what you are saying is relatively true for developers with some experience, especially engineers. This is not true for people coming out of online learning programs who know the basics of coding but haven't built anything significant. For these people, the resume is empty so building a portfolio of significant projects is a way to become a developer. It is as much self-serving as it is serving the needs of employers.
That's true, and it is a case that seems to be unique to the software field as far as engineering is concerned. I'm also unaware of any other engineering profession in which such shallow education and experience would be considered acceptable in any case. Usually a four-year degree from an accredited engineering school is a minimum requirement for even entry-level work. In these cases references and some casual "technical" discussions (but nothing like the pedantic Algo/DS grilling in a software interview) in the interviews will determine suitability, and the individual will effectively be considered a trainee for a time. That is also absent in the software industry, generally.
I was exactly in your shoes a year ago. I am a self-taught developer and I completely empathize with the pain and intimidation of open source, and the frustration of defining and breaking down a personal project.
The answer to your question, the idea spot is somewhere in between. Yes, you need to know data structures/algo because there is only so far you can go if that's all you know. I am a very strong believer in "learn as you go" and "pull information as needed". Many people start out learning the fundamentals but forget what they learned because they didn't put it into practice. So my recommendation would be to keep building things and your portfolio, while challenging yourself to also learn the fundamentals as needed for your project.
you nailed it on the head. A large and growing number of people are going the tech path without going getting the traditional CS degree. CS students at least have internships and labs to build functional experience but this new market of developers don't have similar options.
You are setting the right expectation with 6 months of building stuff. It is surprising how many people graduate from codeacamedy thinking that coding is fun and easy when in reality, the path to becoming a developer (let alone a great one) is frustrating and painful at times. Our goal is to give all of these new developers the chance to built significant pieces of work and get the proper guidance when they need it with code reviews. No handholding (learning websites) or intimidation (open source) - just a safe environment to build and break things, while getting the feedback and portfolio to jumpstart a developer career.
Thanks for your feedback! We will definitely make it our goal to provide a better explanation of how a project will be built start to finish, and how long it will take to build it, from the onset.
About the target audience. We actually built Zyring for people like me. I was a PM at Microsoft who wanted to transition to a developer role. I learned programming through self-learning (didn't follow traditional CS path) but always found myself building things that were either insignificant or I was handheld through the entire process so I couldn't recreate my work. As I talked to more people, I realized that there are a lot more people like me. I completely agree with you that we need to find that "sweet spot" where the user (like your gf) can build a project on her own but still get the right guidance so she doesn't get overwhelmed and lost.
I would really love to talk with you and/or your girlfriend to get your feedback on how we can help and improve Zyring. My email is zaryafaraj@zyring.com. Thanks!
Hi this is Zarya, one of the co-founder of Zyring. I have actually used Code4startup and we are much different. Code4Startup helps you clone websites for the purpose of literally getting a website up for your startup. At Zyring, our goal is to get people to build applications from scratch so they can add it to their portfolio and get a job. That's why we put so emphasis on code reviews and feedback.
If you have used code4startup, I would love to talk to you about your goals and if there is anyway we can help you. My email is zaryafaraj@zyring.com. Thanks!
hey I'm one of the cofounders of Zyring. Would love to know why you closed the tab when seeing Angular. Are there other technologies that you're interested in and think we should cover?
We couldn't agree more. Education on its own is not really sufficient to learn a new technology. Everyone need hands on experience, and our goal is to enable people to do so after they have finished a course. At a high level, be the lab for development courses.
We are creating Zyring (http://zyring.com) exactly for that purpose, so people can actually put their learnings from courses into practice by implementing hands-on projects. We will have a Frontend development track, in which JavaScript will be utilized.
Yes, Zyring will be primarily online, unless you choose to meet with your mentors in person.
Our primary focus is on hands-on projects, not so much teaching you how to actually do the basics. So our collection of resources will be curated from the web as we believe there is an abundance of premium level education material already online for free.
