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Learning to Code: Discussing various resources, strategies & providing advice for coding beginners
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Learning to Code: Discussing Resources and Strategies for Beginners In this episode, we dive into the world of coding for beginners. We discuss various resources and strategies for learning to code, from online courses and bootcamps to books and tutorials. We also share advice on how to choose the best resources for your learning style and goals, and offer tips for staying motivated and focused while learning to code.
Our guests for this episode are experienced coders who have successfully made the transition from beginner to professional. They share their personal stories and offer insights into what worked for them when they were first starting out, as well as what they wish they had known.
Whether you're a complete beginner or you have some coding experience but want to take your skills to the next level, this episode is for you. Tune in for practical advice and inspiration to help you on your coding journey.
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Transcript
Introduction to Code Play Culture Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to the Code Play Culture podcast where we discuss tech, gaming, health, and the world around us. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Code Play Culture. I am Logan Dunning and we have Rui here. Say hello, Rui. Howdy.
00:00:19
Speaker
everybody. What do you got there in your World of Warcraft coffee? Yeah, I have my massive huge, my axe wielding coffee mug with super Warcraft coffee. I don't know what's in it, but it tastes awesome. It's a proprietary blend from Azeroth called Zug Zug. Right. I got it from the tavern somewhere in Orgrimmar.
00:00:42
Speaker
I do love Grog. What was that game we were talking about? The Secret of Monkey Island. Grog? So it was burning a hole in the ground, but these big burly men were just consuming it. They were made of sterner stuff than us, man. That's for them. Iron stomach.
Coding Resources for Learners
00:01:02
Speaker
Right. So joining us for the first time, maybe the best episode ever to listen to if you are a new, young,
00:01:12
Speaker
or old or anything in between, aspiring new person to coding, going through school, learning it in any stage in life. Today, Rui and I are discussing the various resources and strategies for learning code for anyone that's getting in the field and providing advice for hindsight being 20-20. Rui and I have cumulative experience in years enough for a single person to retire.
00:01:41
Speaker
of coding experience, probably or close to. If you include dabbling with video games when you're younger, I mean, it's a stone's throw
The Creative Career of Software Development
00:01:52
Speaker
for sure. I mean, Commodore games. Yeah, man. So kicking it off, what would you think would be, let's say you're thinking from the perspective of a student going to university, should I get into software development
00:02:10
Speaker
Absolutely, you should. We had a podcast, I think it was the first one where we talked about development and impact of less code. One of the things I said was, yes, development is a great career and it's super rewarding. It allows you to be creative in every way possible.
00:02:30
Speaker
Just the ability to create something from nothing. Just your mind is a reward in and of itself. And I think it's a priceless job.
The Role of AI in Development
00:02:42
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. My advice is...
00:02:45
Speaker
get into software development kids, do it. And this is post chat GPT. Post chat GPT is like post COVID for the tech industry. You know, like, Oh, after the world changed, things are different now. And, uh, we were talking about this before we hopped on, right, Rui? The world has not changed. Uh, a lot of people were very, very scared when cars came out replacing horses and all of these different huge trends that happened. It's if you look back historically or look at any,
00:03:15
Speaker
Netflix, historical references to big changing events in humanity's existence for innovation. There is always this wake of
00:03:25
Speaker
Oh, oh no. Oh no. Right. But if you look at it, um, what, you know, a lot of people are probably, you know, stepping down from the edge of the building or, you know, metaphorically, you know, no, uh, no harm intended from that and calming down and saying, wow, you know what? If they were hiring developers before, let's say at a hundred thousand dollars a year to start when you're out of school,
00:03:50
Speaker
Which is kind of crazy if you think about it for a kid getting out of school. Seems to be pretty regional trendy for Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I'm sure regional differences. But if they were hiring 100K before, they're now going to hire at 300K. You know why? Because you are now three times more empowered and smart and witty as a developer than you were before. You work three times harder.
00:04:13
Speaker
than everyone else because of things like AI, chat GPT, thinking smart. So these are tools that will accelerate your growth and development. We're not yet at the stage where the AI is choosing whether or not it wants to make this app or that app or all of that stuff, right?
Finding Joy in Creative Coding
00:04:34
Speaker
Will that Sage ever reach that stage? I doubt it. I honestly don't see it happening, but I don't want to be one of those people that doubt and then it come to pass. It could be, but I highly doubt AI is going to be able to make those kinds of decisions. Basically, it needs to have feelings and needs to want something to fulfill itself, but is it possible? Is it possible? I don't know.
00:05:00
Speaker
Yeah, it might be. I remember a good quote from Elon. It was like something he was saying.
00:05:09
Speaker
Perhaps we're the biological bootstrappers for AI, meaning that the bootstrap is like a program that runs to create the AI. If you think of these different planets, perhaps when they, whatever thing or whatever, will put these entities there and they evolve, eventually they all will create an AI and the AI will dominate and take it over. It's like the
00:05:33
Speaker
biological bootstrappers for AI. Are we just that? Are we in the simulation? All of that stuff. You know, at the end of the day, you wake up and you try to make people happy, have friends, have a lot of fun. Unfortunately, and fortunately, you have to be in this capitalism imprisonment, so to speak. So you have to really find something you love to do. And I love to code. And Rui,
00:06:00
Speaker
I do too. I love to code. I love to create. I love being creative. It's one of our things. One of the things we're born with, that's innate. We're actually born with that.
00:06:12
Speaker
that need to create, right? And I love it. I love exploring it. It's a passion of mine. And I feel bad for people who don't have the opportunity to explore that creativity because it's so important. So would you say that everyone is creative, but they might just be trapped in dead-end jobs that constrict their creativity? For sure.
00:06:34
Speaker
Definitely, man. Everybody has a creative bone. But for some people, it's not financially feasible or there's time constraints. It's just not easy to foster that creativity. Right. So, you know, if you're thinking about getting into coding and in the wake in this post chat GPT world, if you're about to hop into a university situation, figuring out
00:06:59
Speaker
this one or that one in terms of university location and company kind of thing.
00:07:06
Speaker
And you're like, I don't know. Should I do this or that? Programming is not dead. It's not dying in my personal opinion. I think a lot of tech industry experts like Rui and other people that him and I both talked to have the same sentiment where it is just an awesome tool to help you do your job, right?
Diverse Roles in the Tech Industry
00:07:27
Speaker
Get into it. It is going to be life changing in terms of
00:07:31
Speaker
creative development, rapid growth, creativity, working with some of the most brilliant minds out there. Now, if you're not too into coding, or you can't really figure it out, or you don't want to kind of do that stuff, there are tons of other areas to
00:07:45
Speaker
inject your creativity in a industry that is growing in non-coding ways. UI, UX, design. If you're not artistic and you don't want to code, what are your options? You can get people excited about these future potentialities from sales and marketing perspective. You can learn a little bit of the code on the side just enough to know
00:08:10
Speaker
how it's working. Yeah. And you'll probably need to, you know, obviously there's a little bit of a curve there. Coding is getting easier to read, less code to write. And, you know, just finding really smart ways to do less work with more highly efficient outputs, right? Definitely.
00:08:30
Speaker
But in terms of a university student going in different branches in the software development world, what do you think? What do you think the trend is? Because I know that they don't really teach .NET so much in schools or in universities or college. They tend to focus more on
00:08:49
Speaker
Python and Java, but there's a huge demand for .NET.
Bridging Education and Industry Needs
00:08:54
Speaker
Correct. So what do you think is happening? Are they out of touch? Yes. With the trends? For sure. So the disruption of the education industry has not happened yet. I am a big belief that it will be a, whatever the word for catastrophe in a positive way, like a
00:09:14
Speaker
A reckoning, like a wake of reckoning where everyone just gets like a sack of money, right? Like a very good thing, right? Because look at YouTube, right? You don't know how to install the wiser door lock AB4. You just YouTube it. The guy walks through and you look incredible to your family and friends and your spouse as this super, what's it called, handyman or handy person, but you might not be, right?
00:09:44
Speaker
So how does that affect the education? Like I went, I have more than one university diploma, right? And I can tell you for the most part, I don't use very much that I learned in university in software and
00:10:00
Speaker
management IT systems, all of this stuff. When I say that, I mean data level stuff. I didn't take computers, so to speak. I took development. You said Java, Python, and Python is big. Yes, Java is maybe not so big. There's a lot of different
00:10:20
Speaker
I do feel like schools right now teach you stuff that is essentially let's say 10 years old, right? They get you to use programs that will fail you, maybe on purpose, right? They're like, no, you have to use this IDE or something. I'm like, dude, listen. But if you think about it, is it important that universities fail you a couple of times to make more money? Is there a cahoots there?
00:10:44
Speaker
I don't know, maybe. There probably is. Yeah. If we only knew what we knew, we probably wouldn't be alive because of some assassination due to X party, Y party, whatever it is, right? Yeah. There's so much of that stuff going on, but universities are still behind the time talking to people that are currently in university, but I would say the best thing that you can do is almost
00:11:07
Speaker
you know, develop in whatever you want and it will only compliment and help your university journey. And the other advice I would give to anyone that's getting into university and realizing
00:11:18
Speaker
dudes using dotnet, whatever, like three point, whatever, or they're using some old version of Java that doesn't exist or, you know, these, they're using solid, but maybe solids a little dated. Uh, I would just say, you know, do, you know, all of that stuff, but try to see if you can get an internship right away or a co-op that is completely outside of the school. I know a lot of the schools will do that. So you get paid or they coordinate it. They place people, but I would just say, talk to whoever you can to get a,
00:11:47
Speaker
non-paying co-op and just a minimal, like, you know, one to two days a week, couple of hours here and there. And what you could do with that is apply what you've learned in the co-op at school and vice versa. Yeah. I was lucky enough, really. I'm not sure if I ever told you this, but I never got an opportunity to go to university due to.
00:12:06
Speaker
whatever, I won't go into it. I basically had to jump right into working full-time. Luckily, I had an incredible boss, incredible company that was funding my education. Like if I got a C, you know, some companies will pay for your education. If you get like a C or higher, you just have to like, you know, get it first approved, see how it goes. But yeah, I was able to complete a four-year, you know, like bachelor level program, right? But in 10 years,
00:12:31
Speaker
Nice, OK. By like, you know, evenings and weekends, raising kids and all that. But you got to work. Yes. And when I learned something in university, granted, it was online university and which was trendy at the time, by the way, because now it's all like that. I was able to apply it if I learned it in work. Sorry. Yeah, I was able to apply it in school and vice versa. Right. Right. Right. That is invaluable because when they teach you stuff, you almost like an instructor or sorry, a
00:13:01
Speaker
a professor, you're listening to them for like two hours, you could almost picture your head like people are falling asleep, they're not getting it. This is the disconnect between education and applying the education to real world situations. Absolutely. Yeah. And then going back to your comment about the IDE and being out of touch and using old technology, I remember getting my degree
00:13:26
Speaker
and having to use some really old IDE that didn't have any IntelliSense, but there were IDs that had IntelliSense. There was Eclipse and JetBrains or JetBeans, whatever it was. JetBrains is the best. You can easily drag buttons onto your form, but this professor made us create all the buttons in code, color them all, and just do everything.
00:13:51
Speaker
Position them all in code and it just made no sense to me looking back. When we had IDs where you can just bypass all that and just add the buttons yourself and write important code. But I suppose it's part of that thing where, like you said, maybe they want you to fail. Maybe they're trying to make it hard on purpose. I'm not sure what the thought process is behind manually coding buttons.
00:14:19
Speaker
But yeah, I have no clue. But that was pretty rough.
00:14:23
Speaker
It's almost like a mental spanking from your professor, you know what I mean? And if that professor maybe had like a bad day or something, like we have no idea, right? Because they have some freedom in
Supplementing Education with Real-World Experience
00:14:37
Speaker
the curriculum too, but they have some things that they have to follow. Like anything, at least as far as I'm aware of in the Canadian education system, they have the guidelines and what they must teach. And then they have a little bit of freedom here and there to be, you know, do the stuff.
00:14:51
Speaker
there was a good dear friend of mine that reached out to me, he's in university, he said, hey, I'm really stuck on this SQL, right? It's using like, you know, not like the newest type of database, right? But it was one that he had to connect to his school to like write queries, right? And you have to write them at the command line, right? Like select star, blah, blah, blah, the command line. No, like,
00:15:14
Speaker
you know, good tool with IntelliSense, like you're saying. And the questions that he would get answered, right? Because he's like, hey, I went through it. There's 10 questions. I couldn't get these four. And so I helped, right? And on those four, like one of them took me like an hour. And I'm like, this is messed up. Like what they're asking is like,
00:15:36
Speaker
And then, um, I remember what he said. It was awesome. He's like, I don't know if my prof hates me, but you know, this is what he gave me. I was like, it's almost deliberate. Like these, you know, if there's enough isolated incidents to become a trend, there's maybe something to look at there or without, without pointing the finger up, you know, people are in the world of making money. You know, there's a lot more going on than we know. However,
00:16:04
Speaker
If universities are looking to scare kids off from programming, keep teaching the way that they're teaching. I can tell you, drop the books. I love to read, but give them a couple options, right? You can do the book, you can do the audio book, you can have a one-on-one call with your teacher constantly at these cadences, or it's all on YouTube as instructional videos. If you're ever stuck on
00:16:30
Speaker
any of that coding stuff, right? When a book, you don't understand it. As you're going through the book, what worked for me, not at the time, because I couldn't, because of YouTube kind of being in its baby steps, I would today read the book. If you're stuck, YouTube it.
00:16:47
Speaker
listen to it, go back to the book, right? And then you will have more of a clear avoidance coming back to it than getting more and more lost as you read on. Right, right. Ask questions is important too, right? For sure, yes, absolutely. And also creating, just creating coding. That's the key also, just keep on coding, keep on making, right? Make something crappy today, crappy tomorrow.
00:17:10
Speaker
As long as you're making something, that's what matters. You're getting exposure and you're learning, right? So it's always a learning process. I still make crappy things and that's going to happen probably till the end, right? So you're always learning and it's always every time you make a mistake, you evolve, right? Yep. It's funny. I think, you know, going through and I was like showing someone something in school once and they laughed at it. Right. Yeah. And that was like.
00:17:39
Speaker
probably like close to 15 years now, right? They're now a customer of mine. Like, you know, like as being the, you know, hopefully, well, I think it's vague enough that, you know, probably won't over here, but
00:17:54
Speaker
Honestly, like I'd never be one of those people that would bring that up other than just doing the podcast. So hypocritically, you know, it's ambiguous enough that hopefully would. But the long story short is like you have to love to code, love to be able to do what you do and have amazing people that believe in you.
00:18:17
Speaker
There was an amazing LinkedIn post today, which I don't normally comment on LinkedIn posts, but they're like, oh, you know, sometimes when people leave companies, it's because it's not that they're looking for more money or growth. They just don't want to deal with that boss anymore.
00:18:35
Speaker
Right. You know, so so who knew if you treat people with kindness, respect, compassion, and say, you know, no, don't work the weekends, don't like just, you know, work, you know, within the where you can, if you get stuck in here, like, but don't put an extra don't sacrifice, you know, all that stuff, who knew that it would just make better work, more creativity, more collaboration and better friendship, right?
00:19:01
Speaker
And then, but you have all of these CEOs that are like, you know, better do it on time, cracking the whip. I'm like, listen, like that is not how like, you know, that old and outdated mentality. Honestly, treat people how you want to be treated. Don't pull rank. Like just anyhow, that's a little bit of a rabbit hole, but yes, get into coding. Love it. And
00:19:23
Speaker
If you don't want to code in Java and Python because your school is mandating you to do that and some dated IDE and your prof is making you feel like a pile, I would suggest to code whatever you want whenever you want on any project you want.
Life Planning and Coding
00:19:38
Speaker
You don't have to make apps. You don't have to make websites. Generally, those are kind of boring. Maybe make a game. Maybe make some 3D thing that is on the website. It's on the computer with the mouse and the click. It's on the internet. It's on this new internet called The Internet.
00:20:00
Speaker
You're right, man. You're right. Just just code. Just make something. You know what? It's the world is in your hands. Just make something you want. You can literally make anything you want. There is nothing stopping you. Right. Steve Gibson. He have you ever heard of this guy? No, he's incredible. There's so many incredible minds. I only know Mel Gibson. Mel Gibson. I know a lot of Gibson. I know. I know a couple of Gibsons. Yeah, they're all great people. Well, everyone. Yeah, that's a whiskey too, right?
00:20:29
Speaker
Uh, uh, jib, uh, jib, not jibbly. No, that was last week. Yeah. Yeah. I think it is. Uh, I think, uh,
00:20:42
Speaker
I think that's a whiskey. I've seen it at LCBO. Cucumber. What's something that you take with cucumber? Hennigan's, I think. No, I don't take anything with cucumber. I don't know. It's a gin that you take with cucumber. Is it? I think it's called, I don't know, either Ask Chat, GPT, or Google, but there is a gin. I'm looking at LCBO. Yeah, Gibson's finest, man. Are you looking at LCBO because it's Friday?
00:21:05
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. Fair enough. Yeah. That's a snowstorm is no deterrent for the population of alcoholics confined to their house. I'm just saying that in general, but can I tell you like I used to have, um, this is a really big tangent at this point, but I used to have like probably like, I don't know, like a couple of beers, maybe a couple of times a month, like on the weekend.
00:21:25
Speaker
But recently I was like, you know what, um, I'm just going to like, see how long I can go and do it. I'm never going back. Like my sleep is better. I have way more energy and God knows I didn't need any more of that. Um, I'm just feeling better, like a more mentally like clear, like who knew that poisoning yourself twice a month was bad for you. Anyways, getting back to, uh, if you're in school,
00:21:49
Speaker
and you're doing that stuff and you're just, okay, I'll just code some 3D game, and you find out that you love it, you can find out early and choose maybe not to get into that field. Start trying to code the most optimal career path for you so you can quickly determine that, oh no, I'm out, or this is it for me, I want to do this way more.
00:22:12
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. You know what, speaking of coding, I have a great idea for our next podcast, how to code your life. Lay out a life plan in a form of a flowchart with, you know, Venn diagrams and the whole
00:22:28
Speaker
the whole thing. I don't know if that's a good idea. I think I'm sarcastic, but I'm not even sure if I am. For sure. Yeah, exactly. Like, you know, every sarcasm there. No question is a bad question. Right. So if someone was to generate that, and then basically it's like a
00:22:44
Speaker
coding life plan or a life plan, you basically go to this website or app and then you basically say, when's your birthday and when's your ideal death date? OK, so you have like a grave in the bottom right, you know, maybe a non-religious to, you know, make people more obviously you're going somewhere.
00:23:02
Speaker
You know what I mean? Like, yeah, we haven't fixed that one yet. But hopefully we do. My kids like what? Yeah. Yeah. And then basically, I was gonna say my kids like, have we, have we cured death let? I'm like, no, probably your grandchildren. But we're
Balancing Happiness with Career Demands
00:23:16
Speaker
getting there. They're working on extending life with our DNA. Sorry. Whatever the COVID technology, vaccine stuff to like double your lifespan. But other than that, no word organic and we die. It's exactly what we need another 100 years of working.
00:23:32
Speaker
Yeah, it's like I don't know how it's going to dissolve but hopefully what do you think will stop first the Capitalism or the AI will just you know suck us all in and it'll end that way. Well, they're gonna be the capitalists, right? They're gonna be the ones Yeah, you know running Wall Street. Hmm. What was that planet sucker in Marvel that like Galactus?
00:23:55
Speaker
Galactus, right? We're like the biological bootstrap for Galactus. We're literally, like if we're a planet, we're probably like his...
00:24:03
Speaker
his delt or his bicep. He just eats milk. He pours Milky Way into his Cheerios of stars. Anyways, Lucky Charms. Sorry, where was I completely? We're talking about a thing. Yeah, the app. Yeah, so the app has a grade at the bottom. Exactly. So he tells you the death date. Yeah, ideal death date.
00:24:33
Speaker
Because depending on what you add to your flow chart, actually, if it's smart, it'll move the death date.
00:24:39
Speaker
You're like, you want to take a three-year hiatus in Maui in a gutter? That's a good plan, right? But anyhow, joking aside, to each their own, if that's what makes you happy, it can't be that bad. Of course. Listen, as far as we know, because we don't have... Well, I'm sure people do, but maybe they're not allowed to talk about it. We don't have proof that this is not a one and done situation for your life. Even though we have to work,
00:25:06
Speaker
at the end of the day, making yourself and others happy preachily is the only purpose we're here at the end of the day. If you can go through the day and not hurt anyone's feelings, you're pretty much God mode activated. Absolutely, man. Yeah. We learn how to serve humanity instead of
00:25:24
Speaker
No, instead of the opposite, instead of sucking from them. Exactly. Like this capitalist. Yeah, exactly. Um, I feel like there's a communist podcast at this point. Okay, man, not even close. No. So basically you add things to that. You're like, okay, I want to do this university degree and I want to start work there. And you add things to the nodes. You want to start a family and you want to have,
00:25:51
Speaker
kids and get them into, let's say you add three kids and you want to get two of them to university, but the other is like a brat. So you like, whatever you're like you hypotheticalize maybe like a loss factor or whatever. And then you say, okay, then this one changes to, Oh, this, you have to generate this much revenue to have this right. But then also a cost savings thing. So are you thinking about like life plan as in financial planning or
00:26:20
Speaker
all of it, meaning that here's your life plan. Here's where you're going. Oh, and then like a little mall map thing. Like you are here. Yeah. And then you go back to this app, dude. And you're like, you're like tired. You're like 78 or whatever. Hopefully older. And you're like, you are here. I'm like, you're like, you have a heart attack right during you watching the app. And then it just moves it there. Cause it's like using AI to like watch you. I mean, the camera, the camera APIs.
00:26:46
Speaker
So what's the final message you win? Would that be the outcome of that? If that whole endeavor, I guess the outcome of, um, Oh yeah. So like, what is the, like, you should be like, Hey, cause you want to make it like, that's my life plan or a business plan. It's like a planning app, right? But you can use it for your life. You could use it for your business, whatever. In my experience, you don't over generify an app because then, uh, it's just not hyper focused, right? It's not niche enough.
00:27:14
Speaker
So let's just say it's a life plan app, right? And if you complete those things, yeah, like you should like be like, yep, you know, I got through life. I'm like 80. I was able to accomplish. Oh, my gosh, you can even call it
00:27:29
Speaker
And I'll probably register this before this airs is like HTTPS bucket dash list.com. Can we see if that's available while we're looking at it? Yeah. But essentially bucket list is like, these are the life plan that you want. These are the things you want to do. Yeah. Okay. Here's what it'll take and here's where you are. And then when you look at the end, um,
00:27:53
Speaker
You'll say, you know what, I was able to... I don't want to say that. It doesn't make sense. It would be demotivating if it said, you accomplished 99% of what you wanted to in this life. It could be a big... You know what? It's taken. Somebody took that. Somebody's already developing this. This was a great segue, right? Speaking of the whole getting into software development and creativity, we just came up on the spot, on the fly,
00:28:21
Speaker
with a creative idea on how to develop an amazing piece of software. Yes. This is the beauty of software development. Right. And for those that are listening right now, if there's, you know, in the next 12 months or 24 months, any applications that come out resembling any likeness of works of any intellectual property created on just like the whole like legal thing where you're like, Oh, come at you with more. No. Post it at the end.
00:28:48
Speaker
No, like at the end of the day guys, this is it. You find yourself a bunch of awesome friends like mine, not necessarily like mine, it actually, I found that the more diverse you have of people and opinions, that is sometimes much better. You know what I mean? Highly collaborative, friendly, and come up with the ideas, get to market, make a business.
00:29:09
Speaker
try to sell it to a company or just at the end of the day, forget selling it aside. I know you have to hunt to kill, to eat and to feed your family, so to speak. But if you're generally enriching people's lives with a free tool, that is something that you can essentially die happy about. And we talked about this before about leaving a legacy, no burnt bridges and that kind of stuff where your kids can look back and say,
00:29:39
Speaker
Man, you know, my dad really was freaking awesome. Look at this. And I still, you know, I still actually put every song that I listen to the kids with in the car when we drive. I've added to a playlist that they have access to that when I go, they can listen to this playlist.
00:29:59
Speaker
Uh, cause till this day, if my dad, sorry, my dad's, you know, died at 65, unfortunately, his first year of retirement. Um, but like we would drive around and he would put on, um,
00:30:13
Speaker
What's it? I am Sam or any Beatles. Yeah. Beatles records. Like as soon as those songs come on like Blackbird or anything like that. Like I just. A lot of memories. Yeah. I just start like, but it is so like, it's a bunch of like, it's a roller coaster of like generally amazing. Like, you know, remembering, but yeah. Yeah. So later it can be at that bucket list website and seeing how dad did. And ultimately he hit that a hundred percent.
00:30:39
Speaker
Yeah, it's got to hit 100% no matter what. It's got to be like. Yes. What a positive outcome. Yeah. The point system. The other idea is like, you know, like karma or GP. Yeah. Like GP, meaning God points. Like you helped the lady across the streets. You earned one GP. I was thinking about like a Google glass implementation where every time you did something nice, you would just get like another, like in your, you know, VR, it would go bing.
00:31:05
Speaker
But the thing about karma or GP, god points, you can't spend them, but they do go lower over time. They diminish over time. But you can't spend them. You can't choose what to, but you can get them up super high. And then, oh yeah, there's just like a Lamborghini dropped on your driveway.
00:31:28
Speaker
like you're like whatever I'll give it to charity then your GP goes up another hundred they're like we can't we can't we can't you know like it's almost like yeah but that kind of cool app of like the
00:31:39
Speaker
almost like a task rabbit of karma
Advice for Newcomers to Coding
00:31:44
Speaker
generation. So there's no payment. It's just like a humanity give back application. But yeah, so again, getting back to people getting into the industry. So we talked about things like
00:31:59
Speaker
what universities are holding kids back with and how to overcome those challenges with smart resources like YouTube, phoning people, having co-students and all of that stuff. But even if you're a professor, don't take my advice. I'm just telling you what I did.
00:32:20
Speaker
Um, he says, don't use that ID. I basically plugged it into a different one. Right. And reverse engine saw how it worked. And then, and then redid the code in the one that they wanted because like, don't let their tools hold you back. Of course. Can you imagine like Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel with like a little brush that he got from school in kindergarten, right? Like you have to have the appropriate tool for sure. And they told me he can only shop at Benjamin paints.
00:32:50
Speaker
Come on, dude. Can't tell him where to shop. Gets his paints where he gets his paints, man. Yeah, he probably mixes it in a drum outside his mom's driveway. Yeah, there was no drivers, no car. Well, I don't know. Where do they park the chariots? On top of people, probably. Yeah. Body chariots. So much famine. So much disease. I don't know. Well, I don't know, man. Anyways, that's a whole different rabbit hole. Yeah. And then the importance of school.
00:33:19
Speaker
is another kind of thing where, like I said, I don't use very much that I learned in university. I would say, you know, getting an internship unpaid or paid, ideally paid. But if you can't do whatever you can to get into, it doesn't even have to be a big company. It could just be like kind of anyone get in there, start learning and helping commit to some open source repositories on GitHub. Yes, reviewing the code. You know, a lot of this
00:33:50
Speaker
GitHub co-pilot and chat GPT stuff is pulling from models that were trained on, well, actually GitHub co-pilot was trained on GitHub, right? Where chat GPT was trained on good code. Because you can imagine the vastness of
00:34:09
Speaker
GitHub and you could probably hypothetically like. Probabilitilize the fact that there would be more poor code than good. It's all out there. They made it all open source, right? People abandon stuff and don't update it. All that stuff, right? So yeah.
00:34:25
Speaker
That's one of the, I would say, I canceled my Google, sorry, co-pilot for a GitHub license, partially reimbursed. I bought the year, but yeah, but I would say use chat GPT, pay for it, you know, like whatever can make you more efficient and effective. I would say that over time chat GPT would, you know, maybe transform into something like internet,
00:34:49
Speaker
Like, what's your internet bill? What's your heat bill? What's your hydro bill? This is now an assess, like a utility that people aren't dependent upon. And yeah, what else can young or not young people, just anyone getting into coding should consider, you know,
00:35:14
Speaker
What do you think for me? I think for me, it's just my only advice would be code as much and as often as you can. Create as much as you can within a time that you have, with the time that you have, and that's it. Just keep creating. Just keep making it. Don't be afraid. Yep. And if you love it, like if you love what you've created,
00:35:39
Speaker
That's a good outlet for, you know, you don't need to.
00:35:45
Speaker
You know, just like you love playing games or you love watching TV or watch, you know, watching movies, if you can develop that same love and appreciation for what you created, you can turn that into a career where very rarely that you can get paid for playing video games, probably talking about the zero point, you know, triple zero one percent of the world. But you can very commonly get paid for creating things with code, as we know, with the industry and how it's evolving.
00:36:16
Speaker
And if you love it, you're going to continue to do it because it becomes addictive. You're having fun. If you can see what you created very quickly, it's even more powerful. And the other thing that there's this whole trend of people love.
00:36:31
Speaker
like quality, beautiful, clean code. Like if you're in the code all day, and then if you have to type this stuff and you're like, you know what, I'm going to make this like super neat, tidy, beautiful, all that stuff. There's that whole artistic level of, man, what I made is like, well, I don't even care what I made, right? Who cares about that? My code is like a
00:36:54
Speaker
not a Picasso, whatever the opposite of a Picasso is. It's like caviar. You're just like, look at it. It just drips down. And people love that. So find out what you love early. And if you don't switch careers so you don't waste people's time, money, energy, including your own, you find out early, you can get on to the next thing even faster. But yes,
00:37:22
Speaker
I would say round up long story short or long podcast to a short sentence is if you're thinking about getting into coding and you haven't, code whatever you want right away.
00:37:37
Speaker
And maybe don't set the bar too high, right? That's why they have these things called Hello World, where, like, don't get into it and say, you know what, I've never coded before, but let me just commit a game to PlayStation Store right away. I'll give myself a week. If I can't do it, then probably not for me.
00:37:55
Speaker
Ideally, that would be a great world if we live here. Hopefully, we're there, but the reason Hello World exists is it gives a short little example from any coding language of how to run your first application and write Hello World. That's the whole thing about it. If you want to do Python, I would Google Hello World in Python. If you want to do C Sharp or anything in Unity, Hello World in Unity,
00:38:24
Speaker
GitHub is a great example. You can search the whole thing for whatever you want. You could type in badmintonvideogame in Unity. You could take the code, it's all open source, read the licenses, of course, because there could be a pay once you get to a certain point, whatever it is. See if you can get it up and running and change it. Another good approach I just realized is if there's code out there already from GitHub that you can run,
00:38:50
Speaker
run it locally
Closing Remarks with Humor
00:38:52
Speaker
on your machine and see if you can change it. If someone made a cool little calculator app or something on a website, go to GitHub, download it, see if you can run it, and see if you can add buttons to it. For me, it's much easier to change an app that exists than, okay, here's a blank canvas. Blank canvas is probably
00:39:16
Speaker
a big deterrent sometimes, right? It is. That should be for more seasoned developers too, right? Yeah, for sure. Starting from scratch is the default, right? Yeah. I think the new default should be take some code, run it, and add change. See what happens. Scientifically poke the bear. Yeah. What do they call that? The process is called refactoring and development term for it. You take the coding, you refactor it.
00:39:43
Speaker
Right. And just kind of make it your own and that will help you, you know, achieve whatever you need to achieve. But yeah, the main thing is don't be afraid and don't worry. It won't break.
00:39:55
Speaker
Yes, especially because you downloaded it to your machine and you can always re-download it and start from scratch because GitHub is an indefinite history of all of the different changes committed over time. And also back up your code. If you ever make something good, don't assume that your hard drive is bulletproof.
00:40:16
Speaker
just because it has BitLocker, you know, your computer can get stolen or whatever it is, right? Back up your stuff. You might want it someday for a portfolio, make a portfolio when you're shopping yourself around to different companies. If you do go through with that as a career path. And yeah, again, long story short, get into coding, try it out. You're going to love it. Rui and I both love it. Almost everyone that's still in the industry to this day
00:40:43
Speaker
I don't personally know someone that like, yeah, I got into coding and then completely got out of it. I feel like once you can really sink your teeth into it, you end up falling in love. Yeah, absolutely. I agree with you, man. All right, so two minutes left. So yeah, thank you, everyone. Really? Any last words before we head on out like a baby? Any last words? Not really. Why are elevator jokes so good?
00:41:12
Speaker
I don't know. Cause they can only go up. I don't know. They work on so many levels. That is great. Happy Friday. And we are out.