Maintaining Coding Skills During Break

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Smith1776
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Maintaining Coding Skills During Break

Post by Smith1776 » Wed Jan 01, 2020 4:31 pm

Hey guys,

Do any of you do coding and programming? In this semester upcoming I'll be doing a bunch of math courses and an english course, but no programming courses.

Have you guys tried platforms like Codecademy (pro?), Hack Design, or Udacity?

I'd like to maintain and even grow my skills during this break, does anyone have experiences with these platforms and their effectiveness?
I still find the James Rickards portfolio fascinating.
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Re: Maintaining Coding Skills During Break

Post by drumminj » Wed Jan 01, 2020 5:17 pm

I've not used any of those, but many years ago I was laid off and it took me 9 months to find another gig. To keep myself sharp, I found side projects that interested and challenged me (at the time, learned JavaScript and to program Firefox extensions, coming from a background of C++).

Any ideas of tech you've wanted to try out? Cool project ideas?
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Re: Maintaining Coding Skills During Break

Post by Smith1776 » Wed Jan 01, 2020 5:48 pm

drumminj wrote:
Wed Jan 01, 2020 5:17 pm
I've not used any of those, but many years ago I was laid off and it took me 9 months to find another gig. To keep myself sharp, I found side projects that interested and challenged me (at the time, learned JavaScript and to program Firefox extensions, coming from a background of C++).

Any ideas of tech you've wanted to try out? Cool project ideas?
Hmmm the passion project angle is interesting and a good idea!

Given that I have a penchant for finance (hence being on the forum of course), I've always been attracted to the whole blockchain/cryptocurrency thing. I don't have a specific idea at the moment, but I have seen some javascript tutorials on how to make a basic cryptocurrency that look decent.

I also like the idea of making novel apps or games... one of the nice things about programming is also its problem: too many options!

I will have to mull this over for a bit.
I still find the James Rickards portfolio fascinating.
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Re: Maintaining Coding Skills During Break

Post by Xan » Wed Jan 01, 2020 10:54 pm

You should consider contributing to free software projects. Not only will it keep your skills sharp, but you'll make connections, build a really interesting portfolio, and none of your work will be hidden by NDAs or anything.

PointedStick IIRC is some kind of bigwig now at the KDE project. He might be able to point you in an interesting direction.
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Re: Maintaining Coding Skills During Break

Post by Smith1776 » Wed Jan 01, 2020 11:28 pm

Xan wrote:
Wed Jan 01, 2020 10:54 pm
You should consider contributing to free software projects. Not only will it keep your skills sharp, but you'll make connections, build a really interesting portfolio, and none of your work will be hidden by NDAs or anything.

PointedStick IIRC is some kind of bigwig now at the KDE project. He might be able to point you in an interesting direction.
Thanks, Xan! I'll look into this. A friend of mine from one of my classes is working on a video stream site. Another is crafting a pretty interesting RPG video game.
I still find the James Rickards portfolio fascinating.
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Re: Maintaining Coding Skills During Break

Post by Tortoise » Thu Jan 02, 2020 2:20 am

For math-related recreational programming challenges that are relatively structured and don't take a huge amount of time, there's Project Euler:

https://projecteuler.net/

Whenever you have some spare time, you can solve one or two of the problems by writing a program in the language of your choice. To stay sharp in multiple languages, you can solve different problems using different languages.

Of course, that's just recreational programming. It won't keep you sharp in actual software engineering skills, i.e., working on large, complex software systems. For that, Xan's suggestion of contributing to a free software project is probably better.
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Re: Maintaining Coding Skills During Break

Post by Pointedstick » Thu Jan 02, 2020 5:53 pm

Xan wrote:
Wed Jan 01, 2020 10:54 pm
You should consider contributing to free software projects. Not only will it keep your skills sharp, but you'll make connections, build a really interesting portfolio, and none of your work will be hidden by NDAs or anything.

PointedStick IIRC is some kind of bigwig now at the KDE project. He might be able to point you in an interesting direction.
Hello again. :)

Here's all the practice you'll ever need, Smith1776: https://community.kde.org/Get_Involved/development. And you can be a part of something huge and consequential that really matters. Shameless plug: https://pointieststick.com/
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Re: Maintaining Coding Skills During Break

Post by Xan » Thu Jan 02, 2020 7:37 pm

Smithy, would you work on the per-screen scaling factors? That would be really handy because I have a small HiDPI laptop connected to a big honkin' monitor at home. I need a lot more scaling on the laptop. Thanks! :-)
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Re: Maintaining Coding Skills During Break

Post by Pointedstick » Thu Jan 02, 2020 8:35 pm

If you want to, the WIP patch is at https://phabricator.kde.org/D12405. There's talk of maybe being able to do it come Qt 5.14 that kind of flew over my head. Someone much smarter than me should really investigate.

BTW Xan, FUSE mounts just landed today. :)
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Re: Maintaining Coding Skills During Break

Post by Xan » Thu Jan 02, 2020 8:44 pm

Very cool, PS. Thanks to you and everyone at the project for all the great work. I think KDE is far underrated.

In my salad days I used to run Gentoo and compile everything locally. Nowadays I'm on Debian stable. I don't have much (any!) spare time to devote to custom versions of packages. So it'll be quite a while before I get Qt 5.14. But definitely something to look forward to.
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Re: Maintaining Coding Skills During Break

Post by Pointedstick » Thu Jan 02, 2020 8:53 pm

You're welcome. I truly love it. I don't feel like I worked a day in 2019 (got hired to do it full-time). We won't be underrated for long because we're going to take over the world muahahahahahahaha 8)

The latest Debian stable made the mistake of freezing with Plasma 5.14.5, which was not an LTS version, so its bugs are going to just stick around for ever and ever (We're on Plasma 5.17 and are launching 5.18 next month). "It's not really stable, just old." ;) If you like discrete release distros, I would strongly recommend Kubuntu instead. See also https://kde.org/distributions.
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Re: Maintaining Coding Skills During Break

Post by vnatale » Fri Jan 03, 2020 8:24 am

Smith1776 wrote:
Wed Jan 01, 2020 4:31 pm
Hey guys,

Do any of you do coding and programming? In this semester upcoming I'll be doing a bunch of math courses and an english course, but no programming courses.

Have you guys tried platforms like Codecademy (pro?), Hack Design, or Udacity?

I'd like to maintain and even grow my skills during this break, does anyone have experiences with these platforms and their effectiveness?
Somewhat related? Are you already beyond this?

https://www.codingdojo.com/

Vinny
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
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Re: Maintaining Coding Skills During Break

Post by Smith1776 » Fri Jan 03, 2020 2:08 pm

Tortoise wrote:
Thu Jan 02, 2020 2:20 am
For math-related recreational programming challenges that are relatively structured and don't take a huge amount of time, there's Project Euler:

https://projecteuler.net/

Whenever you have some spare time, you can solve one or two of the problems by writing a program in the language of your choice. To stay sharp in multiple languages, you can solve different problems using different languages.

Of course, that's just recreational programming. It won't keep you sharp in actual software engineering skills, i.e., working on large, complex software systems. For that, Xan's suggestion of contributing to a free software project is probably better.
Excellent! I've been hoping to breakdown my practice time into two facets: The first being exercises like this, and the next being working on some kind of project.

This will cover the first part of that. The name of Project Euler is fitting given my sig, too!
I still find the James Rickards portfolio fascinating.
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Re: Maintaining Coding Skills During Break

Post by Smith1776 » Fri Jan 03, 2020 2:21 pm

Pointedstick wrote:
Thu Jan 02, 2020 5:53 pm
Xan wrote:
Wed Jan 01, 2020 10:54 pm
You should consider contributing to free software projects. Not only will it keep your skills sharp, but you'll make connections, build a really interesting portfolio, and none of your work will be hidden by NDAs or anything.

PointedStick IIRC is some kind of bigwig now at the KDE project. He might be able to point you in an interesting direction.
Hello again. :)

Here's all the practice you'll ever need, Smith1776: https://community.kde.org/Get_Involved/development. And you can be a part of something huge and consequential that really matters. Shameless plug: https://pointieststick.com/
Very interested! I'm going to start reading through this today. Thanks so much! This does indeed look quite a bit more impactful than just making another small time youtube competitor or something.

I actually quite like KDE. My first exposure was waaay back in 2010 or so when I was running an AMD Athlon X2 machine with 2GB RAM and an 8800 GTS. Switching back and forth between Windows and Linux to fire up a game on my breaks was a daily ritual.

My primary experience is in the web development side. Javascript, Ruby on Rails, Node, etc. I'm hoping some of my skills will translate!
I still find the James Rickards portfolio fascinating.
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Re: Maintaining Coding Skills During Break

Post by vnatale » Fri Jan 03, 2020 5:58 pm

Smith1776 wrote:
Fri Jan 03, 2020 2:08 pm
Tortoise wrote:
Thu Jan 02, 2020 2:20 am
For math-related recreational programming challenges that are relatively structured and don't take a huge amount of time, there's Project Euler:

https://projecteuler.net/

Whenever you have some spare time, you can solve one or two of the problems by writing a program in the language of your choice. To stay sharp in multiple languages, you can solve different problems using different languages.

Of course, that's just recreational programming. It won't keep you sharp in actual software engineering skills, i.e., working on large, complex software systems. For that, Xan's suggestion of contributing to a free software project is probably better.
Excellent! I've been hoping to breakdown my practice time into two facets: The first being exercises like this, and the next being working on some kind of project.

This will cover the first part of that. The name of Project Euler is fitting given my sig, too!
This Topic also had some discussion of Euler: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=7590

Vinny
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
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Re: Maintaining Coding Skills During Break

Post by Pointedstick » Fri Jan 03, 2020 8:54 pm

Smith1776 wrote:
Fri Jan 03, 2020 2:21 pm
Very interested! I'm going to start reading through this today. Thanks so much! This does indeed look quite a bit more impactful than just making another small time youtube competitor or something.

I actually quite like KDE. My first exposure was waaay back in 2010 or so when I was running an AMD Athlon X2 machine with 2GB RAM and an 8800 GTS. Switching back and forth between Windows and Linux to fire up a game on my breaks was a daily ritual.

My primary experience is in the web development side. Javascript, Ruby on Rails, Node, etc. I'm hoping some of my skills will translate!
We're actually desperately in need of web devs. This is in fact one of the best ways to make an impact, fast. Let me put you in touch with our web guy, Carl Schwan: carl@carlschwan.eu. Tell him Nate sent you his way.
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Re: Maintaining Coding Skills During Break

Post by Smith1776 » Sun Jan 05, 2020 2:28 pm

Pointedstick wrote:
Fri Jan 03, 2020 8:54 pm
Smith1776 wrote:
Fri Jan 03, 2020 2:21 pm
Very interested! I'm going to start reading through this today. Thanks so much! This does indeed look quite a bit more impactful than just making another small time youtube competitor or something.

I actually quite like KDE. My first exposure was waaay back in 2010 or so when I was running an AMD Athlon X2 machine with 2GB RAM and an 8800 GTS. Switching back and forth between Windows and Linux to fire up a game on my breaks was a daily ritual.

My primary experience is in the web development side. Javascript, Ruby on Rails, Node, etc. I'm hoping some of my skills will translate!
We're actually desperately in need of web devs. This is in fact one of the best ways to make an impact, fast. Let me put you in touch with our web guy, Carl Schwan: carl@carlschwan.eu. Tell him Nate sent you his way.
WILL DO. Yes, thank you!
I still find the James Rickards portfolio fascinating.
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Re: Maintaining Coding Skills During Break

Post by Jack Jones » Mon Aug 29, 2022 1:49 pm

Pointedstick wrote:
Thu Jan 02, 2020 8:53 pm
You're welcome. I truly love it. I don't feel like I worked a day in 2019 (got hired to do it full-time). We won't be underrated for long because we're going to take over the world muahahahahahahaha 8)

The latest Debian stable made the mistake of freezing with Plasma 5.14.5, which was not an LTS version, so its bugs are going to just stick around for ever and ever (We're on Plasma 5.17 and are launching 5.18 next month). "It's not really stable, just old." ;) If you like discrete release distros, I would strongly recommend Kubuntu instead. See also https://kde.org/distributions.
PS: you still doing work for KDE? How's it going/how was it?
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Re: Maintaining Coding Skills During Break

Post by Pointedstick » Mon Aug 29, 2022 10:00 pm

Jack Jones wrote:
Mon Aug 29, 2022 1:49 pm
PS: you still doing work for KDE? How's it going/how was it?
Still doing it and it's going very well. KDE is entering a period of rapid growth, which can always be a bit uncomfortable as old ways of doing thing are challenged and resources are stretched thin, but I think the results have been very good. KDE Plasma is used on the Steam Deck which has sold hundreds of thousands of units.
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Re: Maintaining Coding Skills During Break

Post by Xan » Mon Aug 29, 2022 10:45 pm

Pointedstick wrote:
Mon Aug 29, 2022 10:00 pm
Jack Jones wrote:
Mon Aug 29, 2022 1:49 pm
PS: you still doing work for KDE? How's it going/how was it?
Still doing it and it's going very well. KDE is entering a period of rapid growth, which can always be a bit uncomfortable as old ways of doing thing are challenged and resources are stretched thin, but I think the results have been very good. KDE Plasma is used on the Steam Deck which has sold hundreds of thousands of units.
Still using it here every day! (Although it's the version in Debian Stable so it's a bit behind.) Thanks PS!
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Re: Maintaining Coding Skills During Break

Post by Pointedstick » Tue Aug 30, 2022 7:25 am

You're welcome!

Though... honestly I don't recommend Debian Stable for KDE. They freeze on old versions that are out of support by KDE, meaning they take on the burden of support themselves. And in my experience they are not currently resourced to handle it.

I've become the primary bug triager for KDE and I get a depressing number of un-actionable bugs filed by Debian Stable user against Plasma 5.20.5, which are already fixed in newer versions of Plasma or can't be debugged because none of the developers are still using something that old and the relevant code has changed too much since then. At this point in time, Plasma's rapid release schedule is much better suited to a rolling release distro like openSUSE Tumbleweed or Arch, or a semi-rolling distro like Fedora KDE. Even a discrete release distro with a faster schedule like Kubuntu is a better choice than Debian Stable IMO. Another option is Debian Testing which will give you a much more recent KDE experience that has support from KDE itself.

If you choose to continue using Debian Stable and you find what you suspect is a bug in KDE software, please direct it to the Debian folks rather than KDE and encourage them to beef up their own support.
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Re: Maintaining Coding Skills During Break

Post by Xan » Tue Aug 30, 2022 5:41 pm

I'm willing to put up with older, frozen software if it means I don't have to worry about updating everything other than once every 2 years.

Bugs are always reported to Debian first, where they can deal with upstream if appropriate. Although more often I find I'm filing Debian bugs to have some upstream fix implemented.

Well, tradeoffs to any approach I suppose.
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Re: Maintaining Coding Skills During Break

Post by Smith1776 » Tue Aug 30, 2022 5:42 pm

I'm still using DOS.
I still find the James Rickards portfolio fascinating.
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Re: Maintaining Coding Skills During Break

Post by Pointedstick » Tue Aug 30, 2022 5:53 pm

Xan wrote:
Tue Aug 30, 2022 5:41 pm
I'm willing to put up with older, frozen software if it means I don't have to worry about updating everything other than once every 2 years.

Bugs are always reported to Debian first, where they can deal with upstream if appropriate. Although more often I find I'm filing Debian bugs to have some upstream fix implemented.

Well, tradeoffs to any approach I suppose.
Well I sure hope you update more often than once every two years, because Debian's packagers backport security fixes!

Thank you for reporting bugs to Debian first.
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Re: Maintaining Coding Skills During Break

Post by Xan » Tue Aug 30, 2022 5:56 pm

Hah, I suppose "upgrade" would have been a better word. Yes, I'm constantly installing backported security updates.

I also run Debian Stable (sometimes Oldstable for a while) extensively on servers, where I have less intersection with KDE. :-)
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