When can I start applying for programming jobs?

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Radical
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Joined: January 15th, 2017, 9:16 pm
Location: Ontario

When can I start applying for programming jobs?

Post by Radical » October 10th, 2017, 1:47 pm

I am on beginner tutorial 11 right now; I know I am wildly unqualified for any programming position. But at what point in my learning journey will I be considered "not completely useless"?

To be honest, I have no interest in actually making programming my career. I'm just doing this because I think it would help me learn more quickly so I can eventually split off on my own. (That's the goal anyway)

albinopapa
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Location: Oklahoma, United States

Re: When can I start applying for programming jobs?

Post by albinopapa » October 10th, 2017, 6:27 pm

There have been several discussions on this forum about this, you could try searching or reading through the forum if you REALLY want to know our opinions.

Since you aren't really looking to make a career out of programming and just want to make your own stuff, my advice is going to be the same as chili's has been throughout the years, practice coding. Don't just read about it or watch vids. Make applications that aren't in the chili series using stuff you learned from chili and add new stuff that you pick up on your own. Look at cplusplus.com or cppreference.com for C++ related stuff. Use the relisoft website and others alongside the msdn website to start learning the Win32 API for making windows desktop applications.

It's not the same for everyone. I've been doing this for 5 years now off and on taking breaks along the way and I still feel like I'm not qualified to get a job as a programmer. Watch some programmer interview videos on Youtube, they go over what types of questions you might get asked when applying.
If you think paging some data from disk into RAM is slow, try paging it into a simian cerebrum over a pair of optical nerves. - gameprogrammingpatterns.com

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Radical
Posts: 38
Joined: January 15th, 2017, 9:16 pm
Location: Ontario

Re: When can I start applying for programming jobs?

Post by Radical » October 10th, 2017, 8:24 pm

You've only been programming for 5 years?? I may be biased due to my lack of experience, but you seem rather knowledgeable.

albinopapa
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Joined: February 28th, 2013, 3:23 am
Location: Oklahoma, United States

Re: When can I start applying for programming jobs?

Post by albinopapa » October 11th, 2017, 3:00 am

I started watching chili's tutorials back in Oct 2012, so it should prove his shit is worth sticking to. Chili does cover the language syntax and a few idioms of the language as well as the standard library. This really only gets you so far. Not that you need to learn everything before trying for a job, but outside of C++ there are algorithms and data structures that aren't language specific that would be beneficial to learn. It really all depends on the types of programs you want to make or what type of business you end up working for.

During my 5 yrs journey, I've learned a lot of the C++ language and library, some Win32 API stuffs for GUI apps, some DirectX libraries like D3D, D2D, DirectWrite ( fonts ) and how to use SIMD instructions like SSE or AVX which is used to speed up math operations. I have limited mathematical knowledge, so I'm limited on how far I can go on physics and graphics ( which sucks 'cause that's what interests me is graphics ).

The longest and most difficult part of my journey was Direct3D. I was looking for a magic bullet that would do stuff for me, but after a year and a half I had come to realize that Direct3D is basically a library for resource management. The real work has to be done by you and is accomplished by writing what are known as shaders.

If I had stopped looking for this "magic bullet", it probably wouldn't have taken me so long. There is a couple of sites that I used to help get me over this slump rastertek and directxtutorial. Rastertek has more tuts and is completely free, but the style of coding is C++ with habits of a C programmer ( not that you'd probably notice :) ). So use it as a Direct3D resource and not as a coding resource. DirectXTutorial.com to me has a better layout and clearer explanations of what everything does and how to use it, however there aren't as many tutorials and more than half of them you have to pay for. The owner hasn't updated the site in a couple of years, so not sure it would be worth paying the $50 USD. I did because I was stupid and thought he'd be adding more stuff, he hasn't. Nor has he responded to my email. Again, go for the info, not for the coding.
If you think paging some data from disk into RAM is slow, try paging it into a simian cerebrum over a pair of optical nerves. - gameprogrammingpatterns.com

JarredRow
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Joined: October 4th, 2017, 3:42 pm

Re: When can I start applying for programming jobs?

Post by JarredRow » October 12th, 2017, 3:58 pm

I was kind of wondering about the same thing as you Radical. Thanks for your input Albinopapa, you've definitely shed some light on the subject.

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