Clojurians Log v2

@orestis Thank you! I think I have a high level understanding now, at least enough to understand “returns a lazy sequence” when I come across it in Clojure Docs, which is all I probably need just yet.

(Ever grateful to Slack for allowing message editing when I catch my typing-while-walking errors)

I asked this question over in #jobs-discuss too, but I now have six months ahead which I’m planning to half-dedicate to becoming employable as a junior developer. If anyone has any further advice on what I should learn and do in that six months to give myself the best chance possible, I’d be really interested to hear.

I see there’s a good discussion going already in the #jobs-discuss channel, I’ll just add that my college degree is in teaching high school French, and my only actual college course in computers was taught by a math teacher who’d been handed a DEC PDP-11 manual and told “Congratulations, you’re now our new CompSci professor.”

I worked my way into my first developer position via working at various help desks and learning everything I could about computers, and coding for fun.

I’ve interviewed a lot of candidates for dev jobs over the years, and I was always astonished at how many applicants we had from prestigious CompSci programs at famous tech schools who flat out didn’t use computers unless they had an assignment due. Um, no, thanks very much.

So when you say “use computers” what do you expect?

That’s probably my biggest insecurity, in all honesty, as it feels like that’s where the potential to really break lies, and I’m scared of really breaking things

@manutter51 that doesn’t make much sense to me

computer science is not about using computers

there’s plently of world-class computer scientists who can barely use a computer

@bronsa That’s true. Computer science in a research context is more math-y than hands-on, get-a-web-site-running stuff

@amelia When I say “use computers” I mean literally just that, as in these kids would only go to the computer lab when they had an assignment due, the rest of the time they were busy watching tv or drinking beer or whatever. Granted, this was before smart phones and social media, so the situations probably not quite that stark these days

Just the fact that you’re learning Clojure/programming on your own, and asking about it online, puts you miles ahead of those guys already.

Those guys gave me the impression they had no real interest in computer programming, they just heard the pay was good, or something.

not that there’s anything wrong with being in it for the money ;)

It does pay rather well 🙂

What I really want is to be a founder. I already am really, but I know how much easier it would be if I could legitimately say I were a technical founder.

And even if I weren’t, if I had a technical co-founder, to be able to understand them properly, hold intelligent conversations and have confident input into decisions feels invaluable

To be honest @amelia what you are after doesn’t easily come in 6 months — but you can make quite some progress towards it 🙂 I’d invest at some generic Computer Engineering books, e.g. the Pragmatic Programmer etc. that might accelerate you a bit.

The six-month goal is just employability at junior level, sorry if that wasn’t clear! If it doesn’t work out in that time, it doesn’t work out - I’ve still learned valuable skills. 🙂

(I say “just” only because others have set my expectations at six months being a reasonable amount of time for this, not to be dismissive!)

I'm loving the discussions here. It's amazing to see this really technical community taking a step back to consider how people with minimal or no backgrounds can approach learning the ins and outs. I hope this will escalate more and more throughout readmes, tutorials and posts. Some people, like me, don't have a Clojure community to be a part of, or meetings to go, or anything (geography is an issue). I depend on online conversations like the one above, like the recent in #jobs-discuss, to get a good grasp of how you all think, what is really important to consider and to focus. Thanks everyone, I know there are many busy people here devoting a bit of their day. And @amelia, just being brave enough to openly define your limitations and ask for help already generated material that is important to other people, so keep the questions coming please.

One suggestion for beginners, Mr. Michael Sperber provided this resource at ClojureD 2018 as one of the best for beginners, it’s also available for free - http://www.htdp.org/2018-01-06/Book/

I've seen here and there people mentioning SICP classes. I've just started reading the book so I wondered: should I use some other material alongside the book in order to digest it better, like some class that is available online or tutorial? Any other tips?

@anantpaatra I’d suggest that if you’re gonna work through SICP in Clojure you keep some Clojure material close to hand. I think there’s an attempt to “port” SICP’s exercises to Clojure, but the book itself uses mutability in ways which are idiomatic Scheme and poor Clojure. The book itself is a really great text on computing tho and it was definitely one of the highlights of my education.

I advise following SICP in racket rather than clojure

Yeah, I guess it will be better if I follow it using Guile or something. I want to read it to get deeper into computing, not necessarily because of Clojure.

Oh, OK. I intend to go on a really slow pace so not to get too confused. Racket seems nice.

I’m not a big fan of idealization. Started SICP but never finished. I’d advise a bit more pragmatic approach.

Sorry, I don't understand what you mean by idealization. Can you explain a bit more? I want to be as pragmatic as possible about this book.

In this case - idealization of SICP.

Regarding a bit more pragmatic approach here’s my suggestion: if you’re beginner then start with How to Design Programs (2nd edition) > Programming Clojure 3rd Edition > Clojure Applied: From Practice to Practitioner

I'll meditate on that. Thank you a lot for the tip. I really need to work on my general computing knowledge and I hear so much about SICP that I thought it would be a logical next step.

You’re most welcome. I’ve just shared my experience with SICP.

As someone with a background in design and front-end who really likes the design-first approach, the preface of HTDP seems to talk my language. But I confess I also loved the foreword and prefaces of SICP. I'll slowly consider both "approaches" over the coming days before I decide which path to take.

Sure, try both see which one works for you. work hard and do it consistently.

I'd say Living Clojure is more approachable for beginners than Programming Clojure so maybe tackle that first (after HtDP2) /cc @anantpaatra

Thanks @seancorfield!