I can't code.

Favrion@lemmy.world to Fediverse@lemmy.world – 161 points –

Across this vast Fediverse, I have encountered a trend of people answering questions with esoteric programming language speaking in tongues that I don't understand, including under my own posts. I am a Boomer when it comes to coding and I am only 27. I don't even know where I would start to learn it because programming is so diverse. I want to feel like I know what's going on but I don't. Coding is the future and the future is now and I am lagging severely behind. I guess I'm asking where a bumbling novice like me can learn more about where to start when it comes to programming.

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I will tell you there is no need to be worried about coding. You don't have to be worried about not knowing how to code. The coding part of coding is the simplest and the easiest part, the much much more important part is the thinking part, basically what you want to achieve and how you should go about it.

A lot of so called professional "coders" don't know what it is that they are doing. A few days ago i looked at my sister's very impressive code. That was truly a hard day, the ways in which I controlled myself by not beating the shit out of her for being a piece of garbage who is incapable of thinking. She would not understand even when explained in simple words why her code was incredibly shit and what to do to fix it, finally she didn't fix it and left ruining more than just my day, she sent me into a trance worrying about the future of mankind as a whole, which I have still not been able to come out of.

Also as far as coding is concerned I would suggest you get started with python. It is easy and simple. Learn the basics in python, for majority of the things you will have achieved your desire.

I suggest that you use the book automate the boring stuff as a starting point, it will not only help you with your desire for coding, but may also come out to help you in your day-to-day things as well. You can easily find the pdf for free.

https://automatetheboringstuff.com/

You sound like a lovely sibling...

Seriously, what the fuck?

You don't understand, if she wasn't my sibling, it may as well have resulted in a fight.

This code was for a company, not a I'm learning and am just a beginner kind of thing. Let me share a few details about the code:

The program involved reading a csv file and doing some operations from the data it provided. It was a python program in a jupyter notebook (this is very relevant).

  • She had to create an array of the column names of the table. Her "solution" was to first print the table, then copy paste the column names into an array. When I told her to fix i pointing out the incredibly basic reasons for why not to do that, she refused. Also the table had like 10-15 columns.
  • She was using pandas dataframes, even having a variable called df in her code, also using the functions it provided. Now it will come as a surprise to you, as it came to me she doesn't know what a dataframe is.
  • The reason she showed me her code was because she was getting an error which she didn't know how to solve. The issue was that the array of column names she created and the column names in the table didn't match. This was because when she printed the table the column names were missing _ which were present in the CSV file. One of the reasons for not not doing the first point. When told of the issue she added the _ manually. She will die on that hill.
  • So in jupyter notebooks you have cells in which you add a small slice of code and you run the cell. This is really amazing. Small issue though if you close the notebook and open it again you need to rerun the cells in the correct sequence again, barely an inconvenience . To overcome this great issue, my sister just didn't do something stupid like having all her code in one cell, she was one step ahead, she had all the things she needed per cell copy-pasted. That God forsaken array of column names? You guessed it there were atleast 10 of them.

Now if she was just starting out, these could probably be forgiven, but she has been "coding" for atleast a few years now. Also she refuses to learn her mistakes.

Another interesting thing I noticed was, if she didn't know something she would not search Google but rather YouTube. I originally thought she pasted some of the code from stackoverflow which has error, but no she looked at a YouTube video copied the code by hand and that code still resulted in an error because char and int are different, she doesn't understand why it works in the video (same type), and why it doesn't work for her.I am clearly still in a shock about the whole situation and to think someone would hire her only if it is for an internship still, I pray for the world.