Hey my friend Recommended to post here, and NOT to check doomer posts on reddit

[MossFella]

So I'm saving up money for a coding boot camp, Mainly because I need a more structured learning environment for myself. So I started checking Reddit which just showed doom posts about It being a scam and such, and I'd just want some help figuring out where I should look to start learning. 
 

I have some knowing of Python
but have interesting is C++ and Java 
I want to be either Back end or mobile dev, mainly because I've heard how bad game dev stuff (it still interests me but I heard the horror stories)
please and thank you for any help  

[venomtail]

Time scale matters. Personally I'd only pay money to courses officially recognized by some local education authority, or a clear transparent business that sells you a course like some programming apps I've seen that are free for a bit of ads or like a $5 a month. 

 

If I had to start, I'd be just a hobby phase an hour or two a day. Set a goal of what you want to make and a time limit, such as 2-3 month deadline. Learn along the way and deadlines are important so that you can start fresh with better knowledge of how you should have done it.

 

One thing that many miss is theory. You'll want to want some lectures of games design and why things are made the way they are. Practices and especially tricks.

[dizmo]

I'd think pretty hard about that career path, and consider that many of these jobs will probably disappear as AI improves.

[venomtail]

8 minutes ago, dizmo said:

I'd think pretty hard about that career path, and consider that many of these jobs will probably disappear as AI improves.

Will it though? Think about the purpose of AI. Mass produce generic stuff and all the generic games are the ones that flop. Just look at Concord.

 

That being said, I do think there will be a correlation of AI improving and mass layoffs. Not because of AI but because the massively inflated gaming industry can no longer support the investment pyramid that was made during Covid, so all these games made for non existent audiences that have millions invested will start hurting their public investors, in turns wanting money back and tax write-offs will be a good path for it.

[vanpuffelen]

12 minutes ago, dizmo said:

I'd think pretty hard about that career path, and consider that many of these jobs will probably disappear as AI improves.

Then be the one behind the AI. I doubt AI will take over, as it still sucks a lot, especially in terms of code, and in some cases, even in basic PC troubleshooting. AI is still in its infancy, and I've seen how easy it is to fool bots with the beloved words of "ignore all previous instructions and ___". 

[dizmo]

5 hours ago, venomtail said:

Will it though? Think about the purpose of AI. Mass produce generic stuff and all the generic games are the ones that flop. Just look at Concord.

 

That being said, I do think there will be a correlation of AI improving and mass layoffs. Not because of AI but because the massively inflated gaming industry can no longer support the investment pyramid that was made during Covid, so all these games made for non existent audiences that have millions invested will start hurting their public investors, in turns wanting money back and tax write-offs will be a good path for it.

That might be what it's used for now, but that'll change as it improves and succeeds at the lower tasks. It's not just gaming, it's predicted that it'll take over a lot of other jobs, like aspects of lawyer assistants, radiologists, accountants, etc. 

 

Looking at it in its current state and assuming it'll stay that way is a very poor way to look at the future. Luke pointed out AIs power at coding on the last WAN show. I could see a lot of coding jobs being eliminated, and those that remain are people checking over script written by AI. Maybe not now, but you have to be looking 20+ years into the future. 

5 hours ago, vanpuffelen said:

Then be the one behind the AI. I doubt AI will take over, as it still sucks a lot, especially in terms of code, and in some cases, even in basic PC troubleshooting. AI is still in its infancy, and I've seen how easy it is to fool bots with the beloved words of "ignore all previous instructions and ___". 

Completely, probably not, but it'll gut a ton of jobs. It'll move in leaps and bounds now that a lot of industries are pushing to use it. When thinking of a career it's important not to focus on the present, but the distant future as well; few people want to retrain when they're older. 

[venomtail]

10 hours ago, dizmo said:

That might be what it's used for now, but that'll change as it improves and succeeds at the lower tasks. It's not just gaming, it's predicted that it'll take over a lot of other jobs, like aspects of lawyer assistants, radiologists, accountants, etc. 

 

Looking at it in its current state and assuming it'll stay that way is a very poor way to look at the future. Luke pointed out AIs power at coding on the last WAN show. I could see a lot of coding jobs being eliminated, and those that remain are people checking over script written by AI. Maybe not now, but you have to be looking 20+ years into the future. 

I think at worst, hobbyist are at risk of losing out clients and commissions for their tasks such as people on a platform like Fiverr. 

 

AI won't replace actual professionals like the calculator didn't replace mathematicians. Eventually it'll just turn into a tool to cut down on the amount of time taken to do the mundane things. 

 

There could be an argument for it making fewer jobs in objective positions, again such as maths or data analytics but subjective creative roles? I don't think so, especially with the extremely high risk of model collapse.

[trag1c]

On 8/29/2024 at 9:13 AM, dizmo said:

I'd think pretty hard about that career path, and consider that many of these jobs will probably disappear as AI improves.

It will augment the actual code writing aspect but that is such a miniscule piece of what software development is and a miniscule part of the day to day of a developer. I am not the least bit worried losing my job/career to a computer application.

 

The hardest part of my job isn't writing code, that's easy. The hard part is dealing with the problem domain and requirements gathering/analysis. More specifically you're extremely lucky as a developer if you're given a well defined problem. AIs don't perform so well when you don't have a concise prompt within a well defined context. The reason being is that they're not AGIs, they're incapable of any actual intelligence. They have no reasoning or creativity, it tries to match your prompt to something in it's dataset. They're a glorified search engine. It essentially comes down to garbage in, garbage out. With current AIs there's also a non negligible chance that even with a well defined problem you will still be given garbage since it's dataset contains garbage.

 

That's not to say they're useless, far from it. I use AI everyday in my job, often for boiler plate or random test day. Or as a tool to give search terms that I might not know of which I then use as keywords in a proper search engine. They're a good productivity booster in the hands of someone competent. But if a developer is replaced by AI, one of two things happened, either that person was dog shit as a developer, or that company will be rehiring devs in a year or two when they realize that their cost saving measure is costing them more than what a developers salary is.

 

There's been innumerable technologies over decades that were supposed to put developers out of work. Low code solutions, no code solutions, AI, you name it. Yet, none of them have had any impact. The no/low code solutions designed for regular people to use end up needing developers anyway. Look at PLCs which were designed for electricians to program, I can tell you who isn't programming them. AI really isn't any different, it's a tool in the toolbox, and it will always be a tool, never a solution. 

 

 

On 8/29/2024 at 8:40 AM, MossFella said:

So I'm saving up money for a coding boot camp, Mainly because I need a more structured learning environment for myself. So I started checking Reddit which just showed doom posts about It being a scam and such, and I'd just want some help figuring out where I should look to start learning. 
 

I have some knowing of Python
but have interesting is C++ and Java 
I want to be either Back end or mobile dev, mainly because I've heard how bad game dev stuff (it still interests me but I heard the horror stories)
please and thank you for any help  

I know this isn't what you want to hear but if your're serious about making this a career, don't bother with the bootcamp. Most are rightfully called scams, and the others just are not worth the money due the dismal job prospects. Pursue some sort of formal education from an accredited school. Preferably a bachelor's degree or at the very least a diploma or associates degree (so you can at least get credit towards a degree if needed).

 

Bootcamps also tend to be very highly focused on specific tools and technologies for web apps. So if whatever you've been taught isn't the flavor of the month when you're looking for work you're kinda screwed. 

 

You really need to be on a level playing field, the bootcamp is a huge disadvantage. We just finished interviewing people for a junior position on my team at work. We got damn near 1000 applications at a small unknown startup, we never even looked at anyone without some form of post secondary credential from an accredited school. There was no point at looking at people from bootcamps when we have a plethora of people with masters and bachelor's degrees either in computer science or adjacent fields. For a determined individual, a reputable bootcamp could have been a solid route into the industry 4 or 5 years ago. Now they're simply a cash grab.

[Eigenvektor]

On 8/29/2024 at 5:13 PM, dizmo said:

I'd think pretty hard about that career path, and consider that many of these jobs will probably disappear as AI improves.

I have my doubts this'll happen any time soon.

 

We have access to some AI tools at work. I would classify them as "occasionally useful". For the most parts it feels like you're trying to write a novel and a teen "helping out" by suggesting the first thing that comes to their mind based on the last few words you wrote, completely ignoring surrounding context, style and tone.

 

Sometimes it is useful, but for the most it's actually a distraction because instead of simply writing code, I'm now reading through someone else's code trying to figure out if it's usable.

 

Some of these issues can certainly be solved with more domain specific AI, but right now one of the biggest shortcomings is that it doesn't take context into account. Answers are based on text and text alone, not taking things like variable types into account.

 

As @trag1c said, writing code isn't the hard part once you're experienced enough. It's like writing an email. Correctly spelling words isn't the hard part, even grammar generally isn't the hard part, it's aligning words in a way that makes sense and gets the intended meaning across.

 

When programming, just writing any code that does what you want isn't the real difficulty. It's thinking about how to best approach a certain problem, taking a lot of external factors (performance, memory usage, available frameworks, customer requirements, management requirements, compliance requirements, …) into account. And of course things like making it testable, keeping it maintainable, making it easy to understand for other team members/reviewers.

[riklaunim]

On 8/29/2024 at 4:40 PM, MossFella said:

I want to be either Back end or mobile dev, mainly because I've heard how bad game dev stuff (it still interests me but I heard the horror stories)
please and thank you for any help  

If you want to be a mobile dev then you have to know iOS and Android software stacks. A lot of mobile development is games or other sort of entertainment.

 

Python is quite popular on the backend. Java if you would want to work on more corporate/banking backends. React is the most popular but not necessarily the best.

 

You will also have to go a bit wider. If you know Python or PHP but can't do a website / don't want to go fullstack then it will be harder to have a solid job (maybe devops, some other topics). And even after a well-paid bootcamp you may have to apply to hundreds of jobs before you get hired if at all - after bootcamp your coding does not end. You still will have to code, improve, ask for feedback, code review, and be proactive.

[riklaunim]

On 8/29/2024 at 5:13 PM, dizmo said:

I'd think pretty hard about that career path, and consider that many of these jobs will probably disappear as AI improves.

To get a job as a junior dev you already have to be above ChatGPT level - and that happened long time ago. AI won't really improve - ChatGPT 5 will be very similar to 4, and if they throw an insane amount of hardware it may be somewhat better. What will change is how models are used, and what they do. We already have some dedicated models/AI tools working as helpers but none of them will write the code for you - what's required to get paid is way above AI generation (and what it generates can be bad/wrong).

[wasab]

Reddit programming related subs have been doom posting since the start of tech laidoffs two years prior. 

[QuantumRand]

On 8/29/2024 at 7:40 AM, MossFella said:

So I'm saving up money for a coding boot camp, Mainly because I need a more structured learning environment for myself.

I've seen dozens of people go through coding boot camps. Only one ended up getting a job in the field, but there was a pretty clear difference between that one person who succeeded and the others. The others all got into it thinking it was a quick way to get a career in a high paying industry. The one who was successful got into it because they had an active interest in and aptitude for programming. So my best advice is to be honest with yourself and examine why you're considering coder bootcamp.

 

I've also been on the hiring end for programming roles, and there were a lot of candidates whose only programming experience was from some "accelerated" coding bootcamp. None of them met the bar for move on to a second round, granted we were mostly looking for mid to senior level candidates.

 

As others mentioned, consider doing something like an Associates Degree from a local university or junior college. And on top of that, participate in various personal/public projects to give some visibility into your experience/work. We were much more interested in a candidate when they had an interesting project or two on their GitHub page. We often put more value in that than what degrees they had.