User Controls
Hey Sophie and other techs
-
2018-07-02 at 4:52 PM UTCYou made a post saying you had alot of resources for different things and I saw some things about python and I was hoping I could get everything you've got about python. I've worked as a tech before but never learned any programming. I've heard that if you know your stuff you can get a job without a degree, is this true? I don't really know what language to start with but I've heard that python programmers are in demand so that seems like a good of a spot to start as any. If I spent 10-20 hours a week learning do you have any idea how long it would take before I would be able to handle anything an employer could throw at me?
-
2018-07-02 at 9:08 PM UTCYeah. You can make money by involving yourself in blackhat activities.
-
2018-07-02 at 11:04 PM UTCi'm guessing you'd want to be at a level where you know you could handle anything that would need to be done. or at least be proficient enough to know you could learn new things easily on the fly. i started on python last year but only did very basics. i do need to get back into that sometime.
. -
2018-07-02 at 11:19 PM UTCi really recommend this as a brilliant beginners resource for learning the basics of python.
http://files.swaroopch.com/python/byte_of_python.pdf
. -
2018-07-02 at 11:22 PM UTCThe best way to learn Python is to Learn Python the hard way.
-
2018-07-03 at 12:56 AM UTCeveryone learns differently tho.
. -
2018-07-04 at 5:38 AM UTC
Originally posted by Madman You made a post saying you had alot of resources for different things and I saw some things about python and I was hoping I could get everything you've got about python. I've worked as a tech before but never learned any programming. I've heard that if you know your stuff you can get a job without a degree, is this true? I don't really know what language to start with but I've heard that python programmers are in demand so that seems like a good of a spot to start as any.
You can get a job without a degree. Historically self-learners have been well respected among programmers and generally considered to be completely capable of competing with degree holders. Often because the norm for a number of years was that degree holders had programming experience before entering college and considered themselves self-learners at heart. There's various stereotypes of scrappy kids teaching themselves to code, being "unpolished" but smart, good and bad but I think it worked in your favor in general if you knew what you were doing.
The advent of "bootcamps", non-accredited and highly condensed programs somewhat reminiscent of trades schools, have muddied the waters somewhat. I think one criticism of the bootcamp phenomenon is that it's made the situation for actual self-taught programmers more difficult since non-degree holders are now split between some official training (with no promises as to quality) in the boot camp case and no official training. Instead of being viewed as a kind of parallel path to professional programming, self-teaching is now the bad end of a spectrum of certification (unfairly, if you ask me).
That said I still think you can make it as a self-taught programmer, you just need a bit more hustle than you used to.If I spent 10-20 hours a week learning do you have any idea how long it would take before I would be able to handle anything an employer could throw at me?
You're never going to be able to put a good timetable on learning. Even in colleges where there's a formal scheduled curriculum there are people who could work as professional programmers their freshman year and people who graduate without being able to really put together a program. 20 hours a week is a lot, 10 hours a week is probably still a lot. I don't think most people can stomach that much of practicing something they're garbage at (and everyone's garbage when they start, naturally). You sometimes hear two years of regular practice tossed around, but no one seems to have any particular evidence for that number. It does seem uncommon to find someone who can go from no experience to being a reasonably competent professional in under a year. It was probably two years for me between starting to program seriously and realistically being able to hold down a job, although I was lucky to have a job I didn't really know how to do where I was allowed to learn as I went.
There's lots of resources for learning to program, which you choose really doesn't matter too much. I do like to plug How to Think Like A Computer Scientist. It's a bit of a difficult pitch to people looking to learn since what you think you want to learn is python. But actually you want to learn programming, and this book will do both for you although its title suggests neither.
The reason I suggest it over the many other excellent introductory resources on Python is because it goes through language constructs a sequence that's "natural" in that they reflect complexity and dependence of ideas within the language. That probably doesn't sound very meaningful, but contrast it with the typical approach where an author sits down and says "I want the reader to be able to do X by the end of the book", they think "they need Y and Z to do X, so we have to include chapters on Y and Z before the chapter on X" and repeat the process for Y and Z until they run out of topics. On the other hand TLACS asks "what's the smallest next thing you can learn exhaustively from what you know right now". The downside is that the very first chapter is a somewhat painful discussion of the expression/statement distinction which is something you typically handwave around until it becomes relevant to do the big X the book is building up to. The upside that you as a reader can go off-script and not get bitten in the ass by previously hand-waved material. There's also the fact that the exercises don't treat the reader like a retard who's terrified of math, which is always a plus.
I think the closest analogue is probably The Little Schemer which is an absolute hidden gem of computer science education which has tragically fallen out of fashion half because no one likes scheme anymore for some reason and half because the socratic method sews the seeds of social upheaval.
Originally posted by esbity The best way to learn Python is to Learn Python the hard way.
Putting the fact that Shaw is an asshole, I think there are some real flaws with LPTHW. The biggest being that it's woefully unambitious, it's not a small resource and the capstone project is a textmode adventure game. Shaw handwaves a bunch of stuff and, at least the last time I looked at it a few years ago, it was downright deceptive in how some of the more subtle language constructs operate. You can tell he's far more comfortable as a C programmer than in Python, which is curious seeing as he decided to write his python book before the C one (I have no idea how LCTHW turned out) -
2018-07-04 at 8:25 PM UTCstfu lamy
-
2018-07-09 at 9:36 PM UTCI have a question, should I get a linux operating system on my computer to start with? I have tails and I've messed around with some version of abuntu but should I go ahead and ditch windows and if so what linux OS should I use?
-
2018-07-09 at 9:45 PM UTCGenerally speaking you don't have to have any particular OS with the exception being that you need OSX for iphone development and windows for windows-specific stuff. Platform dependent stuff like that. Being comfortable in a linux environment is pretty common and some jobs will list it as a requirement but it's usually a pretty soft one. And the development experience on linux is generally a bit more pleasant IMO. But again, it usually doesn't matter, what you don't want to do is spend a week installing and tweaking a linux install just so and do zero programming.The following users say it would be alright if the author of this post didn't die in a fire!
-
2018-07-09 at 10:04 PM UTCThe following users say it would be alright if the author of this post didn't die in a fire!
-
2018-07-09 at 11:53 PM UTCI sent you the link via PM. It has e-books and resources on Python, C, ASM, and much more including security topics.
-
2018-07-10 at 12:07 AM UTC
Originally posted by Lanny Generally speaking you don't have to have any particular OS with the exception being that you need OSX for iphone development and windows for windows-specific stuff. Platform dependent stuff like that. Being comfortable in a linux environment is pretty common and some jobs will list it as a requirement but it's usually a pretty soft one. And the development experience on linux is generally a bit more pleasant IMO. But again, it usually doesn't matter, what you don't want to do is spend a week installing and tweaking a linux install just so and do zero programming.
Installing and tweaking a distro is fun though. Also makes you learn Bash while you're at it.The following users say it would be alright if the author of this post didn't die in a fire! -
2018-07-10 at 12:27 AM UTCOh yeah, it's fun and can be an educational experience. Its just something it's pretty easy to geek out over and spend a lot of time on when it's not really the core thing you need to be doing. I've wasted a lot of time setting up all my settings nice and comfy on servers I log into once every couple of months and that's time I'll never get back.
-
2018-07-10 at 2:40 PM UTC
Originally posted by Lanny Oh yeah, it's fun and can be an educational experience. Its just something it's pretty easy to geek out over and spend a lot of time on when it's not really the core thing you need to be doing. I've wasted a lot of time setting up all my settings nice and comfy on servers I log into once every couple of months and that's time I'll never get back.
I can relate, kind of, each new install i spend a lot of time just tweaking the distro instead of using it. I have a shitty laptop, which i had to do a re-install on several times. First i did Devuan, then i got it just right and i figured it's a silly rip off of Debian, so i installed Debian, then i thought well, Debian is a little too bare bones, so i went back to my default Ubuntu. It was an interesting journey but pretty useless in hind-sight.
Also my very first Linux install was Mint, i broke it like two weeks in IDK how i managed that but whatever, i am on Backbox Ubuntu & normal Ubuntu as default distro now basically for all my boxes. -
2018-10-08 at 1:03 AM UTC
Originally posted by Sophie I can relate, kind of, each new install i spend a lot of time just tweaking the distro instead of using it. I have a shitty laptop, which i had to do a re-install on several times. First i did Devuan, then i got it just right and i figured it's a silly rip off of Debian, so i installed Debian, then i thought well, Debian is a little too bare bones, so i went back to my default Ubuntu. It was an interesting journey but pretty useless in hind-sight.
Also my very first Linux install was Mint, i broke it like two weeks in IDK how i managed that but whatever, i am on Backbox Ubuntu & normal Ubuntu as default distro now basically for all my boxes.
care to give a l33t Sophie Ubuntu configuration walkthrough? As in any particular removals of things that could potentially be telemetry-related, etc.? ;-) I like Ubuntu as I assume 99% of people do but I'm a little worried that it's popularity as a distro means it's a target for the typical three-letter agencies -
2018-10-08 at 1:16 AM UTC
Originally posted by doofusrick care to give a l33t Sophie Ubuntu configuration walkthrough? As in any particular removals of things that could potentially be telemetry-related, etc.? ;-) I like Ubuntu as I assume 99% of people do but I'm a little worried that it's popularity as a distro means it's a target for the typical three-letter agencies
Use tails -
2018-10-08 at 1:19 AM UTC
-
2018-10-08 at 7:56 PM UTC
Originally posted by doofusrick care to give a l33t Sophie Ubuntu configuration walkthrough? As in any particular removals of things that could potentially be telemetry-related, etc.? ;-) I like Ubuntu as I assume 99% of people do but I'm a little worried that it's popularity as a distro means it's a target for the typical three-letter agencies
I just set up my install script and its pretty good. Makes setting up my systems much easier. -
2018-10-08 at 8:37 PM UTCi like computers and pythons that sounds like a cool language definitely getting laid for that one. hell yeah computer science wait why am I in a call center filled with indians
