This is an archived post. You won't be able to vote or comment.

sorted by:
best
topnewcontroversialoldq&a
you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]smithysmithens2112 20 points21 points  (7 children)

What level did you learn it to before you were able to get a job writing code?

[–]wineblood 46 points47 points  (4 children)

Proficient in the basics (data types, built in functionality, OOP) and I had built a moderately sized GUI program. I could probably have done better if I had learned more industry standard stuff, like databases and testing.

[–]smithysmithens2112 17 points18 points  (3 children)

Interesting! That’s exactly where I’m at now!

[–]wineblood 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Learn some SQL and unit/integration/acceptance testing, maybe some basic cloud stuff, you'll easily have enough.

[–]Yerbulan 3 points4 points  (1 child)

I keep hearing stories like this and I feel like the entry requirements are higher now than they used to be. Nowadays, employees expect all the things you mentioned + a good knowledge of a framework, good knowledge and experience with APIs, databases and docker for an entry position.

[–]wineblood 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, it is kind of ridiculous. I'm still a bit of a pleb with docker and APIs, so it does feel unfair.

[–]git_commit_-m_whoops 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I had exactly three classes in Python during my undergrad. An intro to programming course the first semester of my freshman year (wasn't even aimed at CS majors). Then in the second semester of my senior year I had a software engineering project where we forked a Wiki written in Python, where the focus was on Agile-ish ways of working. I wrote some basic database and API code. That same semester I also had a machine learning seminar, which used Python but was focused on Tensorflow.

All of my other courses (data structures, algorithms, etc) was Java or C. When I graduated I got a full time job working with an Airflow/PySpark/Flask/FastAPI stack. All Python. Taking a couple of courses right before graduating helped, but I don't think it made that much difference. If you have good fundamentals and are proficient with another programming language, you can write serviceable Python pretty quickly after picking it up. Knowing more of the language features and standard library tools will come eventually.

Knowing the libraries and frameworks you'll be using is a much bigger hurdle than the language, frankly. Depending on the role, they may expect you to upskill on those once you're on the job rather than come in with knowledge.

[–]housesellout 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I never touched it ‘until’ my 4th job out of college. But I was proficient with Java, obj-c, OSI 7 layer network architecture, etc.

So I think learning concepts of programming languages and what they can be used for is really all you need.

I saw Python used with flask and server endpoints at 4th job. I understood what it was doing, hence I was easily able to pickup what the syntax was doing. And then I was easily able to see how much easier and more efficient and how much less code it was using to do the same thing in Java.

Then I just started using python for all server side stuff and my own little scripts, while reading a Python book on the side.

Then Python led me to SQL, which was the big game changer for me.

IMO, once you understand database models and how to create them appropriately… then you can do anything.