this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2024
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Programming

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A little background: Through my teens in the 90's I did a lot of the things you may expect. I was a script kiddie on mIRC, made a tank game in Unreal Engine, and did some Quake modding. From 2002-2004 I landed a job doing Java web dev, SQL, and overall database administration because my father's friend needed someone that could do that. I was ok at the job, but not great. Being young, my hobby that turned into a 9-5 made me want to stab my eyes out and I quit.

With that said, I can understand a lot of what's going on, but it doesn't "click" anymore. I spent 20 years as a career machinist, but I physically can't do that anymore. Here's the rub - my twin brother is a brittle diabetic and can't work (lots of other stuff going on as well), and our mother is getting old (father passed this year). The only reasonable way forward that I can see in order to be able to support my brother is trying to get back into development.

When I stopped, subversion was what we used. I'm trying to understand Git, but it's a giant conceptual leap. I guess, what I'd like to hear from you all is a way to jump back in as quickly as possible in such a way that it may be a career.

Thanks

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[–] Deckweiss@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (10 children)

Best advice I have:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FPO4fm4nxc

Keep at it. Do actual projects. Actually use the tools for a while. It will eventually make sense.

[–] jawa21@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 2 months ago (9 children)

I want you to understand how surreal this particular link is for me. Video edits are my hobby, and I've just recently started yet another play-through of Morrowind. I get the whole "do actual projects" thing and that's valid, but I've no clue where to start here. Should I finally learn C#? Is Rust the only way forward? Should I just try to catch back up on Java? I guess what I'm asking here is should I just try to find a FLOSS/OSS project and try to contribute or think of something new?

[–] Deckweiss@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

You can either decide by what is currently in demand in the industry and then pick a project that you can exercise that language with or you can think of a project you'd like to do and then go by what the best language is for a given project.

In the end, languages are just like different wrenches. First you have to learn how to use a wrench, size or features don't matter much at this point (unless you already know that you want to become an expert with one particular wrench).

I think starting a new project is way easier than contributing to an existing one.

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