The freeCodeCamp Podcast

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Vaughn Gene. He's a self-taught software engineer who works with lots of freelance clients. Vaughn lived in Japan for 10 years, and speaks Japanese, speaks Spanish, plays guitar, plays piano, and is skilled at MMA. He's obsessed with learning new skills.

We talk about: - How Vaughn struggled with high school and joined the Navy - How he learned Japanese so he could work as a personal trainer in Japan - How he learned coding using freeCodeCamp as a way to make more time and more money - His pragmatic approach for teaching himself new skills for free

Support for this podcast comes from a grant from Wix Studio. Wix Studio provides developers tools to rapidly build websites with everything out-of-the-box, then extend, replace, and break boundaries with code. Learn more at https://wixstudio.com.

Support also comes from the 11,043 kind folks who support freeCodeCamp through a monthly donation. Join these kind folks and help our mission by going to https://www.freecodecamp.org/donate

Links we talk about during our conversation:

Vaughn's YouTube channel and his approach to pursuing multiple skills in tandem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTnsjmsgJS8

Vaughn on Instagram where he posts guitar: https://www.instagram.com/vaughngene/

In this episode, Quincy tells the story of Alvaro Videla, who was living in poverty in Uruguay when he decided he wanted to learn to code. He had limited access to books and the internet. But he eventually got a job at Apple and other tech companies.

Article by Alvaro Videla: https://fcc.im/2fRSzwM

Read by Quincy Larson: https://twitter.com/ossia

Learn to code for free at: https://www.freecodecamp.org

Music: "Sounds of Wonder" by Vangough: https://fcc.im/2yQOq0q

Transcript:

At the end of 2006, I arrived at a crossroads in my life. My hopes of becoming a secondary school linguistics teacher had vanished in an instant, as several factors had come together and made it impossible for me to continue with my studies.

Back in my hometown of Durazno, Uruguay, my wife was working long hours for a meager $160 (USD) a month. Yes, that’s $1,920 a year. We had sacrificed our time together so I could become a teacher and get a better job because we were dreaming of a better future.

The problem with dreams is they tend to vanish when you wake up, and life’s alarm clock had just gone off.

Because my career trajectory had suddenly strayed off course, I moved back to my hometown to figure out my next steps. Needless to say, I was depressed at the way things were, and our living situation only made things worse. It was good to be back with my wife, but the reasons for it were stressful.

Additionally, we were sharing a house with my wife’s aunt, so our privacy was restricted to our bedroom, and we always felt like we were overstaying our welcome.

As a way to bring in extra income, we tried to sell homemade pasta on the streets. I would go door-to-door collecting orders for the weekend. “Hello, do you want to order ravioli to eat this Sunday?” I’d ask person after person. “Yes, they’re homemade. Just give us a time and we’ll deliver them.”

Then, after people ordered them, we spent our entire weekends making 2,000 ravioli only to end up with 500 pesos in our pockets, which comes about $20, not counting expenses.

The whole situation was disheartening, and it made us feel hopeless. My wife would work hard all week, then come home only to spend her weekends helping me prepare the ravioli. She couldn’t even have one day of the weekend for herself. She begged me to stop selling ravioli, even if that meant we would end up with less money to pay our bills. Eventually I agreed, but it meant I had to try to find a job — and finding a job wasn’t so easy in our rural hometown. Anxiety and desperation were starting to set in.

One night, I was talking with a friend who was studying computer engineering at the university in Montevideo. He told me about the various job opportunities one could find in the capital city, with salaries that were the stuff of dreams for someone living in the countryside. “There’s this big company in Montevideo, Live Interactive,” he told me. “They’re always looking for programmers; maybe you could try to get a job there. They pay really well.”

The salary he mentioned was around three times what we were making at the time, and I couldn’t help but imagine all the things we could do with that much money. We wouldn’t need to worry anymore about putting food on the table. We could finally pay for our own internet connection, get proper clothes and shoes, and even have our own washing machine!

Not only that, but I already had experience with computers. I always liked working with them, mostly because they appealed to my knack for problem solving. Programming reminded me of having to crack a code or find the solution to a difficult puzzle — but in addition to being challenging, it was fun. What’s more is that I saw programming as a career with a lot of potential for growth.

But there was one small problem: to work as a computer programmer, one usually needs to know how to program computers. Me? I could install Linux on my own, but that was probably the extent of it.

How do you land a job as a computer programmer when you have almost no programming experience and you lack a university degree to prove your knowledge? How do you learn to program without internet access at home, without mentors to connect with, and without access to programming books? That was my problem back in 2006, and this is the story of how I tackled it.

The Early Days

I’ve been dabbling with computers since I was a teenager — most of the time when visiting a friend who had a PC. While we often used the computer to play games, I wasn’t interested in playing that much. Why? Back when I started secondary school, a friend’s father let us use his ZX Spectrum computer. He had good stack of cassettes with plenty of games for it, and of course, we could play al...

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp Founder Quincy Larson interviews Leon Noel, founder of 100Devs and head of engineering at Resilient Coders. Growing up, Leon had it drilled into him that he had to become a doctor, lawyer, or dentist. But his ambitions grew and he went on to have an exciting career in tech. After a successful exit from a startup, Leon wanted to help folks who were struggling during the pandemic. He started 100Devs, a charity which has helped 10,000s of people learn to code. We talk about:

• dropping out of Yale
• getting into the selective Tech Stars startup accelerator
• Getting involved with Resilient Coders, a charity that helps court-involved youth learn coding
• Starting 100Devs and building a Discord server with 60,000 people learning to code together

Quincy recorded this podcast live and hasn't edited it at all. We want to capture the feel of a real live conversation, with all the human quirks that entails. Can you guess what song he's playing on my bass during the intro? It's his arrangement of the intro to a 1990s cartoon. Be sure to follow The freeCodeCamp podcast in your favorite podcast app. And share this podcast with a friend. Let's inspire more folks to learn to code and build careers for themselves in tech. Also, we want to thank the 8,427 kind people who support our charity each month, and who make this podcast possible. You can join them and support our mission at: https://www.freecodecamp.org/donate Links we talk about during the interview:

The video that changed Leon's life on Spaced Repetition, by Ali Abdaal: https://youtu.be/Z-zNHHpXoMM

The official Anki app, which is free on web / desktop and doesn’t lock you into a subscription. Leon's advice: "Only create cards on one device, but review on any to save you from weird syncing issues." https://apps.ankiweb.net

Dr. Barbara Oakley’s Learn How to Learn course, which Leon calls "a masterpiece": https://coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn

The 100Devs website (new cohort starting in early May): https://100devs.org/about

Trailer for X-men '97: https://youtu.be/pv3Ss8o9gGQ

Thelonious Monk [pianist Quincy mentions] "Straight No Chaser" documentary trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx0E9-ThvKc

Leon on YouTube: http://leonnoel.com/youtube

Leon on Discord: http://leonnoel.com/discord

Leon's Twitch for his live streams: http://leonnoel.com/twitch

Leon's website: https://leonnoel.com/

Madison tells her story of how she went from being a fashion model with no college degree to full-time software engineer in just one year. She used free online resources including freeCodeCamp, and worked for free at a startup until they hired her.

Written and read by Madison Kanna: https://twitter.com/MadisonKanna

Article link: https://fcc.im/2ApFnXO

Learn to code for free at: https://www.freecodecamp.org

Intro music by Vangough: https://fcc.im/2APOG02

Resources mentioned:

https://discoverpraxis.com

https://www.freecodecamp.org

https://www.udacity.com

https://frontendmasters.com/

Transcript:

In 2015 I knew almost nothing about coding. Today, I’m a software engineer and a teacher at a code school for kids.

When people find out I work as an engineer, they often ask, “How can I get a job as a software engineer coming from a nontraditional background?”

Well, you can’t get more nontraditional than me. I was homeschooled growing up, and I’m a college dropout.

When I dropped out, I signed with an agency and modeled for fashion brands. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, but my sister was a software engineer and she loved it. So one day, I took Udacity’s “Intro to Computer Science” course. And I loved it. Coding became my biggest passion.

I knew I would become a software engineer. I also knew it might be the hardest thing I ever did. But I resolved to see it through. I was going to make this happen.

If you love to code, and keep working toward your goal of becoming a developer, you will get there — no matter where you come from.

Here’s how I did it.

Figured out how you learn best.

After months of teaching myself to code, I knew I needed that next step, so I applied to several coding bootcamps. Yet I realized that I learn best not by studying, but when I am working.

Figuring out how I learn most efficiently was a huge help. For you, maybe you need to immerse yourself fully at a bootcamp, or take a part-time online program. For me, I realized I would learn best by jumping headfirst into an engineering internship.

But... how could I get one?

Build your personal brand.

I knew I wanted real-world experience. So I enrolled in Praxis, a program that places young people into apprenticeships at startups. But Praxis focuses on marketing and sales roles, and I was determined to become an engineer. So, I decided to find myself an engineering internship and use Praxis to help me build my personal brand to increase my chances of being hired.

I worked with Simon from Praxis, who helped me prepare for interviews and create my online presence.

My mom, an entrepreneur and brand expert, encouraged me to blog about coding, speak at meetups, start a YouTube channel, and continue to build my GitHub portfolio.

I kept sharing whatever I was learning about. Eventually, when you Googled me you could immediately see that I was passionate about coding.

Google yourself. What do you see?

Work for free and love the work.

While originally I had hoped to get a paying internship, I quickly realized I had a better chance of getting experience as an engineer if I did free work.

I found a startup I wanted to work for and pitched myself to them: I’d work for for free as an engineering dev for a few months. Then they could either promote me or let me go depending on how I did. They agreed, and I spent the next few months working harder than I ever have.

I relished every moment I spent just fixing one little bug in the app. Later on, I realized that although I didn’t have a ton of technical skills going in, my passion to learn and my excitement to be a part of the team shone through and got me the internship.

Even though I was working for free, I loved the work and the team more than any paying job I’ve ever had.

Make your nontraditional background a strength, not a weakness.

At first, I didn’t want to highlight just how nontraditional my background was. I feared I already stuck out enough just being a female programmer, let alone someone without a CS background. Then my mom said, “Own who you are. Use your previous experiences as a strength.”

For my first dev internship, I made it clear I would help out the startup in any way that I could. I talked about the variety of other skills I had picked up way back when I worked for my mom’s company, and how I could utilize those skills while I was also growing into the role of junior developer.

I didn’t just try to be an...

Quincy reads his popular article on how to choose your first programming language when you learn to code.

He discusses Python, Java, JavaScript, Ruby, and C++ in terms of:

the job market for the language - the long term prospects for the language - how easy the language is to learn - what projects you can build while you’re learning (and share with friends so you can stay motivated)

Read by Quincy Larson (https://twitter.com/ossia)

Article link: https://fcc.im/2yCMatt

Learn to code for free at: https://www.freecodecamp.org

Music: "Sounds of Wonder" by Vangough: https://fcc.im/2yQOq0q

Transcript:

Most people’s journey toward learning to program starts with a single late-night Google search.

Usually it’s something like “Learn ______”

But how do they decide which language to search for?

“They always joke about Java on Silicon Valley. I guess I should learn that.”

Or:

“Haskell. So hot right now. Haskell.”

Or:

“That Go gopher is just so gosh-darn cute.”

And then there’s the rest of us. We’ll probably search for something like:

“Which programming language should I learn first?”

Few questions are so commonly asked that they get the full infographic treatment. But this is one of them:

Deciding on your first programming language can be a fun process — kind of like one of those “Which Quentin Tarantino character are you?” personality quizzes.

But before you run off to learn Ruby because you enjoyed playing with Play-Doh as a kid, let me remind you: the stakes are pretty high here.

It will take you hundreds of hours of practice to become even remotely competent with your first programming language.

So you should consider the following factors:

the job market for the language

the long term prospects for the language

how easy the language is to learn

what projects you can build while you’re learning (and share with friends so you can stay motivated)

Every year brings new programming languages, and with them, new academic papers. And new web comics.

Seriously. Check out this gem from last month:

When it comes to choosing a first programming language, there’s no shortage of options. To narrow it down a bit, here are the most common Google searches related to learning programming, over the past 12 years:

Java has had its ups and downs.

Python has gradually risen to become the most popular choice.

But tucked away below these is the Little Engine That Could, slowly choo-choo’ing up in popularity over the past few years. And that engine is JavaScript.

Before I talk about these programming languages, let me clarify:

I’m not arguing that any one language is objectively better than any other

I agree that developers should eventually learn more than one language

I’m arguing that first they should learn one language well. And — as you can probably guess from the upside down text in my headline — that language should be JavaScript.

Let’s kick things off by exploring how programming is currently taught in school.

Computer Science 101

Universities have traditionally taught programming under the umbrella of computer science, which itself is often seen as an extension of mathematics, or tie-in to an electrical engineering degree.

Of course, as you may have heard by now:

“Computer science education cannot make anybody an expert programmer any more than studying brushes and pigment can make somebody an expert painter.” — Eric S. Raymond

As of 2016, many universities still treat programming like it’s computer science, and computer science like it’s math.

As a result, many introductory programming courses focus on low-level-of-abstraction languages like C, or mathematically-focused languages like MATLAB.

And department chairs generally stay the course, pointing to annual programming language leaderboards like the TIOBE Index, or this one from the IEEE:

Most of these leaderboards look virtually identical to how they were 10 years ago.

But change does happen. Even in academia.

In 2014, Python overtook Java as a the most popular language of instruction at top US Computer Science programs.

And yet another change is bound to... eventually... happen.

Because if you look at the languages actually used by the workforce, it paints a very different picture:

JavaScript is by far the most popular language used by the 49,397 developers who responded to Stack Overflow’s 2016 Survey.

More than half of all developers use JavaScript. It’s vital to front-end web development and increasingly relevant for back-end development. And it’s rapidly expanding into areas like game development...