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Rediscovering Your Inner Code Geek?

Posted by Cliff on from the tarnishing-off-the-old-coder-inside dept.

tachijuan asks: "I'm an old time hand in the PC world (started with trash-80 in late 70's). Along the way I've gone from the geek in school with the only computer to a CS degree to a position as a senior systems administrator at a major university to industry. And that's where I went to the dark side and became not a geek. About 10 years ago, the corporate rat race caught me and now I'm an exec at a midsize company. After 10 years of no code, it seems like I've never worked on anything serious (still do Perl, PHP, shell, etc scripting at home). Now, I feel the need to change this. How does an old UNIX coder/SysAdmin turned professional corporate cog get back into coding? I've looked at all sorts of languages (C#, C++, Delphi, VB(eh gads), Squeak, IO, etc.) but my problem is that I have unlearned most of the S in CS and the learning curve for the API's to both UNIX and Windows has become...daunting. Short of going back to school, what would you soon to be fellow geeks recommend as a good kick start?"

3 of 58 comments (clear)

  1. Easy... by rasteri · · Score: 5, Funny

    Just screw up really bad. They'll have you writing code again in a week...

  2. Get a hobby by bscott · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Treat this like a project; get yourself a Killer App for the task.

    Find something that you just WANT to do - or something worth doing, for example a charity or community group - and let that force you to learn what you need to learn.

    You initially got into this computer thing 'cos it seemed cool and fun; and at the time, it was. Now you're trying to get back into it but without quite the same motivation. You want it to be fun and easy like it was the first time? Well, you've learned a thing or two since then, so use those life-skills...

    I bet you don't even have to leave your chair to recognize something, or someone, in your life that needs Fixing. To the extent that there's a technological solution to the problem, let yourself find and implement the answer. If you get it right, you can probably sell the idea too.

    --
    Perfectly Normal Industries
  3. Python Resources by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    Python is an ideal language for hacking in - I completely agree with your points about it being easy to pick up - and easy to pick up your own code again after a month or two away from it. Here's a handy list that I have prepared for whenever somebody mentions Python in a context like this one:

    Python Resources

    This is a list of what I consider to be the most useful Python packages. They give Python the ability to tackle almost any project.

    Core packages
    • Python - Get the Python interpreter, base libraries from here. The default install includes the IDLE editor.
    • Win32All - Windows extensions package that includes the excellent Pythonwin editor.
    GUI building
    • wxPython - Wrapper to the cross-platform wxWindows window manager library. It's a better windowing system than the TCL/TK library that is the default Python install.
    • Boa Constructor - GUI builder that uses the wxWindows library.
    Performance / Distribution
    • Psyco - x86 runtime compiler. Transparently improves the performance of most Python code - for performance-critical apps, it's often a much better solution than a C rewrite.
    • Py2Exe - Builds Python scripts into Windows executables. Perfect for distributing programs to systems that do not have Python installed. Use with Psyco for the best effect.
    Graphics Database
    • PostGreSQL - Full-function SQL database. More complete and advanced than MySQL.
    • PyGreSQL - Python bindings for the PostGreSQL database.
    Web applications

    Python includes a full suite of functionality to build internet applications in the core install, but the following are frameworks for building and deploying web applications.
    • Plone - Web applications, built on top of the Zope framework.