Omnimaga

General Discussion => Other Discussions => Miscellaneous => Topic started by: Freyaday on April 14, 2011, 04:53:07 pm

Title: Formal Training
Post by: Freyaday on April 14, 2011, 04:53:07 pm
I'm an autodidact.
Title: Re: Formal Training
Post by: Munchor on April 15, 2011, 07:39:28 am
I'm an autodidact.

You can be an autodidact and be one of the best in the world, but without taking a degree or a course, you won't be recognized.

Eitherway, I never had formal classes, but I once went to a tutorial in my university, not much like a class though.
Title: Re: Formal Training
Post by: Levak on April 15, 2011, 08:04:46 am
I was an autodidact during the HighSchool. For now, I follow my studies in a formal school (I don't know if we can say that).
Everything that I learned wasn't really new, but it involves to pratice with new tricks. Sometime it helps to see what terrible mistake you made in the past, it lets you discover new concepts, new ways of mind etc..

So yes, we can learn alone autodidactly and be the best of the world, but follow formal training could really be a plus.
And +1 for what Scout says.
Title: Re: Formal Training
Post by: ruler501 on April 15, 2011, 08:50:22 am
I wish I could have classes but my school district has no programming classes so I'll have to wait till college for programming
Title: Re: Formal Training
Post by: Freyaday on April 15, 2011, 09:35:14 am
They should have programming classes in elementary school.
Title: Re: Formal Training
Post by: Levak on April 15, 2011, 09:42:08 am
\o/
Title: Re: Formal Training
Post by: ruler501 on April 15, 2011, 01:02:22 pm
They should have programming classes in elementary school.
I wish they did. I started programming in elementary and that would really help me
Title: Re: Formal Training
Post by: Juju on April 15, 2011, 01:18:55 pm
I'm a mix of both: I'm autodidact, but I like when a teacher teaches me things. Then I go autodidact again and sometimes I teach things the teacher doesn't even know of.
Title: Re: Formal Training
Post by: AngelFish on April 15, 2011, 01:43:04 pm
I wouldn't be surprised to find that a unusually large number of people here are autodidacts, myself included. Most of the people here probably taught themselves BASIC to get started.
Title: Re: Formal Training
Post by: renatose on April 15, 2011, 02:36:23 pm
Long story:
I started the programming quest about 8 years ago, with an old laptop with MS-DOS 5.0 in it with QBasic (which had a 5* help file) and the floppy drive broken. I wanted to learn the basics to give some functionality to it besides Nibbles. So I started making simple calculators and then I made my awesome Mastermind game in quick basic which never escaped from that computer. If someone has some qbasic program that can make comunications trough the COM port I'd apreciate :p
Then I entered high school and get the TI-83 from my sister and learn't the TI-BASIC (YAY), I made tons of programs on it and the most acclaimed in my class was my tic tac toe with "HIAI" (Half-inteligent artificial inteligence).

I finally got formal programming classes in part of my last year of high school with Visual Basic and I made a mastermind for windows. My curiosity grew up and I went wild trying to learn java, C and C++ so I gave up from these and stayed with the hello world.
In the first semester of university I had classes of programming with MatLab. Then I got my Nspire CAS and learn't my "new" BASIC.
I got scared when I look to assembly code.
Now I'm learning Lua to make the tic tac toe and the mastermind for the nspire.

Short story:
Was autodidact with QBasic, TI-BASIC (83 and nspire) and Lua and I got formal lessons of VB and matlab.
The one I domine the best is TI-BASIC xD
Title: Re: Formal Training
Post by: Stefan Bauwens on April 15, 2011, 02:38:58 pm
No. I do homeschooling so there wasn't even a chance, but I learned by book and by brother (Jim)
Title: Re: Formal Training
Post by: z80man on April 15, 2011, 02:44:48 pm
Here's a good thought to think about.

Back in the 1950's when the computer was just being invented there was no such thing as programming classes. These pioneers (which includes my grandfather (which also explains why I was born with the asm programmer gene ;D )) invented programming and defined the rules. Weren't they all autodidacts then? Now why is it that in today's world you have to take formal classes just to be recognized as a good programmer. A good programmer should be recognized by the work and accomplishments they have achieved in the past.

Now I have always been a self taught programmer, but I'm now realizing that if I want to make this my career then I will have to study computer science in college. At my high school there is an AP computer science, but I'm already a more skilled coder then the teacher  :P I also looked at most college courses and realized that I wouldn't be learning anything significantly new until my third year.

Yeah so that's about it. 
Title: Re: Formal Training
Post by: Michael_Lee on April 15, 2011, 03:06:19 pm
I am currently self-taught, but am investigating the possibility of taking programming classes over the summer.

I guess I could try to learn everything on my own, and it might even be possible with the internet, but of course, it's nice to have somebody to guide me to consider things I normally wouldn't have thought about.
Title: Re: Formal Training
Post by: AngelFish on April 15, 2011, 03:16:36 pm
I've never had a formal programming class per se, but I'm currently enrolled in a computer science class (that has absolutely nothing to do with software).

I'm pretty much self taught in every area I have any kind of in-depth knowledge, such as Chemistry, Discrete automata, mechanical design, and BSing essays.
Title: Re: Formal Training
Post by: ZippyDee on April 15, 2011, 03:19:13 pm
Here's a good thought to think about.

Back in the 1950's when the computer was just being invented there was no such thing as programming classes. These pioneers (which includes my grandfather (which also explains why I was born with the asm programmer gene ;D )) invented programming and defined the rules. Weren't they all autodidacts then? Now why is it that in today's world you have to take formal classes just to be recognized as a good programmer. A good programmer should be recognized by the work and accomplishments they have achieved in the past.

Now I have always been a self taught programmer, but I'm now realizing that if I want to make this my career then I will have to study computer science in college. At my high school there is an AP computer science, but I'm already a more skilled coder then the teacher  :P I also looked at most college courses and realized that I wouldn't be learning anything significantly new until my third year.

Yeah so that's about it. 

Who says all of those people were good programmers just because they worked on the first computers? At that point there was no such thing as a GOOD programmer because there was nothing to base it off of. Good practice in programming hadn't been established enough yet to really say anything either way.
Title: Re: Formal Training
Post by: Builderboy on April 16, 2011, 01:04:12 am
I'm a self taught programmer but I can't wait to take more advanced classes so I can learn some in depth thinks like complex algorithms and stuff like that ^^
Title: Re: Formal Training
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on April 16, 2011, 01:25:22 am
I personally taught myself TI-BASIC using the TI-83+ guidebook. In classes I usually did some things in advance if I knew how to do it or learned things in advance. However I had troubles understanding some programming other than TI-BASIC so for that kind of stuff I prefered that the teacher teaches us how to do it.
Title: Re: Formal Training
Post by: Freyaday on April 16, 2011, 01:49:56 am
What I'm hoping to do is to test out of the prerequite class and go directly into the computer programming classes.
Title: Re: Formal Training
Post by: Darl181 on April 16, 2011, 02:02:32 am
I'm in a "programming" class as of now...
what we're using, alice (http://alice.org), is hardly programming tho...everything's drag-and-drop and taken care of for you.
Fortunately, we're almost done with this and will soon 'graduate' to...logo! :banghead:

I think in the AP class we're supposed to have real coding, java or something, but still.
Title: Re: Formal Training
Post by: Deep Toaster on April 17, 2011, 12:31:35 am
I'm in a web design class, but the only reason it's useful to me is for giving me another hour and a half to code. Otherwise I'm the same as a lot of other people here -- taught myself for the fun of it :)
Title: Re: Formal Training
Post by: Munchor on April 17, 2011, 01:36:43 am
I'm a self taught programmer but I can't wait to take more advanced classes so I can learn some in depth thinks like complex algorithms and stuff like that ^^

I feel the same way.
Title: Re: Formal Training
Post by: Munchor on April 18, 2011, 04:26:02 pm
Long story:
I started the programming quest about 8 years ago, with an old laptop with MS-DOS 5.0 in it with QBasic (which had a 5* help file) and the floppy drive broken. I wanted to learn the basics to give some functionality to it besides Nibbles. So I started making simple calculators and then I made my awesome Mastermind game in quick basic which never escaped from that computer. If someone has some qbasic program that can make comunications trough the COM port I'd apreciate :p
Then I entered high school and get the TI-83 from my sister and learn't the TI-BASIC (YAY), I made tons of programs on it and the most acclaimed in my class was my tic tac toe with "HIAI" (Half-inteligent artificial inteligence).

I finally got formal programming classes in part of my last year of high school with Visual Basic and I made a mastermind for windows. My curiosity grew up and I went wild trying to learn java, C and C++ so I gave up from these and stayed with the hello world.
In the first semester of university I had classes of programming with MatLab. Then I got my Nspire CAS and learn't my "new" BASIC.
I got scared when I look to assembly code.
Now I'm learning Lua to make the tic tac toe and the mastermind for the nspire.

Short story:
Was autodidact with QBasic, TI-BASIC (83 and nspire) and Lua and I got formal lessons of VB and matlab.
The one I domine the best is TI-BASIC xD


Hey renatose, you should really learn Assembly, I really like it. Or perhaps C for the nspire. Trying to learn Lua, aye? I know Lua but never tried it for calculator.

You seem to be addicted with MasterMind games :P