Why I switched to an IDE instead of Sublime text editor, and you should too!

Yes I know, I have always been a huge fan and supporter of Sublime Text 3 text editor and all of the various plugins, but I am moving away from text editors in general and here's why.

NOTE: When I say IDE's, I really don't mean just any IDE, I mean Webstorm for Javascript, and Rubymine for Ruby.  If you are using other IDE's like Eclipse, then I think there isn't nearly the advantage that Webstorm and Rubymine give you.


IDEs do more than text editors, even Sublime Text 3 with all the plugins I had installed.
IDEs help you code easier and faster and have more code intelligence with refactoring and which files you changed on Git in an easier format.

Honestly though there is really only one reason that I switched to IDEs in the past year.  This is something that most people will never actually admit, but really is one of those 'dirty' truths of the real world:

If you are dealing with a huge code base that is crappily written or are working with 'spaghetti style' written code, an IDE will save you SO much time and frustration.  This is the main reason I switched. The ability to simply hit 'command + b' and follow spaghetti code quickly to see where it goes and try to wrap your brain around it as quickly as possible.  Now you may be thinking that this is stupid to switch to an IDE because you deal with crappy code everyday, but as much as you people want to deny it, it is the reality.

The other reason I switched to an IDE is that it made finding errors much faster and the colors changed on the methods depending on whether or not the method had issues (like I had a typo).  In a nutshell speed and convenience to deal with crap code written by many people over many years is why I switched to an IDE.  If you only deal with code written by 'code angels' then please by all means stay with a text editor.

After saying the above, let me be clear that I absolutely LOVE Sublime Text 3 and use it to open files from the command line or use VI if I am SSHing to a server.

The above is 100% true.  There are 2 types of coding that I've seen since getting into tech, the real world coding that I see in the 'wild' and then there is the tutorial code.  The code written when people are giving a tutorial and are able to spend an unlimited amount of time to refactor the code.  That is not to be negative, just to say the reason why I switched to Webstorm and RubyMine.

The real reason people don't want to switch to an IDE is that most IDEs actually suck.  If you want an awesome IDE they cost too much money.  The only way around that is to hack the IDE which I don't do and don't recommend.  The other method is to use a 30 day trial version on a Virtual Box and then simply keep resetting the date back every 30 days so that you have in essence an unlimited trial version. I also do not recommend that method either.

My RubyMine IDE and Webstorm IDE are 100% legit and I did not spend any money to get the IDE legal registrations.  I am not going to tell you how I did this, only know that I did absolutely NOTHING unethical and in fact 100% legal to accomplish my goal of getting 2 IDEs for free and registered in my name 'Joshua Kemp'.

The reason I am not going to tell you how I did it is simple, it's NOT rocket science what I did and also I want you to realize that actually the reason you are still using a text editor is because of the cost.  If it weren't for the cost, then you would be using the latest and greatest IDE.

If that is the case, then you should NOT let the money issue stand in your way, you need to pony up the money and pay for the IDE license or figure out another legal way.  I really recommend a good IDE and think every beginner learning to code should use one.

Keep coding peeps, you can do this!

-Josh

Cody Hired!!!

Hey guys, first apologies for not blogging in so long, trust me when I say I have been busy.  The past 2 months have probably been THE busiest months of my entire life.  My brother Cody got hired 2 weeks ago, I wanted him to let him get settled in as a contractor for Fuji Film here in Durham as a Software Engineer in Testing, before telling you :-)

He is loving his new job and new life, coming from working retail jobs for the past 6 years, to actually writing code and getting paid far more money!  Let's just say he is way above cloud 9!!!  There is soooo much that I want to write about and will in the coming weeks.  I been so busy, that I have only been able to keep up with helping my coaching clients and working full time.  I apologize to the people I have not emailed back and will try to do so tomorrow :-(

I just want to really encourage people that you can learn how to code regardless of your background, If you are willing to work extremely hard and put in the time.  Coding is like anything, if you practice it you will get better and better.  Even if you come from a retail, painting, hotel management or Blacksmith background, you can learn to code and get hired!

I have more to share later this week in some up coming posts about some things that I have changed my opinion on.  I think it will be helpful to other people who are starting out on this 'learning to code' journey.

Keep coding peeps, you can do this :-)

-Josh

Why horse shoeing and coding are very similar

Let me tell you a dirty secret that no one else will.  No one in real day to day life writes their best code.  I will tell you something else, the last 2 days of a sprint the code quality of a developer always drops.

Why is that???  Because the scrum master will be yelling at people to:  "Just get it done, and close the story!!!"

Now I can hear everyone with a righteous indignation, saying they would never ever write anything but perfect code, no matter what.  Well, let me share with you what no one else will.  I have had famous developers whisper to me when no one else is around that the hardest part about coding is not writing code.  The hardest part is unrealistic time lines and never having enough time to write the code the right way the first time.


What does this have to do with Horse shoeing???.... they are practically identical!


When I first started learning how to shoe horses, all I cared about was being a Blacksmith and making beautiful handmade horse shoes.  It would take me hours at first to make horse shoes, gradually I got better and faster.  I started competing in local Blacksmith completions and I actually started placing a 3rd place Ribbon every now and then.

Guess what though?  No one cared.  Not one of my clients cared.  When I arrived to shoe their horses and would try to make my own shoes, it would take longer.  No one wanted to wait for me to make my own horse shoes, when I could buy them for $10.  No one wanted to pay me more for the longer amount of time it took.

To make more money shoeing horses, you simply buy the shoes and never make your own, it takes too long.  I learned that there was "competition horse shoeing", and then there was "real world horse shoeing" that is what 95% of people actually did day in and day out to make money and pay the bills.

Just like in development every manager says: "They want quality code" but, when it really comes down to it, they just want some code written as fast as possible so they can close the story and meet the deadline."

Horse owners say they want the best quality horse shoeing job, but they really just want some horse shoes on their horse for the cheapest price.

See the similarities yet?  This post is a little depressing, but actually it's also very inspiring if you are a junior or noob developer.  Guess what, if you know coding basics, have an upbeat personality, and work well with others you can get hired fast!

This is very sad news if you are a senior developer who really wants the business team or scrum master to really appreciate the quality code they write.  They don't and they won't.  There I told you what the coding boot camps won't, I de-glamorized the learning to code movement :-)  Am I a traitor?  No, I still love coding, it's a great field, it's just not quite as sexy as it's made out sometimes :-)

Keep coding peeps, you can do this!!!

Why you should never finish Free Code Camp

Yes, obviously Free Code Camp is popular. It's supposed to make things easier for you to learn how to code.  My problem is the length of time, do you realize it will probably take you roughly 1.5 years or more to actually complete Free Code Camp. Here is a link to their wiki: Free Code Camp Wiki.  That is simply the required course work at Free Code Camp, you still have to actually go out and land a job.  I think 90% of people who are still working full-time will take at least 2 years to finish the course work.

I know when I was first learning how to code, I was working full-time shoeing horses all day to support my wife and 2 children.  When the children were in bed and my wife went to sleep, I would study every night from 10pm - 1am (or until I feel asleep on the couch).  On the weekends I would make up for whatever hours that I hadn't been able to study during the week.

I did this every day without fail for 9 months and 2 days a total of 827 hours.  When I began coaching people how to get entry-level QA jobs, I thought people would easily be able to put in at least 21 hours per week. The biggest surprise has been how few people actually week in and week out actually put in 3 hours of studying every day!

This is why I think Free Code Camp will take the average person who still has bills to pay and a job at least 2 years to complete.  I am a very driven and passionate person and still had a tough time at the end of the day, after wrestling horses to find the energy to study. I was barely able to keep up that level of discipline for 9 months.  I think the average individual will not be able to do this. I have helped 30+ people land jobs, and I would be willing to take a guess and say that probably only 1% of the people who start Free Code Camp even finish the first 800 hours of the course much less land a job.

To me it's cool to have Free Code Camp, it gets better and better.  I think most of the smart people who are taking Free Code Camp, learn enough to get hired and then learn on the job from there.  To start off and actually spend 2 years just working through the curriculum is not the best use of your time in my opinion.

It doesn't matter how good the curriculum is, if the end goal is to land a job in the industry, you should try to land a job as soon as you possibly can.  Sure 2 years of training will prepare you better than someone with 6 months of training.  BUT what if the person who studied the Free Code Camp material for 6 months got a job at a company and gained real world experience for the next 18 months???

Which person would be more marketable and likely to land a job? The person who has studied online for the past 2 years and has hopefully done some pro bono work as the course recommends, or the person who has 18 months of real world experience?

If the goal is to land a job in some coding capacity and not purely academic, than you should never try to finish Free Code Camp.  If you argue the point that you should be really proficient at coding before getting hired, then why not just go get a Computer Science degree and do Free Code Camp??? The truth is you could spend your entire life studying if you wanted.  I think it's better to find a job as soon as possible and learn real world experience.

Don't just start Free Code Camp because of all the SPA ( Single Page Application ) JavaScript app hype that is going around now. You aren't going to make $100K a few months after joining Free Code Camp.  Join Free Code Camp and go through the material, skip something if it is poorly done or doesn't teach you in a manner that you understand.  Always keep your focus on getting good enough at coding to 'get your foot in the door at a company'.

The truth is JavaScript is not easy for novices to learn which is one of the reasons why so many people do not finish.  Ruby is much easier, I highly recommend it for novices. JavaScript is a great language if you consider that most of the language was written in 10 days. BUT any language written in 10 days is going to be 'buggy', and JavaScript is no exception.  There are lot of 'gotchas that throw beginners for a loop.

My advice is to start with the end in mind. Learn from Free Code Camp, do the Bonfire Challenges (they are amazingly well done) but do them in Ruby. Copy the JavaScript code into your text editor and then learn how to convert it to Ruby and solve the coding challenge.

Would you rather study for 6 months and then land a job? Or study for 2 years, and then try to land a job?  50% of landing an entry-level coding job are real coding skill and technical abilities, the other 50% is a combination of: Marketing, Networking, and Interviewing. Never forget that, don't be naïve and think that all you have to do is simply write the code.

Keep coding peeps, you can do this!!!

Cody Hired???

Tomorrow is Cody's last day staying at my place and sleeping on the blow up air mattress :-)


IS HE HIRED???


no.



Cody has a final interview with one company tomorrow, so technically he still could get hired within the 30 day challenge.  BUT I doubt they would tell him he got the job the same day as the interview.  The good news is Cody has lots of job leads, phone screens, and has been called in for several sit down interviews.  I am sure he will land a job soon, I will let you know when he does!

Cody is attending the Ruby D Camp in Northern Virginia ( thanks to David Bock! ), he will then be returning to the RTP area.  He has decided to get a place in the area and has asked me to continue coaching him.


I told you about my coaching client in Denver that was trying to get hired, well he had his technical interview yesterday and it went well.  With any luck he will be brought in for a final interview, I will let you know more as things progress :-)


Do I feel like a failure for not getting Cody hired in 30 days?

no.  Maybe I should, but I don't.  Cody is amazing at coding, but weak on people skills and the ability to read social cues.  I've been preaching this message for a while now and will continue to preach it until I am blue in the face.  Most people who are trying to land a job, only focus on coding and technical abilities!  Only 50% of the equation of landing a job is technical ability!!!  My brother Cody is in the top 10% of people who know how to code.  He is truly amazing, one of those people who is a natural 'coding savant', but that is not enough on it's own.

There is a recent article out on how to learn Javascript in 5 months and land a job.  The article is basically a list of Javascript tutorials.  It shows why these tutorials are best and will teach you all the Javascript you need, in order to land a job as a developer.  The article then abruptly ends.


This is the problem with the whole "learning how to code movement".  There are tons of free resources, lots of cool books and videos that promise to teach you how to code.  Yes, some are better than others, I won't get into that now.  But here's the thing, How do you actually go about landing a job???  Are you going to apply for a senior developer position online?  Everyone is chasing this "pot of gold at the end of the rainbow", they think just as soon as I can really code, THEN I'll get an awesome high paying coding job!


Guess what, Cody can code circles around you!  I have been coaching him every day for 29 days, and although I think he will get hired soon, it has taken ALOT of work and creativity to get him this close to the goal, and he can code!  


Don't believe me???  Have you been reading Reddit and Quora reviews and watching coding boot camp videos for too long?  Here's what you do if you want to see the truth :-)
Just for the heck of it, let's act like a magical "coding fairy" waved a wand.  Now you have just graduated from the best coding boot camp on the planet and can really code!!!


Now what???  Okay, you may begin your job search.


What, no one is knocking down your door???  No one knows who you are, or what you've even done.  You need to start thinking with the end in mind NOW, and not when you actually need a job.  There is no one day, today IS the day.  Make small deposits everyday in all areas, not just coding:

Technical ability
Marketing
Networking
Interviewing Skills

Don't neglect any of the above if you want to actually land a real paying job.  Of course if you just want to code in your parent's basement and put cool stickers on your computer, you can do that too :-)

Keep coding peeps, you can do this!!!