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• Reputation: 387 Q&A: 11 0 3 128 21 0 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Follow Following 0 Andrew Beck

  3 0 You'd be hard pressed to get even an interview without either a formal education and/or tons of experience. That being said, 99% of what I learned for my degree, I don't use in my programming job. The language(s) you learn are basically unimportant. Once you show the ability to program in more than one language, you should be able to pick up any other language fairly quickly. In your position I would pick up a book on Data Structures, one on SQL, and two language books. I would probably suggest Java/C# for one book and the other I would suggest a more web focused language (Python/Ruby/PHP). Work with that on your own. For the SQL books find ones that are fairly generic but work with either MySQL or PostgresSQL (since they are free). Get comfortable programming and working through the books. The problem is that once you finish that, you aren't likely to be hired (even though you could probably do most of the available jobs). You're going to need some sort of proof that you can actually do the work. What I would do is get a book on Android and/or iPhone development. I'd also get a book on AJAX. Specifically get an AJAX book geared toward the web focused language you focused on (I like Python, but Ruby might be more prevalent). Get comfortable learning and working through the examples in those books. If you have the expertise and space, I'd suggest having both a Linux/Apache environment and a Windows environment. Though you will need an Apple OS X environment if you want to do iPhone work (you might want to buy a Mac and triple boot or build a Hackintosh, which also would be a good skill to have). Now you actually need to build some stuff. Build yourself a super kick ass website with the tech you've learned. Use as much database, HTML 5, and AJAX as you can. Hook into as many external API's as possible. Make sure that the website is available (buy a domain name) for viewing and use it on your resume. Also, develop as many mobile applications as you can. I would suggest Android over iOS simply because it's easier and cheaper to get into the store, and you don't need a Mac to develop on, but the choice is yours. Make pages for your apps on your personal website. I might also pick a small open source project to contribute to at this point. It will get you comfortable working with a code revisioning system at least. Once you've done all this (and this may take 6 months to a year), you'll actually have a resume that will get past HR. That's the hard part. If you can get an interview with the other developers you'll be working with and show them your skill, you'll have a good chance of being hired. Make sure you resume plays up your formal education as much as possible. List as many languages and technologies as skills. For example you might do this. Langagues: Objective C, Java (with Android Davlik extensions), JavaScript, HTML 5, SQL, Python Technologies: Eclipse IDE, Visual Studio, Microsoft IIS, Apache, XML, JSON, Linux, Android, iPhone, MySQL, PostgresSQL, SQLite Andrew Beck answered in Geek Week 10 months ago | Report 1 comment by blahblahblah… 1 0 Thanks Andrew. I appreciate your help. I know there are no guarantees, but I have the time and drive. Why the fuck not. You rock. blahblahblah commented 10 months ago | Report Enter your comment or ask a new question New comments are not being accepted at this time.

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• Reputation: 6 Q&A: 0 0 0 7 1 0 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Follow Following 0 jjb

  3 0 Approaching it from the direction of languages is a mistake. Just as you don't really learn a foreign language until you are using it for real, you aren't going to really learn a computer language until you're learning it for real. If you're serious, you should come up with a project that interests you on your own and try and work on that. It's not really going to provide you an entry into the industry, but you'll be able to learn if you even like it at a hobbyist level. As far as getting into the industry, without a formal education or industry track record, it's not going to happen. You need one or both. The education could happen from a community college, continuing education classes or similar, but nobody is going to use up their interviewing time on somebody with nothing on their resume. The latter can be found through open source projects, but that's going to take a lot of work to get up to the point where you're able to make a significant contribution to a high enough profile open source project for it to be viable resume material. The computer industry does OK with hiring folks without formal training, but you need to have something like the equivalent of an impressive portfolio in order to make that happen. jjb answered in Geek Week 10 months ago | Report Comment on this answer Enter your comment or ask a new question New comments are not being accepted at this time.

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