Professor Fortran's Encyclopedia for high school students<\/code><\/pre>\n\nMy story begins in early childhood with the 'Korvet' computer from the informatics classroom. But this was a fleeting ray of light in the dark realm of post-Soviet education \u2014 at that time, formal study of informatics was supposed to begin in the 11th grade. I just signed up for an elective on computer education that happened to be starting for younger grades. Once a week, we would open the heavy iron door of the dark classroom with barred windows and learn how to display 'Hello' on the screen using Korvet Basic. It was magnificent, but it didn't last long.<\/p>\n
Apparently, this was some sort of educational experiment, which ended literally six months later. I managed to learn very little, only enough to become interested. But when the elective ended, I was plainly explained to: computers are actually not for children, before the eleventh grade, people do not mature enough to study informatics.<\/p>\n
It's worth noting that the tumultuous 1990s were a time when various technical clubs at children's palaces had mostly shut down, and personal computers had yet to become commonplace. Access to technology\u2014or computers\u2014was not simply about wanting to learn; it depended on one's social circumstances. The fortunate ones were either the children of those who adapted to the new market economy or those who had access to computers through their work\u2014engineers, computer science teachers, and 'technical specialists' in various agencies.<\/p>\n
For example, many years later I learned that around the same time, my (future) classmate's parents gifted him a ZX Spectrum. For gaming, of course.<\/p>\n
Most likely, I would have remained outside the new digital world. I studied and grew up fully convinced that I wouldn\u2019t get access to a computer until the eleventh grade. It\u2019s funny that that\u2019s exactly how it turned out. But about two years before that, something miraculous happened\u2014I received a computer through a local charity initiative.<\/p>\n
You would think this would be my chance to catch up\u2014but life had other plans.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a well-known saying that if you give a million dollars to a poor person, they won\u2019t know what to do with it. Of course, if that poor person is smart, they might spend part of the million on education, including learning how to handle money. However, it still pales in comparison to what someone who grew up with money can achieve. This kind of issue arises whenever a person finds themselves outside the boundaries of their social class.<\/p>\n
Since under normal circumstances I could never have a computer, I also had no money for any courses or related products. For the same reason, I had no connections among people who could give me advice; I simply didn\u2019t belong to that circle. The computer was literally a piece of another world. It wasn\u2019t just an everyday household appliance, as it is now, but something akin to an elvish artifact. Therefore, I couldn't experiment and learn from my own experience\u2014'you'll break an expensive device'. So I couldn't tell my peers that I had a computer at home\u2014remember the tumultuous nineties? Consequently, my opportunities for information exchange were drastically limited\u2014I couldn't ask anyone for advice, couldn't pose questions, and couldn't share experiences. The Internet? What? Which Internet? Maybe Fido? We didn\u2019t even have a phone.<\/p>\n
I could go to the library, search for books or reference guides for free, and here arose a second problem. The computer was too advanced for those conditions. It had Windows 95 installed on it.<\/p>\n
I took the main (and only) book about computers that was available in the library\u2014the famous textbook by Gein\/Jitomirskiy \"Fundamentals of Computer Science and Computing\" with a red cover. You can find it online now and feel the contrast between its content and that of a full-fledged computer with Windows 95 on board. The situation was further aggravated by the difficulty of obtaining even pirated software\u2014it would still be a couple of years before the rise of DVD stores with flashy titles like \"All Office Software\u20142000\". And even when they appeared, I still had no money for the disks.<\/p>\n
By the way, it was around this time that the 'official' computer science class started in 11th grade\u2014we were given the aforementioned textbook from 1991, and the real tasks involved drawing simple algorithm trees (with a pencil on paper) and using the text editor 'Lexicon'.<\/p>\n
Form-shaping<\/h3>\n \n
Real programmers and I<\/code><\/pre>\n\nAs a result, my computer development stagnated over these couple of years. I read Windows documentation, acquired various programs for my computer on floppy disks by fair means and foul, and learned to be an \"advanced user\" by editing the autoexec.bat file. I brought home my \"lexicon\" from school, of course. By the time I could finally return to my childhood and start programming in qBasic, visual interfaces had already taken complete control.<\/p>\n
This contrast largely diminished my motivation for a deep dive into traditional text-based programming. The reason lay in the overwhelming disparity between the graphics of Windows 95, which marked my true immersion into the computer world, and the dull text screen of the programming languages I was familiar with. The previous generation of programmers rejoiced at seeing a point appear on the screen when they wrote POINT(10,15). To them, programming was about \"drawing on the screen something that wasn't there.\" To me, the screen was already filled with forms and buttons. Programming meant \"making a button do something after it was pressed\" \u2014 and creating the button itself was simply boring.<\/p>\n
As a lyrical aside, I want to note that the evolution of programming languages has now spiraled back to a similar situation. Now all \"real programmers\" are once again coding interfaces in Notepad, and every programmer seems to be required to be a designer. Once again, it is essential to place buttons, input boxes, and other control elements on the screen solely through code. As a result, the classic 80\/20 rule manifests itself here as follows: we spend 80% of our time creating interfaces through manual code entry and only 20% defining the behavior of interface elements. I understand why this happened during the DOS and Pascal eras; there were no alternatives. Why this exists now, when everyone has already seen and touched VB, Delphi, and C# \u2014 I do not know; I suspect the issue lies in whether the development environments are paid or free. Convenience is always expensive, and free versions of the mentioned environments came out not that long ago.<\/p>\n
This was one of the reasons why internet programming passed me by. Although, as I found out much later, it would have been the easiest way to create a portfolio and become a programmer. I tried both PHP and JS, but I didn't want to 'write code in Notepad.' Another reason is that the Internet came to me either in 2005 or 2006 \u2014 before that, it was somewhat on the periphery of my world view. Along with cell phones \u2014 'something that rich people use.'<\/p>\n
So I abandoned all that DOS programming and dove headfirst into the 'Borey' database from Access, which gave me forms, buttons, macros, and the pinnacle of application programming \u2014 VBA. It was probably around that time that I decided I wanted to be a programmer in the future. I got a disk with Visual Studio, bought a paper book (!) on VB, and started cranking out calculators and tic-tac-toe games, delighted that the entire design could be created on the form in just a few minutes instead of being coded by hand. As computers ceased to be a rarity, I finally managed to go out and discuss programming with like-minded individuals.<\/p>\n
In these discussions, I learned that VB was outdated, a dying language made for secretaries, while all the real programmers wrote in C++ or Delphi. Since I still remembered Pascal, I chose Delphi. Perhaps this was my next mistake in a long series of obstacles on the road to becoming a programmer. But I followed the path of least resistance because I wanted to see the results of my work quickly. And I did see them! I bought a book on Delphi as well, integrated it with Excel and Access, which I already knew, and ultimately created what would now be called a 'BI system.' It's sad that I have completely forgotten all of Pascal, as I haven't touched it in about ten years.<\/p>\n
And of course, I attempted to enroll in a programming institute twice. In our small town, there weren't too many opportunities for that. The first time, I foolishly applied for the specialty of 'Applied Mathematics,' from which graduates were specifically trained as programmers, but they demanded rigorous knowledge of mathematics far beyond the school curriculum. So, I didn't achieve a passing score on the exam. I had to spend time at a college, completing my secondary education. The second time, I lowered my requirements a bit and went for an engineering specialty \u2014 engineering work didn't particularly attract me, but it was still closer to working with computers. Unfortunately, it was already too late \u2014 people had realized the benefits of technical fields and flocked there in droves. Only medalists managed to secure budget places.<\/p>\n
So now I have a humanities degree. It\u2019s red, but not technical. Here is where the sad story of growing up begins to intersect with the sad story of job hunting.<\/p>\n
A violinist is not needed<\/h3>\n \n
...but I may not survive...<\/code><\/pre>\n\nThere is a very widespread myth that 'a programmer's diploma is not asked for.' This myth has several reasons, and I will try to list the main ones.<\/p>\n
First, in the early nineties \u2014 and a bit into the late nineties \u2014 knowledge of computer technologies was generally a rarity. If a person knew where to turn on a computer and could launch a program, they fulfilled what the business needed. The overall chaos in the labor market forced employers to quickly find anyone who could do the necessary work \u2014 it didn\u2019t matter what they had studied before, what mattered was what they could do now. Thus, a significant number of self-taught individuals comfortably demonstrated their skills in interviews and secured jobs.<\/p>\n
Secondly, during those same years, business was booming, but there was still no modern concept of HR. HR personnel remained Soviet-era record-keepers, formalizing employment books and contracts, while interviews were conducted by specialists or managers personally. As most of them were focused on results, formal criteria like education were indeed considered a last resort.<\/p>\n
This led to a monstrous distortion in the mass consciousness. Those who found jobs in such conditions can sincerely claim that a diploma is unnecessary for a programmer, using themselves as examples. You recognize this archetype, of course. If someone tells you, \"It's enough to show what you can do, and you'll get hired,\" that is exactly this type of programmer, from those times; they were indeed taken on, and they believed in the immutability of the world. Similarly, Soviet elders say things like, \"You work on a computer and can read in English, with skills like that, wow!\" They no longer understand that with such skills, \"wow\" was only the case during Soviet times, and now half the people can do that.<\/p>\n
Then the same thing happened in the early 2000s when oil prices began to rise, the economy started to develop, and crowds of newly minted businessmen flooded the labor market looking for anyone who could at least turn on a computer.<\/p>\n
But at the same time, the influx of oil money led to the creation of unproductive positions \u2014 HR departments. The same old Soviet personnel officers ended up there, but they were unexpectedly assigned the task of determining the quality of any worker. They certainly couldn't make decisions at that level. Thus, they developed their own evaluation criteria, quite far from reality, based on translated books from the blessed West and formal criteria like education. Thus, the great shift occurred: from real skills to formal criteria.<\/p>\n
The myth lived on, albeit slightly modified.<\/p>\n
The economy was still growing, people were being snatched up from everywhere, lured away from other companies, but recruiters had already imposed their tight grip on the selection process. The most important thing was no longer \"show what you can do\" \u2014 the recruiter wouldn't understand what was being shown anyway \u2014 but \"work experience.\" Thus, people who had once been hired without a computer science degree for their ability to press buttons were lured to another company simply because they had previously held the title of \"Software Engineer.\" And once again, no one asked for a diploma, as there was no time for that \u2014 do you have \"experience\"? Well, you\u2019d better sit down and work!<\/p>\n
Finally, the last, third reason is the rapid development of the internet and personal projects. People started creating pet projects that could be showcased to anyone to demonstrate their skills. You send an email, attach a link to your site \u2014 and just like that, you\u2019ve proven your abilities.<\/p>\n
What's next?<\/p>\n
Oil prices, as we know, have collapsed, but the myth still lives on. There are still many people holding positions as 'software engineers' who landed these roles without a relevant education. However, none of these reasons fully apply anymore, and now very few of them could replicate that trick of getting hired.<\/p>\n
\nKnowledge of computer technologies has become ubiquitous. Working with computers is no longer even mentioned in resumes, just as the ability to read and write isn\u2019t mentioned (by the way, that wouldn\u2019t hurt \u2014 I\u2019ve started seeing grammatical errors even in official media, and they appear with alarming regularity in articles on Habr).<\/li>\n HR departments and HR specialists have emerged, who bear no responsibility for their decisions and can use any criteria for selection. Naturally, formal criteria are given preference \u2014 they look at age, education, gender, and time spent at the previous job. Skills and abilities are considered a secondary factor.<\/li>\n There has long been no shortage of programmers. There is a shortage of good<\/i> programmers, but this is true for any profession. An average programmer is now a role that any school student can fill; on freelance sites, people are literally fighting for the right to do something for free to add to their portfolio.<\/li>\nPet projects have also become commonplace. The internet is flooded with personal sites and Tetris clones, and this project is now almost required; thus, passing through the sieve of recruitment leads you into a filter of specialists, who then say, 'show us your GitHub.'<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\nPeople with education \u2014 or those whose experience substitutes education in the eyes of HR departments \u2014 only see the second part. They typically say something like: 'a diploma isn\u2019t necessary for a programmer; however, projects on GitHub would be beneficial.'<\/p>\n
However, since HR departments are still around, it can be truthfully stated like this: \"to work as a programmer, one needs a degree (to get through HR), but also projects on GitHub (to pass the technical interview).\" And I, with my humanities education, fully feel this \u2014 because I only know about GitHub from programmers with technical backgrounds complaining about it; I am filtered out by the strict hiring process right at the first stage.<\/p>\n
People don\u2019t see air, fish don\u2019t see water, and people with technical education or experience working at \"LLC CODETECHNOSOFT\" don\u2019t realize that they\u2019re not asked for a diploma because it\u2019s already assumed. It\u2019s particularly funny to hear excuses from people like, \"I\u2019ve been working for years and have never shown my diploma.\" You ask \u2014 did you mention it in your resume? Of course, I did. So are you suggesting I should list a fake degree in my resume since they won't ask for verification anyway? They go silent and say nothing.<\/p>\n
By the way, in the specialty where all the budget spots were taken by medalists, only half of the group were on scholarships. The other half were students paying tuition \u2014 you know, buying a diploma in installments with their parents' money. My friend got in there and received his diploma. As a result, he became a full-fledged \"engineer-programmer\" and has faced no issues finding work as a programmer ever since. Because the diploma doesn\u2019t specify whether you studied for free or paid. But they do write your specialty, \"technical.\"<\/p>\n
Out of the comfort zone<\/h3>\n \n
This is me confidently climbing the career ladder<\/code><\/pre>\n\nWhen I arrived in Moscow and started looking for a job, I didn\u2019t know any of this. I still believed in the myth that a programmer only needed to show the results of their work. I actually carried samples of my programs on a flash drive \u2014 I\u2019ll jump ahead and say that not a single person ever looked at them. However, I received very few invitations overall.<\/p>\n
Back then, I still remembered Delphi and was trying to get into some technical company, even as an intern. I sent out a dozen emails a day, explaining that I had been interested in computers since childhood and wanted to continue learning. Several times, I was honestly told that I needed a technical degree\u2014HR managers are there to filter out humanities graduates for big companies. But most of the time, I just received standardized rejections. In the end, I could no longer continue my search and settled for a regular office job, where I just had to use Excel.<\/p>\n
A couple of years later, Access and SQL were added to my Excel skills because I recalled my youth and began actively writing VBA scripts. But it still wasn\u2019t 'real programming.' I made another attempt by downloading modern Visual Studio and diving into learning C#. I studied it at a basic level, wrote a small program, and tried again to find a position\u2014considering both full-time job offers and internship opportunities.<\/p>\n
This time, out of a hundred emails I sent, I received absolutely no responses. Not a single one. Because, as I now understand, I was approaching thirty, and along with a humanities degree on my resume, it became a black mark for any HR departments. This severely undermined both my self-confidence and my belief in the myths programmers tell about the job market. I completely abandoned 'real programming' and focused on regular office work. From time to time, I still responded to various job vacancies, but silence continued to be the only reply.<\/p>\n
At some point, I began to realize how valuable to a person are the things they don't notice or the things they take for granted. The people you consult for advice or simply complain about life don't delve into such nuances. They've read popular psychology books and tell you that you need to step out of your comfort zone. However, there's an old joke that you first need to enter the comfort zone. As you age, the cost of this entry or exit increases\u2014like now, I simply can't afford to quit and take an intern position. You can only change your activities cautiously while remaining in your current job until your incomes equalize.<\/p>\n
There are sensible advisors, and they offer recommendations that I would give myself. This involves self-education and remote work or creating your own project. But there are pitfalls here.<\/p>\n
The point is that remote work is a privilege exclusively for those with 'work experience.' It's completely unattainable for a newcomer who needs help and training. No one wants to deal with you as it is, and even less so when it's remote.<\/p>\n
Self-education is terribly inefficient. What you could learn, for example, in six months, you'll spend two years figuring out on your own. The ratio is roughly like that. You'll have to independently discover all sorts of details, typical techniques, and well-known pitfalls, constantly reinventing the wheel. Of course, this can make you somewhat more knowledgeable since you found and overcame all of this yourself. But it will take you four times longer, and you will still lack real experience on actual production projects.<\/p>\n
At the same time, I know well that real, useful experience arises only from solving real production tasks. In this sense, actions like 'writing tic-tac-toe' will help you initially just to grasp the language. But after writing even a tic-tac-toe, battleship, and snake game, you still won't be able to do what business requires in practice.<\/p>\n
Here, the most impatient will once again want to advise \u2014 take a real project brief from some freelance websites and write based on it; this way you will learn, work independently, and even have a portfolio.<\/p>\n
Well, let's finally consider the 'pet project' method. You need to write a program that is useful to people, after which you go to work somewhere that creates similar programs. In theory, it sounds great; in reality, it's a trap. Instead of initially working on a real project, you waste time on deliberately pointless tasks, only to then perform similar tasks that are now meaningful.<\/p>\n
Stop! \u2014 my readers will shout. \u2014 Wait! This is training! It always looks like this everywhere! And I would agree if this training provided a chance for results. But it doesn't. We return to the fact that I already have experience with such attempts and training.<\/p>\n
Is there at least one company in the world that says \u2014 here, our company makes messengers, let you write us a messenger in this programming language, with these parameters and we will then hire you? No. It's always a matter of probability, and for a person with an unsuitable age and education \u2014 the odds are very low. Life has explained all this to me very well. For example, at different points in my life, I knew and used VB and VBA, Pascal and Delphi, SQL, R, JS, C#, and even (I\u2019m surprised myself!) Genesis32. I actually found and completed courses, worked on the infamous projects, could showcase them in an interview and answer questions about them. And what?<\/p>\n
Firstly, nobody was simply interested or asked to see anything; I just didn't make it to those interviews. Secondly, of all this, I currently only remember VBA+SQL because I constantly use them \u2014 the rest was not needed and is forgotten. Moreover, the situation looked really harsh: it wasn't that they looked at my projects and said, 'listen, everything is bad here, you can't write code, it's not working here and here.' No, they just ignored me. A humanitarian education, you see? 'Is it because I am black?'<\/p>\n
Summary<\/h3>\n \n
Even under the pressure of circumstances, you maintain inner peace<\/code><\/pre>\n\nDespite the pessimistic nature of the text, I don't give up hope. Now, however, my opportunities have become significantly limited; I see only one realistic path \u2014 the aforementioned 'pet project', aimed not so much at 'finding a job' as at 'trying to create a business'. It\u2019s necessary to identify an unresolved problem, solve it, and find at least a few dozen people who will use your solution. The other issue is that it sounds simple, but in reality, it\u2019s challenging to find a task that hasn\u2019t already been addressed by one of the millions of programmers and aspiring developers \u2014 and, moreover, one that is simple enough for a beginner.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve now reached Python, following the example of many predecessors, I\u2019ve parsed Habr and am preparing an article about the results. I had hoped to publish it as my first Habr article, but it still needs a bit more text. Meanwhile, articles on the topic of 'How I Became a Programmer by Just Putting in a Bit of Effort' have been pouring in nearly every day, sometimes two a day. <\/p>\n
So I couldn't resist sharing why I put in a lot of effort but still didn't become a programmer.<\/p>\n
To summarize briefly, I wanted to say the following:<\/p>\n
\nDesire and effort can indeed achieve a lot, but the material foundation is still of crucial importance. Those who have it can leverage their desires and efforts to achieve more. Those who don\u2019t have it will find that desires and efforts won\u2019t even help them achieve ordinary results. A passion for computers from childhood can help one become a programmer, but it\u2019s not such a significant advantage. Someone who has never been interested in computers but whose affluent parents sent them to study a fashionable technical specialty has a far better chance of becoming a programmer. Yet, having an interest isn\u2019t enough if, as noted in a recent publication, you weren't given programmable calculators in childhood.<\/li>\n It\u2019s time to finally dispel the myth that just knowing how to program is sufficient to work as a programmer. At best, it is enough to know how to do it well.<\/i> Programming, for example, 'writing code on a whiteboard' \u2014 yes, some would be snatched up right away. The idea that junior developers are hired off the street as long as they know which side of the computer the keyboard is on is a significant exaggeration; in such discussions, we observe the typical survivor's bias. There is a 'glass wall' around every programmer position \u2014 those with a technical education simply do not see it, while others can only bang their heads against it meaninglessly. Or, as mentioned in another recent publication, getting hired 'through connections.'<\/li>\nTo 'become' a programmer in adulthood, you need the same fortunate circumstances as in youth. Of course, an adult can do many things better (they see the goal they are headed towards, have experience in learning and development, and know the actual market needs), but they also lack many things (they must support themselves, spend time on daily life, and their health is not what it used to be). And if \u2014 as discussed in another recent publication \u2014 there is financial support from family and stability in the form of personal housing, then changing careers is indeed much easier.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\nSource: habr.com<\/a><\/p>","protected":false,"gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"html"}]},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u0421 \u0441\u0430\u043c\u043e\u0433\u043e \u043d\u0430\u0447\u0430\u043b\u0430 \u0441\u0435\u043d\u0442\u044f\u0431\u0440\u044f \u0448\u0438\u0440\u043e\u043a\u0438\u043c \u043f\u043e\u0442\u043e\u043a\u043e\u043c \u0445\u043b\u044b\u043d\u0443\u043b\u0438 \u043d\u0430 \u0425\u0430\u0431\u0440 \u043f\u0443\u0431\u043b\u0438\u043a\u0430\u0446\u0438\u0438 \u043e\u0431 \u0443\u0441\u043f\u0435\u0448\u043d\u043e\u043c \u0443\u0441\u043f\u0435\u0445\u0435 \u043d\u0430 \u0442\u0435\u043c\u0443 \u00ab\u0414\u0435\u0442\u0441\u0442\u0432\u043e \u043f\u0440\u043e\u0433\u0440\u0430\u043c\u043c\u0438\u0441\u0442\u0430\u00bb, \u00ab\u041a\u0430\u043a \u0441\u0442\u0430\u0442\u044c \u043f\u0440\u043e\u0433\u0440\u0430\u043c\u043c\u0438\u0441\u0442\u043e\u043c \u043f\u043e\u0441\u043b\u0435 N \u043b\u0435\u0442\u00bb, \u00ab\u041a\u0430\u043a \u044f \u0443\u0448\u0451\u043b \u0432 IT \u0438\u0437 \u0434\u0440\u0443\u0433\u043e\u0439 \u043f\u0440\u043e\u0444\u0435\u0441\u0441\u0438\u0438\u00bb, \u00ab\u041f\u0443\u0442\u044c \u0432 \u043f\u0440\u043e\u0433\u0440\u0430\u043c\u043c\u0438\u0440\u043e\u0432\u0430\u043d\u0438\u0435\u00bb \u0438 \u0442\u0430\u043a \u0434\u0430\u043b\u0435\u0435. \u041f\u043e\u0434\u043e\u0431\u043d\u044b\u0435 \u0441\u0442\u0430\u0442\u044c\u0438 \u043f\u0438\u0448\u0443\u0442 \u043f\u043e\u0441\u0442\u043e\u044f\u043d\u043d\u043e, \u043d\u043e \u0432\u043e\u0442 \u0441\u0435\u0439\u0447\u0430\u0441 \u043e\u043d\u0438 \u043f\u043e\u0448\u043b\u0438 \u043a\u0430\u043a-\u0442\u043e \u043e\u0441\u043e\u0431\u0435\u043d\u043d\u043e \u043a\u0443\u0447\u043d\u043e. \u041a\u0430\u0436\u0434\u044b\u0439 \u0434\u0435\u043d\u044c \u043f\u0438\u0448\u0443\u0442 \u0442\u043e \u043f\u0441\u0438\u0445\u043e\u043b\u043e\u0433\u0438, \u0442\u043e […]<\/p>\n","protected":false,"gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"html"}]},"author":1,"featured_media":28748,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[702],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t
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