Is there a “traditional background” for programmers anymore?

Paths

• Educational paths toward programming 
  • Self-taught - blogs, articles, tutorials, online platforms like Udemy, code academy
  • 4-year computer science degree
  • 2-year “web design” degree
  • 12-week full-time boot camp
  • 6-month part-time bootcamps
  • Bootcamps that specialize in a discipline like data science, graphics design
  • Bootcamps that serve underrepresented groups - resilient coders, shecodes.io, 
    • time, attention, resources
  • Master in computer science
• Side door and back door entryways to tech 
  • Product management 
    • The mom test
    • product school
  • Project management
  • Support, then technical support
  • Solution architects
  • Developer marketing

Advice for people thinking about getting into programming

• Learn hello world
• Go through a codeacademy or similar interactive course
• Try to build something on replit or glitch where you don't need an actual environment set up
• Connect with other new devs on Twitter
• Use https://exercism.io/ to get feedback about your code, don’t work in a silo
• https://roadmap.sh/

How to pick a language or stack to start with in 2022

• Programming languages are tools
• Some are more commonly used to build specific things 
  • JavaScript/TypeScript - web (started as front end, now is also backend, is what browsers run), iot, drones, most things support javascript (Airtable, lambdas, google sheets, etc.)
  • HTML/CSS - web (front end only, structure and style)
  • Python - web, data, machine learning
  • Ruby - web, small utilities
  • PHP - web
  • C#/F# - enterprise, windows, azure, games like X-Box
  • Go - CLI tools, scalable servers and large-scale programs
  • Elixir - web, event-driven systems, distributed systems
  • Java - enterprise tools
  • SQL - data only, not for building applications
  • R - data
  • Fortran, COBOL, VBA, objective-c, Perl - I would not invest much in learning these unless it was required for a job I was already hired at
• CJ says - learn javascript, but then I say learn ruby and ruby on rails
• Whatever you decide, stick with it until you feel comfortable building decent working applications

Cord management

• Braided cable managers https://www.amazon.com/CrocSee-25ft-Management-Protector-Self-Wrapping/dp/B08FJ2WDMK
• Conway Electric pretty extension cords https://www.amazon.com/s?k=conway+electric&gclid=CjwKCAjw3qGYBhBSEiwAcnTRLmh5ke7bwCi9XoBwyjybypGPUD-TeEmXgoa4Ge6FBDkyFNYkRSpe0hoC7EUQAvD_BwE&hvadid=616991286179&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9002297&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=16357591836090420375&hvtargid=kwd-3626162047&hydadcr=24660_13611807&tag=googhydr-20&ref=pd_sl_27vjmz70n7_e
• Instagram desk setups -

Other mentions

Product school - https://productschool.com/

Black tech pipeline - https://blacktechpipeline.com/ 

wnb.rb - https://www.wnb-rb.dev/

codeacademy - https://www.codecademy.com/