Do Real Programmers Copy/ Paste Code From Stack Overflow?

[Applause] ah so this is an interesting question um let's see here I was working as an IT network administrator for two years then I started to learnnet from books so my project manager picked me up onto C project to become a manual tester I was developing a site with other programmers where I was just a helper for a company and it takes eight months I understand most of the code but 80% of it was copy past and modified from stack Overflow that's the question if I have eight months of experience whereas copying a modif finding code from asack overflow can I say I'm a programmer and find a job in another company question mark um you know what it takes to be called a be called a programmer can you do hello world hello world woohoo you're a programmer now you're a programmer that only knows how to do hello world but hey if they're willing to pay you 100 Grand a year to do hello world you're set right uh this is one of the big questions that comes up a lot of times basically when can I be called a programmer when can I be called a system administrator when can I be called whatever um and and basically you can be called it as soon as you your HOAs feel like you can be called it when you when you have enough confidence to say I am a fill in the blank that's that's really all you need right especially in the world of programming so if you have eight well so you have two years of it so so this is one thing too especially in the tech world don't discount other things that are relevant so you have uh 2 years as an IT network administrator Plus 8 months as a programmer doing stack Overflow so you have about three years experience in I um so I would argue uh yes you can call yourself a programmer and you can go out there and you can try to find a job now here's the thing in life again as I say many many many many many many many many many many times do not lie be careful how much you shine the turd go out there be honest be reasonable and see what people are willing to offer one of the things you have to understand in the world of coding right now is there something like 150,000 open positions like that there's nobody to fill uh coding has like a 2% unemployment rate um um so there are lots and lots and lots of jobs out there and so one of the things you have to realize is from the employer standpoint again the employer is always going to hire their best option that's available now again a lot of people get get this in their head and oh well I can't apply for jobs then I mean well maybe I can call myself a programmer but I'm not actually going to get hired but remember the best available so me as a boss I put out um help one a ad I get back 20 resumés and then the only people I can hire is from those 20 resumes so again if there's an MIT grad that's willing to work for 10 bucks an hour yeah I'm going to hire that person what do you think the chances are there's going to be an MIT grab that's willing to work for 10 bucks an hour in the pile no there's just going to be a pile right so they got to go and they got to sort through and they got to figure out uh what they want what they need so on and so forth so especially when you're new um and the nice part when you want to go into programming and the nice part especially coming from from system administrator to programming is the pay rate for programming is a lot higher so basically you could do a lateral move so if you're making $50,000 a year with two thou two years experience let's say um as a network engineer there's a very good chance you could go over as a very low-level programmer and still make $50,000 a year so the company looks at you as being incredibly cheap because they're paying their other programmer 60 70 80 so to so to them you're affordable and to you you're making the same money you were before or maybe slightly more uh right um and so basically what I would say is if I were you you got that two years experience blah blah blah I would go out there I would start putting out the resumés I would start talking to people um I would be honest and I would see what jobs are out there and what you can actually get right um because again I you know that that's one of the things I I say with a lot of these coders lot of these wantanabe coders and everybody wants to I want to hand code everything how do you know a noob how do you know somebody that is that is going to give you a migraine when they talk about how they only hand code everything like really you're going to hand code 100,000 lines of code when freaking 999,000 of those lines of code have already been written by somebody else that just doesn't even make a damn bit of sense right see the reality is this kind of like with a project you're on a lot of code is copied pasted modified from other places and made to fit together so again if you go out there and you're you're talking um um with these companies um you may find out they're more than happy uh to have you at that level and then they will train you up because again the big the big problem with Pro with uh getting people that want to go into programming is is do you have have the brain for it do you have do you understand like like functions or arrays or multi-level arrays like like trying to get most humans to like grasp the concept of a multi-level array just blows your brain Z so so even if even if they were five years trying to learn it they just wouldn't grasp a multi-level array you just can't make them do it so if you already have that aptitude um then then they can take that and they can train you up and again in a year uh in a different environment you may be able to get to be very good the other thing you do have to realize too is a lot of these companies they have their own code bases so just like your compan is using stack Overflow um you may go to that company and they have a repository of all their code so yeah you grab some of this and you grab some of this and you grab some of this and then you connect this thing to make this thing work and you're all good um so yeah I mean again it all depends on where you are in the world you know if you're in the middle of Nebraska and might be hard to find a job if you're in the middle of Silicon Valley it'll be easy right uh but as a general rule as a general rule I would say it sounds like you're in a pretty decent position you're in a pretty decent position you got theit experience plus you've got the programming experience you've been able to build the thing so that's all good and then like I say that whole copy pasting modifying that's what a lot of these folks do I mean again that's how that's how these companies make just gross amounts of money is just again is you you copy and you paste and you build this again you go and you you ask somebody you know is this solution worth $50,000 that's the only question is this solution worth $50,000 on they say yes hopefully they say yes well you know you go out you grab a bunch of code from somewhere else you modify it in you know 20 20 40 hours to make it work and hey guess what you just made you know $1,000 an hour right uh that's how a lot of this stuff works so uh so yeah no I'd say you're fine just go out there start smoing start putting out the resumés um the whole nine yards um again you'll probably start at a crappy position but again a crappy programming position um one isn't as crappy as a crappy it position uh and two um you should be able to move up the ranks relatively easily if you're a decent company um so yeah so that would be my thought the only thought that I thought I would have is um is also possibly just try staying with your company again the the more experience you can have I mean eight months you know eight months isn't bad plus your two years not bad not like it's not great either right um so if you can hold out like if I were you I would I would try to hold out at least for that year mark at least for that year mark uh because again year you know again it's a lot of storyline when you're getting hired a year sounds good two years as an IT system administrator one year of the same company is a programmer you want to move on that makes a little bit of sense eight months seems like a little you're a little flighty not horribly it's not like you're not going to get a job but it's not great um I would really see like if there's any way you could smoo and stick around for like maybe two years if you don't hate the company because if you have two years as an IT professional then you do two years of coding plus you already know all these people there you are you know people you have contacts you have resources you can schmooze don't discount that right when you go to a new company you're going to have to relearn everybody's names you're going to have to rebuild trust there's a lot of stuff like when you already work for a company um that you have that you don't really realize is that whole it's like that institutional knowledge you understand how the company works you understand who the bosses are you understand who to schmoo with so I would argue probably if I were in your shoes um I would really think about at minimum staying there a year just so you got a solid year that doesn't look too bad right um but then then if I could probably try to stick out like maybe like two years um while doing self-study on the side um that would probably be the best bet but yeah that would be the very very long the very very long answer but yeah again like I say with any of this programming or whatever um I mean as soon as you know how to say hello do hello world you can say you're a programmer um again it's all that's why I see with so many of these people so many of these people like they'll be really good I mean like again hello world is yes it's freaking exaggeration but there's a point to it um there will be so many people that'll be really good it'll be like really good uh but then for some reason they just don't have the confidence right they're like oh but I don't know it's like you know they'll be they'll know web programming they'll know they'll know like you know HTML and uh and and JavaScript and PHP but they don't know nodejs and then they'll be like oh Eli Eli everybody needs now nowadays needs to know node and you're like well yeah but I'm sure you could get hired with what you know no no no right um so yeah yeah you're good um yeah8 months is fine I I would try to stick out to the year though I would try to stick out to the year

Channel: The Daily Blob

Views: 231,100

Keywords: eli, the, computer, guy

Id: FBi3S97R60k

Length: 10min 8sec (608 seconds)

Published: Fri May 27 2016