Agreed, the condescension is nauseating. It's extremely rude to tell someone who writes software as a day job and who is so enthusiastic about it that he is not a real programmer. Sure, he's closer to the beginning than the end of his journey as a programmer, but so what? He jumped in head-first, and just wanted to share that joy. I have to take a break from HN. Sometimes this community is a real downer.

Let's be honest and realistic for a moment.There are lots of young and very enthusiastic programmers out there but at the same time there are some older and more cinical ones too.My feeling is that when the older/professional programmers read articles that seem to oversimplify their profession, they feel threatened somehow at a very low level.And personally i can understand them and I feel the same sometimes. I feel that the programmers today are like a big suicidal herd waiting to be exploited by management people.I know that this will sound very awkward in US where the programmers may be at the same time entrepreneurs or self employed but in europe where the entrepreuneurs are crushed easily or have more dificulties, the view might be more conservative.How can I be happy when someone joins the profession, learns overnight some trendy technology and competes with me on some of the fewer and fewer jobs which seem to require less and less depth of knowledge and experience.Why are programmers so naive when all the other professions are restricting their gates through various tactics in order to mantain their advantages ?Again, this may sound extremely cinical and selfish but someone has to say it.Personally i feel myself betrayed by this profession which consumes my best but gives back less and less.Maybe it's just the crisis, maybe its like this only in europe or maybe not.

If we truly have senior members of the software community who feels threatened by a guy who picked up the basics of their trade in 12 weeks, they are perfect examples of why we should not have barriers to entry to our profession.

If you, after doing something for five+ years, isn't demonstrably a lot better at it than the guy who did it for 12 weeks, you have thoroughly squandered the opportunity given to you and, yes, you are extremely selfish for suggesting there should be external barriers raised to protect your advantage.

I, for one, am proud to work in an industry where the barriers to entry is only a cheap computer and an internet connection. Bring on the masses!

It goes the other way too.. If we truly have lots of software companies that prefer to employ and exploit juniors and put the quality and safety of their products on the last place for some bucks, companies that don't distinguish the capable from the wannabe's or simply don't want very capable people because of the fear that they will ask for better conditions, payments or promotions, companies that pay ridiculous wages while the enthusiastic geeks build platforms that will bring hundreds of thousands of $ to millions of $, then I think you will agree the programmers have to protect themselves somehow too.But they don't.Perhaps in US the demand for programmers is still high and u didn't experience the predatory software industry yet.But never mind.

Don't be. There are still barriers to entry in the profession. Sure one can cook up simple apps and google everything else after just weeks of learning, but if you sit down with somebody for a while you'll know and feel the difference. Which maybe the reason why more and more programmers are becoming entrepreneurs - management and other 'clients' usually have a poor eye on talent (esp. the young ones... you see the theme here), and to really make the most out of your expertise the logical conclusion is to build your own company out of what you know.

Of course management have a poor eye for programming talent. It's not their field.

Would you know a good mechanical engineer if you could only interview them for two hours and maybe see some of their past work? A good massage therapist? A good financial planner?

What if management included programmers? What hope do you have then? I was just recently at a company that never even gave me a chance to write one line of code.

I live in Europe and I don't see how it's different here than anywhere else. The great thing about programming is that it allows you to be an entrepreneur regardless of your geographical location. Nobody can "crush" me except the market if I'm not smart enough.

No irony or sarcasm here but I would love to get some links or directions towards startup hubs in europe.I'm interested in attending conferences for young entrepreneurs or events like this.If they are very few or almost none, then I see myself forced to conclude that europe it's a bit different (than USA at least). Sorry for running off topic.

My biggest problem with the article is that it's essentially a puff piece about how awesome the writer thinks he is, and how special he is for being able to learn the basics in a short amount of time. The post is entirely too hand-wavy about actual details; telling someone to read some blogs, Q&A sites and code doesn't help anyone.

Where is the substance? Were there any interesting ah-ha moments? What would he do differently? What guidelines would he give to someone else in a similar position? How did he find an appropriate mentor? What was he surprised to learn? What can he do now that he couldn't do when he started?

There's so many things he could have documented that would have been helpful. He didn't write any of them. Instead, he made the implementation details seem mystical and gives the opinion that "hard work" (whatever that is) is the only key.

>Were there any interesting ah-ha moments?

Yes, all of them. I have them every day. Today's was Solr's facet.limit/.prefix/.mincount methods as it relates to what I'm working on. Nothing stands out because it was a huge bolus of information.

>What would he do differently?

Nothing.

>What guidelines would he give to someone else in a similar position?

http://mattdeboard.net/2011/11/23/how-i-became-a-programmer/

>How did he find an appropriate mentor?

I was lucky. I answered this both in the comments and in this thread.

>What was he surprised to learn?

The level of apathy among a lot of programmers.

>What can he do now that he couldn't do when he started?

I can program now, so there's that.

You think it's hand-wavy because you think I'm holding something back. I busted my ass dude, I worked very hard. That's not hand-wavy, that's just really what happened. I taught myself a lot of shit by reading, asking questions and trying new stuff. There's no mystery or secret sauce.

I think you're misinterpreting my comment. I actually liked the article. I was simply explaining some of the reasons some people may have viewed it negatively. You could have done a better job of explaining the process. It's basically a black-box where you go in, work hard for 12 weeks, and then you're a programmer. You're missing a real opportunity to share (what could be) a better story.

What did you actually program though? That's all I want to know. What did you build and how did you decide what to build? How small did you start? What was the biggest project you undertook before you got hired?

It's all on github, that's why I linked to it in the post.

No, it isn't a puff piece, he's not going on about how awesome he is, he is just saying "Hey look, you can get a entry job programming without learning how to program for 4 years.", and then goes on to say how he does it. If he spent all of his time documenting everything so you could be satisfied then he wouldn't of turned up where he was, and in no way was he actually planning on writing that blog post until tons of people on Hacker News started messaging him after he mentioned it in a post.

He spent a substantial amount of time talking about his motivation to become a programmer. The other jobs he worked at, etc. Then once it comes to how he actually did it, he drops the ball and misses a great opportunity to tell an interesting story. I don't think anyone is asking for a day-by-day or hour-by-hour recap, or a step-by-step tutorial, but he could have done a much better job with adding some more substance there. I actually liked a lot of the article, but I thought it was a missed opportunity overall.

Ahh I misread into your post. Yeah, the article wasn't well written and could've gone into more detail about different things but honestly I feel that an experienced programmer would know a better route for someone to take, for example I know a lot of programmers suggest people start with SICP.

Starting someone who has no programming experience with SICP is idiotic.

The book was written for an introductory programming course at MIT. It is more rigorous of a book then most and may not be for everyone starting programming, but the right people will seek it out. It is also invaluable in that it teaches the programmer about programming more then languages.

Exactly -- the right people will seek it out.

Seeking things out doesn't just mean you read these things on articles or stumble upon them in libraries, it can also detail things like conversations with other people. Either way it is just an example that a guru might have a path that someone can follow that will get them somewhere quicker then a non-guru.

You're misunderstanding. I disagree with your fundamental premise, which seems to me to be that SICP will take someone from zero to hero quicker than more accessible methods.

My blog has comments. My email address is in my HN profile. If you wanted more information you could've asked instead of insulting me.

I don't think he was trying to be insulting. From what I gather, he was trying to justify the negativity theme in the comments for this post, which was the subject of the original comment. I agree that the blog post was not detailed enough, and didn't talk enough about HOW you became a programmer in 12 weeks.

What kind of information do you mean? I programmed, asked questions, programmed, read source code, and programmed. There's zero magic. I learned in the same way all human beings learn.

We're knowledge workers. I gained enough programming knowledge to be a programmer. Where's the confusion?

Being a programmer myself, this is a bit theoretical but I think if I wasn't and I sat down to read an article names "How I became a Programmer", I would expect a couple of pointers to where to start, what to do and how to do it.

Besides from the point about learning a language rather than a framework, your post mostly says "It took me 12 week to learn programming" and that the way to do it is the obvious: read stuff, try stuff etc.

There is nothing wrong with this of course, but given the headline, especially here on HN, I can see why some might feel that they didn't quite get their money's worth.

Judging by the huge volume of emails and comments on the blog, retweets and all that good stuff the article generated, I feel pretty good about the article

Where's the content?

Did you read the article?

Try separating yourself from the content for a moment and you'll see he isn't insulting you, but finding holes in your work.

One thing you'll notice here is that the community is very blunt, and often comes across as rude, but as a new hacker myself I've grown to appreciate the honesty.

Buddy I was a Marine for over ten years and spent years in combat zones. There is a difference between bluntness/honesty and disrespect/rudeness, and I am well acquainted with what that line looks like.

And I was an Army Soldier in Afghanistan. That has nothing to do with any of this. It's clear your feathers are easily ruffled. I'd work on that.

"it's essentially a puff piece" Sounds pretty insulting to me.

Dr. Norvig agrees with you:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3278080