degree in computer science with Unisa. In the long run it will help you much more than a short course in basic programming.

If that is not an option, what about a mentoring option? Is there someone at your company that can help you learn programming?
 
JStrike said:
Without a Degree (not a course or diploma), you will find life difficult getting good software engineering jobs in other companies
Click to expand...

Depends on how good you are. Yes, a degree is a good foot in the door, but these days, companies just care about your skill.

However, make sure that you understand all the OO basics, such as inheritance, polymorphism and the difference between abstract classes and interfaces.
 
Ancalagon said:
ask your boss if he is willing to send you on a 1-2 week basic programming course. It might help a lot.
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+1. Why is this a good idea? Because you need to know more than a language/platform to write good code. Learning a language/platform will enable you to write programs using that technology. Learning the fundamentals of software development will enable you to write good programs using any (most) technologies - where the meaning of "good" is context sensitive. These fundamentals include things like data structures, algorithms, object oriented programming, design patterns, design, etc.

It is surely not impossible to learn these things from on-line resources, but a well structured course will help you to focus on the "right stuff".
 
Ancalagon said:
Depends on how good you are. Yes, a degree is a good foot in the door, but these days, companies just care about your skill.

However, make sure that you understand all the OO basics, such as inheritance, polymorphism and the difference between abstract classes and interfaces.
Click to expand...

Not true.A lot of places don't consider people without a Bachelors degree unless they have *exceptional* experience.
 
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JStrike said:
Without a Degree (not a course or diploma), you will find life difficult getting good software engineering jobs in other companies
Click to expand...

I disagree here , i have been in various software dev companies and we all look for experienced developers rather than just a degree. If you looking at getting into Dev at a Bank or similar environment then they will possible look for degree's first.

I would suggest living and breathing Dev to become really good at it.
 
Ancalagon said:
Depends on how good you are. Yes, a degree is a good foot in the door, but these days, companies just care about your skill.

However, make sure that you understand all the OO basics, such as inheritance, polymorphism and the difference between abstract classes and interfaces.
Click to expand...

Believe it or not, a degree enriches you with skill.
 
Omnia_Fan said:
I disagree here , i have been in various software dev companies and we all look for experienced developers rather than just a degree. If you looking at getting into Dev at a Bank or similar environment then they will possible look for degree's first.

I would suggest living and breathing Dev to become really good at it.
Click to expand...

I agree with Omnia. Experiance trumps degree very often in the field as a lot of folks have issues applying what they've learned to real world problems.
 
Depends on the skill level. Companies do hire people without degrees, provided they have the right kind of experience with the right kind of companies.

It is always beneficial to have a degree however.

Unisa is probably the most convenient option.
 
JStrike said:
Without a Degree (not a course or diploma), you will find life difficult getting good software engineering jobs in other companies
Click to expand...

I dont really agree with this. There is more demand than supply for good programmers. I never had a degree and I always had more offers than I could ever hope for.

My advice would be to just start on what you want to learn- if you want to start on C++, then do it. At college they started us on pascal before moving us to delphi and the reason was that you can become lazy when everything is done automatically for you. better to understand the underlying code before simplifying things.

get a few good textbooks from amazon- C++ for dummies/in 21 days or whatever and work through it.
 
UnUnOctium said:
Believe it or not, a degree enriches you with skill.
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in some degrees doctors, lawyers etc yes, but not always with things like IT. most people learn more in their first year of practical experience working in a job than they ever did in uni. Take that time you would have spent and build your own curriculum. much better imho
 
JStrike said:
Not true.A lot of places don't consider people without a Bachelors degree unless they have *exceptional* experience.
Click to expand...

Not in my experience.

UnUnOctium said:
Believe it or not, a degree enriches you with skill.
Click to expand...

I know, I have one. I'm just saying there are other ways to acquire knowledge, and other ways to prove to employers that you have that knowledge. Experience is the most universally accepted currency for that. Degrees are definitely a benefit, but not having one doesnt seem to stop good programmers.
 
Ancalagon said:
Not in my experience.



I know, I have one. I'm just saying there are other ways to acquire knowledge, and other ways to prove to employers that you have that knowledge. Experience is the most universally accepted currency for that. Degrees are definitely a benefit, but not having one doesnt seem to stop good programmers.
Click to expand...

I do agree with the point you are making. However, companies tend to use a degree as a requirement to weed out the lesser candidates. When you look at most developers earning R500k a year and over, a vast majority will have degrees
 
This might sound stupid but if you look at w3schools and do some php tutorials, it will help with understanding basics of programming, like variables, arrays, functions and all. PHP is also very similar to Java. That might help if you are confused.

Then try tackle a C++ book like said above, programming is long tedious work at first, then it just becomes second nature :)

Try find a "mentor" to help you along the way
 
My boss doesn't seem to be terribly keen on the idea of throwing money at it at this stage. I have yet to discuss the matter with our head of development: he may be able to motivate for it better than I can.

I did study through UNISA this year, however I do not qualify to register for any more modules next year as I did only one this year: the reason for that being that I have not studied since 1994 and wanted to ease myself back into it and see whether I could manage sitting down and working at my desk when I get back from work.

I did dabble in C once, many years ago, but lost interest as I was still a data capturer at the time, and unlikely to move beyond that then. I have also played around with Python, but dropped it for similar reasons.

I shall have a look at w3schools.

For the most part, the company I work for builds solutions around databases, mostly for government.
 
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If you are happy with C# and your company uses it, then go for that. It's a straight copy of Java anyhow.

I would leave the scripting languages alone. Many are great for hobbyists but are quite restricted and lacking in standards.
 
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