Hanna’s Adventures in Codeland — Chapter 2
Coding for Technophobes
My previous blog post told the story of how I decided to quit my job and learn to code. Making that decision was the easy part. Now I just needed to — you guessed it — learn to code. Or at least learn enough to pass the entry requirements for Makers Academy, the coding bootcamp I wanted to join.
When I set out on this journey, my level of technical proficiency could be described as non-existent. Well, not quite. After all, I could operate a smartphone, so that put me at Level 1, just above my mum who is very much at the baseline (sorry mum if you’re reading this, you’re wonderful, just not that strong with technology!).
Where to start? I’m a bit of a bookworm, and hence my natural inclination was to find a book that could teach me. I googled book suggestions, went on Amazon and ordered Code, Clean Code and Pragmatic Programmer. This seemed like a sensible thing to do, until I stumbled upon the claim that learning to code by reading books is like learning to swim by walking. Now, whilst I object to the poorly crafted analogy, I got the point. No more dillydallying, put the books away, time to code!
The internet is full of wonderful free resources that teach you to code, but I started off by falling into the trap of trying something called “Learn to code in 15 minutes”. The tutorial started out with an instruction to type something into your Terminal. Fine if you know what a Terminal is… And, unlike many other tech terms, Terminal is not easily googleable.
After some trial and error with other online learning resources, I found the promised land that is Codecademy. They do a good job of treating you like an idiot, which is how I prefer to be treated when I’m learning new things. They don’t do ambitious things like asking you to find the Terminal on your computer. I signed up to the “Learn Ruby” course and was good to go!
I religiously practiced on Codeacademy each Sunday throughout December and January. The course got a bit complicated towards the end, so once I was done, I gave myself a big pat on the back and headed over to something called Codewars. It sounded ominous, but came with a strong recommendation as a good place to develop coding skills.
I logged into Codewars, selected that I want to learn Ruby and I want a challenge (or kata as they insist on calling them) from the easiest possible level. And then I just stared at the screen… and stared… Where are the instructions? What, I’m meant to just figure it out? How?
Clearly, Codewars is the big boys learning club where they take the training wheels off. And you realise that Codecademy was just a warm-up. Now is when the real learning starts, by solving problems using your own wits, rather than by obediently following a set of instructions. I’ll admit that the only way I got through my first kata was to stare at it for long enough and then hit “unlock solutions”. I’m not proud of that, but we all have to start somewhere, and eventually I got better.
The thing about Codewars is that even after you’ve solved the kata i.e. your code works, it’s not over yet! You might feel happy that the tests are green, but that happiness ends pretty abruptly when you submit your solution and get to see how other people did it. Suddenly your 10 lines of amateurish code look a bit basic next to someone’s fancy one-line solution. Now, you’ve got two options here: either be angry about how clever other people are; or try to stay constructive and learn something from the clever people and their fancy solutions.
This became my new Sunday routine — I’d put on my battle gear (sweatpants) and charge into Codewars for a 3-hour session. Whilst my code continued to look rather amateurish one week after the next, I was able to slowly but surely accrue points and move up from Level 8 (rock bottom) to Level 7. And that meant one thing… I was ready for pair programming.
For those who don’t know, pair programming is when you sit with another programmer (either side by side, or sharing your screens remotely e.g. via Skype), and you take it in turns to be the driver (who writes the code) and the navigator (who looks ahead and supports the driver). This rite of passage would apparently dramatically increase my chances of getting into Makers Academy, and they even provide a platform through which to find someone to pair with. I spent 2 hours on a Sunday being patiently guided by a more experienced programmer on how to get the basics right. At the end, he bestowed upon me the blessing “I think you’re ready to apply for Makers”. Wow.
I did not believe this to be true, but thought “what the heck, I’ll go fail the interview once for practice, and then apply again later”. I booked a day off work, lined up my interview with Makers for the morning (which is actually a pair programming session, rather than a traditional interview), and scheduled visits to two other bootcamps for the afternoon. I figured it would be good to have a Plan B and Plan C, seeing as Makers are selective in who they take.
The big day came around, I arrived at Makers’ Shoreditch building ridiculously early, so spent 20 minutes in the coffee shop across the road, staring into a cup of tea, telling myself to keep it together. The seconds melted slowly.
Finally, it was only 10 minutes ahead of time, so I abandoned the tea, went across the road, and waited in the Makers reception. I tried to look clever by leafing through one of the coding books that was casually lying around, but quickly abandoned it out of fear that my interviewer might ask me what I thought of the book (umm… great book). Instead I just stared at the wall and suppressed panic until the friendly-looking interviewer finally came to collect me.
I wish I could tell you what passed in that interview/pairing session, but I really cannot recall. I must have written some valid code, because at the end the wonderful interviewer said “We’d love to have you join Makers”. Oh my god! Really! I threatened to hug him, but the expression on his face made it clear that he did not consent. Instead I blurted out my thank yous, flew out the door, down the stairs, onto the street, found a second coffee shop and phoned my dad to say “I passed!”.
That’s the story of how I transformed myself from a clueless technophobe to someone who could at least dream of becoming an awesome programmer. And I found the coding bootcamp where I could pursue that dream.
Coming up next time — how to survive coding bootcamp if you’re an introvert. I’ll be publishing that blog post in 2 weeks’ time, hope to see you then!
PS. If you’re interested in the nitty-gritty of what happens at Makers Academy, follow me on Twitter (@hannaaikas). During my time on the course (22 July — 11 Oct 2019), each weekend I’ll do a series of tweets on what I learned that week.
