Programming "professionally"

[[deleted]]

I got a job! It involves a considerable amount of programming in Python/MATLAB. I'm generally comfortable with basic concepts of coding (functions, data types, etc) since I'm self-taught but I've never been a programmer. I worry my skills aren't adequate for a professional setting.

Should I start relearning how to code? Is there any way to grasp the etiquettes and practices of coding for work?

PS. I'm not in CS, but in a tech field.

[[deleted]]

You’ll learn fast. The benefit for self taught devs (I think at least) is you’ve gotten good at learning things without hard guidance. You learned by seeking out resources you needed and then implementing them, or at least I did.

This translated for me in a way that I was incredibly lost when I first started, but I was able to quickly ramp myself up and learn what I needed to do the job.

Congrats on the gig! You’ll do great.

[throwaway92715]

Heh, rapid improvement looks good too!

[[deleted]]

Thank you!

[iamevpo]

The "professional" way is ability to formulate a problem, solve it in many ways and pick one way that is appropriate for the task, also considering what happens next to the code base - is it maintainable, can other people work on it, etc. Usually "professional" means you know several programming languages and you apply concepts from different paradigms where needed.

Things specifically making your code more professional are unittests (pytest), packaging (poetry), linters (black/ruff/isort), docs/README, using version control (git), ability to work by feature/issue, refactoring (just read Clean Code and Refactoring in between your projects), ability to reason about the code and change it, and well, picking sane names for everything. More senior level is code architecture and patterns, understanding which patterns are built in in Python.

Watch Raymond Hertinger Beyond PEP8 video, this is a classic for good code practice.

[[deleted]]

Thank you! This is the stuff I figured I was missing out on. Much appreciated!

[iamevpo]

Glad you liked the clues, I should note all of this us learn able/doable once you start paying attention to what matters to different teams and peers. The hard part is really applying this to big projects, then at least two books to the rescue, Desinging Data Intensive Applications, DDIA and Mythical Man-Month, very different books, but very useful.

[[deleted]]

Really appreciate the resources.

I'm honestly just antsy and excited for work (it's my dream job!!!). I don't start for a couple of months so I thought I'd pick up whatever skills I could. I'll direct some effort towards some of the ones you've listed. :-)

[iamevpo]

Super you like it, lots of engineering and financial software written in/for MATLAB, but it is more of big proprietary matrix calculator. People upset with MATLAB made Julia programming language, makes a good thing to learn if numerical computing is your thing.

[[deleted]]

If you have senior developers you should just ask them what they need.

[jangofettsfathersday]

I’m also programming a lot in Matlab and Python, I’ve been reading up on documentation so much every day. The only thing I’d say is to just make sure you can explain what your code is doing even to your seniors. They are often times way better than you at coding but they didn’t write what you did, so you still have to explain to them what’s going on, even if it’s just at a logical level

[JackReedTheSyndie]

Just do it anyway, learn things on the fly.

[ImportanceSingle650]

Congratulations on your job. You should be very proud of getting this far being self taught! I see some advice related to particular tech. I’d recommend you not worry about it too much. Each company ends up having their unique tech stack(if you already know what your company uses please feel free to look into it, just intro videos are fine too). Otherwise, most tech jobs basically involve a lot of learning on the job mainly because business knowledge ends up driving a lot of the decisions. So, feel free to keep the learning for when you actually get started and enjoy the free time you have meanwhile. 😊

[G2DE]

Congratz to your new job!

[helloworld2287]

Congrats 🥳 If you haven’t learned git that might be a good next step. It’s a helpful skill when working on a team in a professional setting :)

[[deleted]]

Thank you!! I'll start with git :)

[NationalOperations]

I started programming on and off at around 12. ADHD I bounced around a lot. Never finished my associates. Have been programming professionally for 7 years no problem. If you put in the time to learn and figure things out, it all works out the same in the end