Should I switch careers and learn to code?

I only came in to say you might want to check out http://codeyear.com/, which is a weekly coding lesson that seems like it might be pretty cool. I just signed up this morning.

http://norvig.com/21-days.html. What's it like? I've been writing code since I was in 8th grade. What really did it for me was the "make the monkey dance" aspect of it. Out of thought I could make a reality that could grow and flourish. The trick was figuring how to get from the thought to its representation in code. Doing this well takes a long time and requires writing a lot of code. Seriously. On a day to day basis, I come in and deal with email that has stacked up, have a morning status meeting to see where my colleagues are, then I sit down to code on my current project. On a good day, time will go into a weird shift and I'll lose about 3 hours of awareness because of depth of concentration. If I'm doing new code, I'm spending a bunch of time thinking about the overall design and how it fits into our existing code base as well as how it can grow in the future (is it extensible? are the abstractions in the right places? will I regret the nomenclature? how can I eliminate bugs in code through the design? etc.) and also writing unit tests. As an experienced developer/architect, I also work with my colleagues routinely. Sometimes a few choice words can prevent hours wasted. In addition to writing designing and writing code, I also spend time making my workplace a more awesome place to be. This is done through things as simple as talking to people, questioning corporate BS, trying to remove pain points, making the environment fun, preventing toxic interactions, and so on. I also have to look at our overall processes and make sure that we are engaging in best practices and working with the team to improve the, Some people will make a big deal about which language you should use. I'm firmly in the other camp, mostly because over my career, I've become a polyglot. From my point of view, pretty much all high level languages are the same. There are proofs of this (that imply more that you can't do anything in one language that can't be done in another), but it comes down to being able take a large process, turn it into smaller sub tasks (hopefully named) and be able to repeat, test/branch, iterate, and perform simulations of arithmetic. For example, I wrote procedural code long before I knew what it was in assembly language. I wrote object-oriented code in C long before I knew what OO was. Each language has a particular flavor to it that makes some things easier than others which in turn might lend itself to certain solution techniques, but it doesn't mean that those can't be used in other languages. For example, I've written a bunch of F# code that heavily leveraged F# partial function application and functions as (more or less) first class objects. I have also written that in Java which doesn't have either of these things in the language, but can be done relatively painlessly in other ways. For a beginner, I'd say that you can make the learning curve more reasonable by looking at languages that are garbage-collected at the least, fairly widely adopted, with strong support libraries, and with plenty of online examples. This would put Java, C#, VB, Python, and Ruby on more or less even footing. Javascript less so. Writing code has had interesting side-effects on me. For example, I used to giggle a little bit whenever a cashier asked me "cash or credit?" because my inside voice would answer "yes" or "true." Another example is that recently, I woke up at 3:30 (after a whopping 4 hours of sleep) and stared at the ceiling and designed a way to hack code for the sound board of Robotron/Joust/Stargate video games to play multi-voice music with (possibly) programmable wave tables. For no other reason than I thought it was interesting, I spent a few hours running a thought exercise for hardware that has been obsolete for several decades that uses a processor for which I can read the code of but have never written a line. And then a day later on the walk from my office to my car in the parking lot, I was designing the toolchain I would need to write that code to run it on MAME. This kind of thing happens all the time to me. It isn't always so esoteric - I was driving home from a family thanksgiving (a three hour drive) and I completely redesigned our company's memory management strategy as well as a rough schedule for implement those changes that would end up taking three years of small steps before being fully realized, but would minimize impact on our existing customer base (and in reality, we have had precisely 0 support cases on the single breaking change I had to make to the public API). I've found it to be an utterly fascinating career and I like where I work and look forward to coming in far more days than not. Not a small part of that has come from my ability to effect positive change.

What is the fastest, easiest way (language, method) to get to the skill level where I can be hired somewhere and make a good living? Given your background in creative directing, you should really consider a lateral move to Project Management. Study up on Scrum / Agile development, perhaps consider taking a course in project management that ends in a certificate. Once you understand what software project management is all about, you shouldn't have any trouble explaining how your prior creative work directly applies to managing software projects. Next, gain a year or two of experience as a PM. Top companies will want you to have development experience, so keep teaching yourself Ruby. Picking up some Python and C won't hurt. Work on Project Euler challenges, and become an active participant in Stack Overflow. At this point, you should have some experience working in your PM role with software developers. It should be easy to shift into a dev role, if that is what you really want.Am I cut out for this work? Is there any way to tell ahead of time, without investing hundreds of hours into it? What kind of mind/temperament is needed to be good at coding? I don't think I was born to do this but I think I could do it fairly well. is that enough?There are a lot of similarities between music composition and software development. You can just wing it and get decent results, but a grounding in theory will help you in either discipline. Most dev shops will expect you to have a grounding in CS fundamentals. Rather than a large set of rules-of-thumb, CS fundamentals are really simple principles about how to think and how to think about thinking. They can be brain-bending at first, but anyone can master them with a little effort and help.What is it like to code for a living? I have this mental image of a bleary-eyed, pasty-faced man at 2am, with twinkie wrappers and star wars action figures strewn throughout his cubicle. How many hours a day can you expect to work? What percentage of that is actually typing into a computer? I'm sure there are massive variables here - just asking about specific experiences you all have had or are aware of.That's about as realistic an image as that of the professional musician surrounded by drugs and hookers as they bang out a hit at the Bösendorfer at the end of a three-week-long bender. Sure, it happens, but it isn't the norm. Software development is a profession, like any other. Twenty-year-old kids may try to pull all-nighters to get stuff done, but professionals pace themselves and work 40-hour weeks. In an intense environment, you may work 50-60 hour weeks. Judgement and productivity fall off dramatically as you get tired, so a good manager will actively prevent their team from getting into death marches like that.

1) If you want the fastest, easiest way to get an employable skill, just do html/css. Tons of good resources out there on how to do it "the right way" and the rules are really straightforward and easy to understand for most people. "Apps, games, and web-based code" involves a lot of "purely functional stuff". Hate to break it to you, but there is no "simple way in" to making delightful and useful apps without any effort. Making useful apps is a hell of a lot harder than making confusing, patched together ones. I am a firm believer in the 10k hours to mastery thing. If you want to do this fast and easy, you are probably going to be bad at your job. However, most day to day coding does not involve a lot of math, unless you are working at a very high level for financial institutions, or in research. (There is the caveat of front end development and animation, something really important for games, which does involve math--but it's really basic stuff you probably learned in middle or high school). Starting salaries in NYC seem to be around 45k unless you went to a top tier school. MS, Apple or Google pays around 140k for the youngins who went to MIT, etc. If you are just starting out, expect to work a lot of (unpaid) overtime. 2) Just try it out, and if you are hating every second of it, you are probably not cut out for it. 3) Everyone I know works 9-10 hour days every day, with some crunch periods of longer. Including people with kids. Around 80-90% of my day is spent typing into a computer. At more senior levels, there are more meetings. 4) If you're just picking this out of a hat because you heard it was easy and really profitable, that is a bad reason to pick a career that is not easy in actuality. Maybe you would be more interested in doing UI development or something (note: don't think this is easy either, just might jive more with your past experience)? This is also in really high demand in NYC, and the best ones know html/css and some javascript, but do mostly design work. One other thing, most places don't consider ruby/python to be "software development" unless you're at a high level. Try searching "web development" job postings for an idea of the kind of skills you'd be expected to have, and the kind of income you can expect to make.

It's difficult answering your question because the market is so broad right now. If you want basic broad marketability, then learn Java or C#. There are frameworks that layer above those languages, but start there. It is hard to say what time-frame qualifies as 'fastest'. Becoming a good developer is more than just coding or knowing one language. It's about foundations, algorithms, data structures, and soft concepts like communication and realizing end-user (business) value of spending time on features and bug-fixing. What kind of mind/temperament is needed to be good at coding? In terms of mindset, it is valuable to be able to admit you are wrong or don't know things. You will often need to know how to find out things in order to start a problem. You will be given a task that you know little to nothing about other than a high-level idea. As such, you will need to translate that idea into lower-level abstractions which eventually lead to code, interfaces, and protocols. The best developers I have worked with excel at one or more of the following: * Idea guy - The guy who spends a lot of time coming up with grand, interesting feature ideas. * Technical guy - Knows way too much about the nuances of languages and frameworks. Way too much where you are glad he or she is on your team. * Automation guy - Identify areas that are being done in a single or series of manual steps and automates them away. * Business guy - The guy who can see the value of spending time on features or the value in pushing back against creating features. What is it like to code for a living? It depends on the company, product, and your manager if you have one. I have done late nights and weekends in my career. However, most days are standard work hours because I have prioritized that criteria in my job searches. At my previous job, which was large company/process heavy. I would spend a large portion of my day on meetings and process rather than coding. When coding was required, it was expected I would do it fast and clean. The remainder of the time was supporting automation, testing, and bug fixing. At my current job, which is small company/process light. I spend a large portion of my day coding rather than meetings. I find I have more time to think about what I am coding, specifically, so I can keep it maintainable.

http://ask.metafilter.com/150847/Starting-a-computer-career-as-a-40yearold is a real concern in this field. It's not a complete deal breaker, but you should at least be aware of that when deciding whether to pursue software development as a second (or third, or fourth...) career.

What is it like to code for a living? You feel confident that any technical problem can be solved, given enough time and information, but you simultaneously always feel like you are making it up as you go. You have no magical thinking about how computers work and it annoys you when you rub against people who do. This is an interesting and deep question all to itself that it would be fun to develop out further.

1) Very few software developers actually build servers/databases - most solve business problems using tools built by others. To find jobs via "recruiters", you will need at least 2 years of work experience, so for now you will have to apply directly. 2) Do you find that when you get into a problem, you develop "flow-state"? Are you willing to be constantly learning the ever-changing technology mix? 3) Your mental picture depends on who you work for and where. If your skills are not fully developed, then yes you probably will be putting in more late nights than somebody with more experience - until you gain that experience. And... well, it depends on your personal situation - when my kids were younger, I worked less. However, now that I am paid by the hour as a contract consultant for obnoxious rate - I work more, because I want to maximize my revenue ;-) 4) Straight-coding is one of those easily outsourced skills - what you need to also ensure are top-notch are your consultative/communications & troubleshooting skills.

There's much more to computing than just code - if you want to be a codemonkey, no more, then there are jobs out there, but really if you're into a career in computing, you'll need more. To get a coder job in the UK (not sure how it is in the US but it can't be that different) you'll need either a CS degree, or a shithot portfolio, or you'll need to be going for an entry level grad-type job (where they don't pay you much but they do train you - these are super-competitive). It looks like the middle option - AKA shithot portfolio - is what you're thinking of. So you want to learn to code, you want to get on github and stackoverflow and get yourself a reputation as someone who knows what they're talking about, you want to create some cool stuff, and you'll really want to work at it. Are you good at abstraction? Try having a go at the tasks on http://projecteuler.net/problems and see where you get; they're a good way to develop your abstract muscles. Possibly the best route for you would be to look for something that's cognate with your existing skillset - programming for music and musicians maybe? I have no expertise in this though so can't advise. An excellent, natural, coder is a rare thing; a good software engineer takes some talent and a lot of training.