What year are you in at the moment? and programming in your own time is very important because there are topics you'll never learn in University/College. Also seeing as you're still learning I'd say your skills are quite typical of the learning curve, I'm just after finishing college and I'm starting a new job very soon so my skills are more advanced as I've been doing it nearly 4 years now.

...I'm officially a senior on August... is it bad?

This has become painfully obvious especially in the last year or so, as I've come into contact with other aspiring programmers, and why I'm trying to fit it into my daily routine. These past few months have been, uh, "unusual" and as a result I'm trying to do more of the things I am passionate about, programming being at the top.

Clearly I need to program more often, because I started in '08 and I'm currently outclassed. I have to work a lot harder from now on.

Not sure what senior year is, is that final year?

Yeah I understand how hard it can be to fit it in but just getting a good project to focus on can be hugely beneficial, you need to really want to get into it and be focused on it, I remember when I was doing my final year project it wasn't uncommon for me to spend three hours a night working on it during the weekdays. One day I spent about 8 hours on it and got loads done because I got into the zone and learned a ridiculous amount, it's all about experimentation with bits of code and learning how to apply that to a problem.

Nah I wouldn't say you're outclassed, trust me there are guys in my year who know fuck all. Also I guess my love of programming started during my internship, I got to work with some seriously smart guys and learned so much and just working where I did made me want to go back there because it was such an unreal place to work some amazing perks, luckily I am going back. You want to work in those places trust me I'm not sure what the IT sector is like in Puerto Rico but in Ireland it's massive and we have huuuuuuuuge technology giants here and they have some amazing perks although there are perks for working on startups as well. What kind of programming are you interested in?

Oh, sorry, it is final year.

Oh, yeah, when you get excited with a project it becomes your only focus and it is a great feeling. You start doing all these little things to fine tune it even when you were finished hours ago. It's really great, you really feel like you are building something out of nothing and it's a rush. When I was doing the program I mentioned before it wasn't uncommon to spend hours just looking at it, trying to see why this isn't working or what else can you add. If it wasn't for deadlines, I'm sure some of my projects would never be over.


That sounds awesome! Sounds a lot like my dream job, I'd really like my experience to be that exciting and enlightening. On top of that they gave you a job, that's great, man, congrats.

As far as I know, here in PR internship programs suck. They are of the "sit in a corner 'til someone wants coffee" kind of internship. However big companies often visit the country to get students. I once heard it's because Puertorrican culture is kinda like a blend between US and Latino culture, so they adapt well to other countries and can work with a wealth of individuals. So though we can't really get a solid internship in the island, US internships are fairly easy to access.

I'd love to work in videogames, that would be a dream come true. I also know I don't want to work with databases, those bore the fuck out of me. That said I don't have any particular preferences, I've enjoyed programming as a whole and would do any of it as needed. I could get a job doing whatever and program indie games as a hobby, I think I can manage. My main gripe is where I get hired, I would like to work in Europe or Australia/New Zealand for a few years at least.

Oh yeah definitely, the build I put forward to my project open day is visually identical to the program I'm working on now, that is to say it looks and works the same but at the moment I'm fine tuning the code and refactoring it to make it more maintainable and extensible, it's really frustrating rewriting code that works but I know it's a bit messy, I kinda just wanted it to work for the open day. What language did you use for your project?

Thank you also you have the right attitude anyway, it seems like you really want to do it and get a good job and that you have the passion to be a decent programmer, this time last year I only really knew Java and I wasn't that good at it, 6 month internship I learn C and C++ as well as build tools and continuous integration, my internship was excellent.

Would you ever try and get an internship abroad? what about start ups in Puerto Rico?

Videogames is notoriously difficult to get into (that is mainstream companies) also job security is flaky at best, indie gaming is different altogether though it's usually small teams of friends. To get into gaming you'd need to learn C++ possibly C and DirectX9 and above or OpenGL(if it's not targetted at Windows users) whereas with Indie gaming the choices are more vast, Microsoft have that XBLA stuff and the Unity Engine is supposed to be pretty easy to use. The hardest thing about indie dev is the creativity, really has to be creative and standout so that it gets talked about. Just look at Minecraft, atrocious graphics and written in Java the world generates before your eyes but yet it's bloody fun and everyone knows about it without one single advertisement.

Nothing fancy, just Visual Basic (...) to handle a database built in Access, so I did get to do some SQL and MySQL. Kinda embarrassing for some reason, I mean it works fine but those Basic and Access, well, I'm sure you know how bare bones those are.


Would I apply for an internship abroad? Hell, yes. I have been wanting to move (for personal reasons) for years now. It's a great place but I can't see myself spending the rest of my life here. About startups, you'd be surprised by how safe people play their cards here, namely there's no new businesses. It's become a real crisis, there's no entrepreneurs and college graduates move away as soon as they have the chance. There are a few companies who could use a programmer but again I am very eager to move someplace else.


I did some research a few years back and saw how difficult it was to get a job in the industry, but it's something I hope to do someday and indie work is unrestricted, anyone can start something right now without the bureaucracy and the things game companies have to deal with to release subpar experiences. I'm not counting on being able to make a living off it, if it was up to me, I'd release the games for free. It would be like being in a metal band, a day job and a badass thing on your free time.

And yeah, I do have some C++ experience which I'm looking to expand upon as well as C# (I read somewhere it's how Xbox 360 games are programmed) and Java. I haven't even looked at DirectX, though it's on the queue. To be honest, I hadn't even heard of OpenGL, what is it for?

I only write Java at the moment, but I plan on expanding my knowledge of OO languages. I should also do something with Python. I've heard that it's really easy and fun, and you can dish out useful scripts or programs with minimal knowledge of the language. I have some kind of sentimental attachment to C-like syntax, but not having to use braces does sound appealing.

I've never actually used Visual Basic or Access, I have small bit of experience with MySQL and I hate it hahaha so boring. Don't under sell yourself, it still takes skill to write an app like that.

That's cool, my advice would be to learn some technology like Unity or Unreal engine and ask can you contribute to some gaming projects on the net and build up your skills from there, you never know it might lead to some actual work.

Yeah C# is Xbox games and some Windows 8 and phone games if I'm correct, never used the language but I've heard it's very similar to Java but better in many ways. Be careful learning something like that because you have to remember it's a skill that is not transferable to other OS's you're basically putting your life income into the hands of a giant corporation who could drop the language in the morning. Same with Java. OpenGL is the open source competitor to DirectX for graphics, it's used on games for Linux and Mac because once again DirectX is Windows only. OpenGL is used more in business applications like Auto CAD and OpenGL is available on Windows as well as Linux and Mac.

Python is nice and easy to use and learn but it runs like treacle much much slower than C, C++ or Java etc... if you're looking to explore the world of non C style programming try a functional language like Haskell it's a recursive programming language, no for loops and no variables it's quite interesting though.

I was planning on studying something recursive, but for now I'll concentrate on improving my knowledge of the modern, widely used OO languages and JavaScript. Python's slowness isn't necessarily an issue where it's used to make web programs and such, taking into account its readability and simplicity. Many software houses value the speed (and ease) of coding over the runtime speed of their apps, since easily coded and maintained programs are cost-efficient to the developers. Performance becomes an issue with larger programs that I wouldn't have the knowledge to write anyway.

If performace is critical, go for Assembly!

Recursive programming is really fun and greatly advances your skills as well, you can use a lot of the skills learned in recursive programming in imperative languages well worth learning. I agree about the whole ease of use with Python, I certainly would not want to use C or C++ on the web, it would be a clusterfuck Python is a great language for what it does but number crunching and efficiency is not it's thing every language has its uses that's for sure, I recommend to any aspiring programmer to learn either C or C++ though because it gives you an appreciation for memory usage in your programs that can help you write better code with garbage collected languages.

Yeah, I'm sure it's very much worthwhile to learn proper memory management even if the languages you mostly use manage it automatically. And I'm sure experienced programmers appreciate the freedom of being able to make choices regarding memory usage that languages like Java and Python won't allow.

Sometimes it can be a right pain in the arse though like you said above it all comes down to the type of application you want to write. Are you writing a small desktop application that is limited only by how fast a user can click on a menu? use Python, Java etc... if the application doesn't take up too much memory to begin with then why bother manually allocating and deallocating memory. If you're writing a computationally expensive piece of software with vast amounts of memory requirements then your C and C++ is the way to go. Are you studying in University or are you a hobby programmer?

Not university, we have schools called universities of applied sciences, meaning little theory, mostly practice. The level of teaching is quite poor though, so I'm mostly left on my own to study programming if I want to learn more than just the things required by coursework.

Ahh yeah we have technical colleges (as well call those here) and they teach practical stuff too more so than theory, I'm in University(or rather was) and we learned mostly theory but I prefer the practical side of things and learned most of what I do in my own time. Some part of me wished I went to my technical college to study software engineering than go to University and study computer science because it would have suited me more but it was helpful to learn the more theoretical applications of computer science.

I would've wanted a more theoretical degree, but that would've required moving away from Helsinki to study, as the universities are rather hard for me to get into. They tend to emphasise mathematics in the entrance exams, which I never really gave a single fuck about in school.

I'm happy that I get to work with the stuff in practice so soon, and the fact that the teachers are unable to explain the reasons why things are made the way they are is mostly a non-issue since I find answers for my questions elsewhere. Employment won't be a problem either, but what's slightly worrying is the career advancement prospects. Even if I didn't mind working in a junior development position for decades, it can be tough to find new jobs when I'm older and that one long-lasting job ends.

At least I know that even with the smattering of knowledge I have now, I could easily teach the basic programming courses better than the teachers I have.

To be fair mine wasn't really maths based. There were some algorithm theory which emphasised a bit of maths but you could get away with a normal everyday knowledge of maths. The theory is good and all but I'd like to see some more practical classes in my course. I guess a nice blend between our two courses would be perfect for both of us are you nearly graduated?

Nope, I'm starting my second year after summer. It's three and a half years in total, six months dedicated to internship. A lot of people never graduate or do so very slowly because they land jobs through their internship.

Cool sounds exactly like my course, the 6 month internship will be the best part of your course it will be where you learn most of your skills. I got a job out of my internship and you will probably too.

You were saying that you see bad career prospects where you're stuck in a junior position for too long, why so? is that unique to software in Finland? because in Ireland if you do well the company will raise your salary to keep you the fuck away from other companies. When I was doing my internship I was talking to senior developers at the time and they said that salaries of some developers were raised significantly to stop them going to Google. There was a hemorrhage of employees at the time due to Google poaching the cream of the crop.

As far as a I know, there's so much overabundance of programmers in Finland that people without any special skills (like great database skills, project management skills, etc.) are merely a resource that can be exhausted and disposed of. It's best to seek employment in small IT companies, because big companies' HR and project management is pretty ruthless. It's only when you have experience from something fairly unique, or you have certain certificates, when employers will fight over you, and you can pretty much dictate your own salary.

I added a computer science minor while working on my journalism and english degrees doing my junior year. Unfortunately the schedule with the internship I had combined with general laziness on my end lead to me failing out of the classes and I eventually dropped it, though I still graduated with my other degrees and GPA in tact. I know HTML and CSS from a few journalism classes and have a rudimentary python/c++ knowledge based on the first classes I took, but I'm really kicking myself now for dropping it since it helps A LOT with jobs. I do have a full-time reporting job now that I enjoy, but so much of that media field is digital these days (coding interactive displays for web articles, etc) that having those skills gives you a leg up. I've done a few small websites for local businesses in my free time but I'd like to see if I could maybe go back and take a few java courses at the local community college.

Oh I get ya now, in Ireland it's the opposite. We have too little IT skills to fill the demand, graduates are gold dust here and a good programmer is a valuable commodity.



I think you're right, in the future it will be incredibly difficult to get employment without some IT skills, I don't mean you have to be able to do low level inline assembly with C but you would have to know about HTML and CSS that's for sure. I say go back and do the Java courses it can't do any harm can it also I thought the second part of your name referenced this. I was like well that's apt

Well, the basics of HTML and CSS can be learned in one week, and there are programs that aid you in designing pages if you don't want to write the markup and style sheets. But these days almost every page uses JavaScript, and to write good JS you have know a thing or two about programming.

I'd say it's much better to learn something else first; something with strong typing, at least, and a compiler that complains about errors. Java is easy to start with. It's lenient enough to have a small learning curve, but it's strict enough not to be confusing to a beginner. I wrote some JavaScript when I had only started learning Java, and I frequently had this situation:

I agree that Java is a good starter but I'd argue against static typing as a teaching aid, it can add a lot of unnecessary heartache sometimes. Python seems to do fine without and is usually the starter language in most colleges and Universities. I've never done any Javascript, I was actually thinking of learning it so I can use it with Qt for GUI's looks like a decent way of writing GUI code. Qt already supports CSS in the form of QSS, do you do much Javascript?

I haven't written any particularly useful apps, since it's easy to find ready-made scripts for simple, specific purposes. I've written stuff for fun in jsFiddle, which is an online tool where you can experiment with JS, HTML and CSS. For example, here's my experiment with the canvas element: http://jsfiddle.net/jkat/P2c4k/

I meant to animate the gradient sphere on the right, but I kind of forgot about it.

I have meant to write a JS stopwatch app, as it should be a good excercise, but I haven't found the time. I'll do it this summer.

I think the new Firefox phone will be writing all its apps in HTML5, CSS and Javascript so that could be cool for the future. The development time for apps like this can be incredibly rapid. My friend does a lot of Javascript and he actually got a graduate job doing it too, he's pretty good at it. He uses EXTJS which is a library for Javascript something along the lines of JQuery.

Indeed. I think your quote may just be enough to get me off my duff and go sign up for a class, hopefully they have them in the evening...

Honestly, for all everyone talks about journalism going down the pipes, it is really strong in the digital/interactive media field these days. My friend graduated with a journalism and informatics degree and had job offers thrown at him before he even finished college.

And my name is a reference to something from a Terry Pratchett book (Going Postal, for any Discworld fans here), though it is indeed appropriate here too, hehe.

I do web design/development; I've worked with HTML/CSS/Javascript/PHP/MySql/C#. I take some classes at night at a vocational training center and am working on my own out of books as well. It's tough but I'm making progress. Well, design is easy but the database and OOP stuff is more challenging to me and I'm still learning a lot. Maybe in another year or two before I'll be ready to look for a junior developer job.

JavaScript can be extremely powerful if you're really good at it. It's easy to see why some developers love it so much, but on the other hand, it's also easy to understand why some find it repulsive. I like it a lot, but it can also be frustrating at times, much more so than Java.

I presently write software for a living and studied computer science at university. We primarily use VB (and it makes me want to die) and fortran with a smattering of C/C++.

Oh definitely and for everyday computing tasks that don't require speed it's perfectly fine in most cases and in fact probably one of the best choices due to its huge library support. I think in my new job I'll be doing Javascript for UI elements, Java for the front end and middleware components and C++ for the core components of the product. That's all I'm aware of as when I did my internship I was not in that team and only had a brief understanding of the product. Should be fun and challenging though thats for sure I'm really looking forward to it.

My condolences the DIM As... stuff makes me eyes bleed, I can't even look at VB code and take it seriously but apparently there's real good money in it if you're good at it. What C/C++ stuff do you do?

Computer Engineering major here. I've had to take computer science classes as well as electrical engineering classes. I am the most comfortable with programming C, having to use it right now and my internship as well as TA'ing for an intro to C class in the fall. I also enjoy Java as well, having to use it within a software platform called Repast Simphony for a research project, but I am honestly not as comfortable with it. I have had to use MATLAB for a bunch of math/engineering classes, which is somewhat fun to program with once you actually learn how to use it correctly instead of writing crappy scripts for Dif Eq. I've dicked around in Python a bit, and probably should get more comfortable with it this summer.

Has anyone here used Verilog or VHDL before? They're not really programing languages per se, more so hardware description languages. But at least for Verilog, the syntax is very similar to C. I had to learn it to simulate hardware design in my Digital Logic class. It was very fulfilling to program a seven-segment display on an FPGA board!

You do a lot of hardware C I take it? programming micro controllers and embedded systems? I never really did much hardware oriented C and C++ besides a bit with the Arduino but that's pretty small time compared to most embedded systems. I'd love to try it though, I'm pretty good with C and C++ and like you much more comfortable with them than Java or Python etc....

I have yet to do anything with embedded systems, but similar to what you've mentioned, I've had to program an Arduino. The first project was to control a hovercraft for our intro engineering class; we had a distance sensor as well as several servos that were controlled by the Arduino. The goal was to retrieve a payload from one of six spots on a square course, and then exit the course with the payload. There were other restrictions, and considering we were pretty much on our own as freshman, the goal was a bit too lofty for the semester that I took the class; no one officially completely the course, and they toned it down in subsequent semesters. I knew nothing about circuits prior to the class, and we had to use MOSFET transistors, which I still haven't learned about after taking a circuits class! I also made a little program that simulated using a keypad-controlled lock, where the lock in this case was a simple servo. It had two modes: a guest mode and master mode, and different password corresponding to each. Nothing too fancy, but it was fun and easy.

I did have to take a digital logic class for EE/CP, so like I mentioned, I had to program an FPGA board using Verilog. This was really low level shit though, where after I programmed the board, I was flipping switches/pressing buttons on it, which of course represented 1's and 0's. We implemented a full calculator as a project. We would view the waveforms through either simulation or an oscilloscope.

I'll probably elect to take some embedded systems course at some point, but I just finished taking my 200 levels in computer engineering and computer science (going into junior year), so I have a bit to go.

That sounds pretty damn cool man, I'd love to buy a load of Arduino's and play around with them and like make a controller for my lights and kettle of something we did a morse code reciever/transmitter where one Arduino transmitted flashes from keyboard input so if you put "sos" in the terminal then it would flash corresponding to the dash and the blip and then an infra red reciever picked up the signal and translated it back into text, was pretty fun. I'm just after finishing my computer science course but we didn't really do anything very low level besides Logic Design which was fucking brilliant, we had to program a 7 segment display using boolean logic, karnaugh maps and logic gates. It was extremely fun I must say. Never heard of verilog but it would be interesting to check out but I'm more into higher level stuff than the real low level hardware stuff, C and C++ would be as low as I go.