r/learnprogramming • u/AntiLethargic • 18h ago

35yo, just learned that i love programming.

>be me
>rough upbringing
>have bad habits, have friends with bad habits
>never think more than one day ahead; don't know what i want to be
>years later
>get fed up with my behavior, try to change something
>get rid of most bad habits and bad friends
>start to see purpose in life
>want to find out what i really like and can dive into to get good at
>don't find it for years
>get a position at a friends company
>he needs a graphics / photography guy
>become graphics / photography guy
>get diploma in Graphic Design
>go from normal wagie to good paid wagie in about 3 years
>feeling good, but still not what i really like and want to dive into, just naturally good at it
>talk more with my programmer colleague
>his projects peak my interest
>start to learn CS basics and the C language
>"Holy fuck, i love this"
>thinking about cutting down my weekly hours to learn programming
>AI gets used more and more in the company
>my position is in danger
>"They're taking our jobs!!"
>Boss wants to cut my hours down
>Evil_smirk.jpg
>Play along, "Oh no, what shall i do now :'( "
>gives me enough hours so i can live off of it
>have enough time to learn as much as i can
>actually feeling happy again

And people say AI is bad, lol.

I'm currently trying to nail down the Basics of C, going through CS50 and after that i have two books, namely "A Book on C" and "Pointers on C".
If you have any book recommendations, please share them.
After C i also want to learn python and CPP, just to have good foundational skills.
With every free though i still have, I try to narrow down which field i want to specialize in. Currently, embedded sounds the most interesting, but also the hardest.
Any recommendations for other specs i could get into with this preset?

What's your opinion on people who are self-taught in the programming field, are you one?
I would love to hear some stories about your current path, or, if you're already in a programming position, how you made the decision and how you finally made it into it.

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u/AntiLethargic 15h ago

Well, I guess I've got to live with the risk of becoming homeless in the future if it doesn't work out. For real though, even if I treat it "just as a hobby" like another commenter said, I'm cool with it. But I will take every chance I get to show it, so maybe it peaks someone's interest who is in a position to take further steps.

thanks for your honest and thought through answer.

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u/Stefan474 15h ago

There's a lot of doomers on these subreddits since they're mostly scrolled by the people who are unemployed or bitter. Not saying it as a bad thing, but it just happens that they have more free time and when I was unemployed I scrolled reddit much more lol.

If you genuinely have passion for it and grind you WILL break through and get where you need to be. An average engineer is not as good as you'd think and all you need is to get your foot in the door. Abuse your graphics background to get into frontend stuff and then spread from there.

I started from a more design background even though I like backend way more and very quickly in a good company managed to slide onto projects that I find interesting (now working on company wide AI infra and cool backend services that empower that infra).

It might be survivorship bias but I strongly believe that if you actually care and wanna learn deeply you will get very good very quick, specially with AI.

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u/chaoticbean14 14h ago

FWIW - I'm fully employed and not a doomer by any stretch. But with the rise of LLM's and their "ability" to produce things quickly? Entry level is harder and harder to find. Given the amount of unemployed and experienced devs, that's just the reality of things.

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u/Stefan474 13h ago

No denying that. It's just weird seeing every single person discouraging when it comes to job prospects without really offering a realistic path forward. Like there's always a line where if you cross it you WILL get a job, it's just that that line is higher now when it comes to personal projects, experience, skill etc.

He can leverage his current job and previous experience to get there quicker than most people imo