Interested in Software Development? (IAmA)

[deafboy]

I did an AMA on Reddit a little while back but thought it'd be fun to do one here too since the ratio of tech people is a bit higher (or at least those interested in tech).

 

This will be a bit less structured than the Reddit AMA I suppose though as I will be coming and going responding as I can.  I will do my best to answer every single question but just don't expect anything immediate in most cases.  

 

With that said, the goal of this is firstly to help those that are aspiring to be software devs or those that are merely interested, but feel free to ask things non-dev related as well.

 

While I am currently a student, I have done many internships ranging from start ups to fortune 100 companies with the most recent being Google.  I am mostly familiar with infrastructure and backend work but have certainly done some work on UI, websites, test, etc.  Also, have done some work outside of dev (server hardware, networking, etc), but certainly not my focus.

 

Anyways, feel free to ask whatever you'd like and I'll do my best to answer.

 

:ph34r:

[AustinTheIntern]

Can you teach me

[deafboy]

Can you teach me

Teach you what exactly?  Development is kind of broad.

[AustinTheIntern]

Teach you what exactly? Development is kind of broad.

App dev

[911^NEmeSis]

In terms of an every day job, what exactly do you do? Is it mostly coding yourself and how much effort goes into a project?

 

Is it many people working on it at once and what kind of challenges do you have to sometimes overcome?

Thanks!

[deafboy]

App dev

 

I have never really made any "apps" in terms of apps for phones/tablets/etc aside from using Unity3D.  Every program/app though is based on the same basics though.  So if you have never coded before I would start there, reading up on loops, conditionals, data structures, and the like.  As far as which language you should use first is up to you.  I almost always tell people if they understand C then the others will come along more easy as C really makes you understand the fundamentals at a low level.  C++/Java are great though for learning Object Oriented stuff but hold off on that until you know the basics.

 

 

In terms of an every day job, what exactly do you do? Is it mostly coding yourself and how much effort goes into a project?

 

Is it many people working on it at once and what kind of challenges do you have to sometimes overcome?

Thanks!

 

Day to day was pretty much just coding by myself.  Most of the places I have been at you are broken down into teams, in some cases they are small (3-4) and sometimes they are a bit bigger but never too large, I would certainly classify them more as sub-teams than anything else really but those are the core people you talk to, not necessarily everyone on the project.

It's a little bit different as an intern though, so for example, at Google I was on the Google+ team, specifically the infrastructure team.   As an intern I was given a specific project to work on by myself to complete during my time there, so while the project was related to other people's projects I was pretty much left to my own devices to get the project done.  If I needed help though I was more than welcome to ask for help.

How much effort really depends what you're working on and how you manage your time.  I've had days where I really didn't do much, but a majority of the time I keep busy never really straying from the work.  I typically went into work around 8am and left around 6pm, about an hour of that is lunch and whatnot but yeah.

 

As far as the larger projects I can't go into specifics about how many people are working on what, but there is certainly a good amount of man power on projects.  Most of the obstacles I personally had to overcome was just learning everything I could in a fairly short amount of time.  As you can imagine, these bigger companies have a lot of proprietary information that is really only relevant to them, so coming in and having to work on something as large as infrastructure, there was a lot that I had to learn in a fairly short period of time, one of which was a new language, lol.

[Blade of Grass]

What do you do for a living?

[deafboy]

What do you do for a living?

 

Right now?  Nothing, I'm just a student.

[Blade of Grass]

Right now?  Nothing, I'm just a student.

Ah, so what are you studding in University?

[deafboy]

Ah, so what are you studding in University?

 

Applied Mathematics and Computer Science

[Blade of Grass]

You had a Google internship  :o

[deafboy]

You had a Google internship  :o

 

Yup, lol.

[Guest]

I did an AMA on Reddit a little while back but thought it'd be fun to do one here too since the ratio of tech people is a bit higher (or at least those interested in tech).

 

This will be a bit less structured than the Reddit AMA I suppose though as I will be coming and going responding as I can.  I will do my best to answer every single question but just don't expect anything immediate in most cases.  

 

With that said, the goal of this is firstly to help those that are aspiring to be software devs or those that are merely interested, but feel free to ask things non-dev related as well.

 

While I am currently a student, I have done many internships ranging from start ups to fortune 100 companies with the most recent being Google.  I am mostly familiar with infrastructure and backend work but have certainly done some work on UI, websites, test, etc.  Also, have done some work outside of dev (server hardware, networking, etc), but certainly not my focus.

 

Anyways, feel free to ask whatever you'd like and I'll do my best to answer.

 

:ph34r:

Moved to programming

[Blade of Grass]

Yup, lol.

How was it? @ Mountain View?

[deafboy]

How was it? @ Mountain View?

 

Loved every second of it.... and yeah, Mt View at the headquarters.

[deafboy]

Moved to programming

But, but, it's not really programming related...well, not strictly speaking, lol.

[Blade of Grass]

Loved every second of it.... and yeah, Mt View at the headquarters.

Do you want to work there? (it's my dream job :wub: )

[deafboy]

Do you want to work there? (it's my dream job :wub: )

 

I'd love to go back someday.  Goal for the immediate future though is to try out some other places to get a better idea of the industry as a whole.

[Blade of Grass]

I'd love to go back someday.  Goal for the immediate future though is to try out some other places to get a better idea of the industry as a whole.

Good choice, where else are you looking at? (I think I've de-railed your topic) :P

[Guest]

What's your favourite programming language and why?

What do you think is the most relevant programming language today?

[deafboy]

Good choice, where else are you looking at? (I think I've de-railed your topic) :P

 

Not looking at any other places in particular.  Kind of want to check Austin, TX out though, have heard great things.

 

 

 

What's your favourite programming language and why?

What do you think is the most relevant programming language today?

 

I'd say my favorite would have to be Java, closely followed by C.  No real reasons in particular but they are used almost everywhere and are certainly pretty powerful.  It's all preference though and what you want to accomplish.  I'd say I enjoy C because I like playing with things at a low level and most low level stuff these days is written in C.  But I kind of fell in love with Java at Google and seeing how powerful it can be.

 

Most relevant programming language. That's a tough one as it's sooo dependent on the project.  Java is certainly at the top in my mind though, whether it be for mobile developement, back end tools, website (technically javascript but they certainly share many similarities).  But C++ is also very good, whether it be creating games, or powerful back end tools.

[jd2195]

At what age did you learn your first programming language and how long did it take you?

[deafboy]

At what age did you learn your first programming language and how long did it take you?

 

First language was 18 I think and I'm still constantly learning, but enough to write a basic program?  A week maybe?

 

It took me a year or two though to really start to grasp various languages, data structures, etc.  You never know everything though.  But 6+ months and you'll have enough of a grasp to get a majority of basic things done I'd say

[Guest]

Oh, another question! What do you think of the mathematical reasoning/logic needed for CS (e.g.: runtime proofs, reductions, etc.)? 

[deafboy]

 

Oh, another question! What do you think of the mathematical reasoning/logic needed for CS (e.g.: runtime proofs, reductions, etc.)? 

 

 

 

I think they serve their purpose and in some cases helpful.

 

Knowing the run times for various algorithms (including ones you create) are definitely necessary.  Had questions like that during interviews.  If you're just trying to figure something out, runtime doesn't really matter but if you are creating a solution that needs to scale then it really matters how fast something executes.  You don't really need to prove anything most of the time but it's good to know how.  

 

What exactly do you mean by reductions?  As in reducing the complexity of a problem?  I'd say that is paramount but within reason.  So there are certainly ways to write things that are very fast and elegant but at the same time, it has to be easily (relatively speaking) to understand because you are pretty much never the last person to look at that code and rework it.  Most compilers these days are smart enough to optimize a lot of things for you, you're not going to really need to do a taylor expansion on something to speed it up or anything like that.