How do you know when your ready for a job in the industry?

I can write hacky code, and with all the references on the NET I could essentially write any code, given a timescale, that was asked of me.

However I wouldn't regard my level of coding to be great, it's hacky script kiddie like.

I know if I was to mix with pro coders it would not go well as I would be out of my depth in any discussion. There are huge holes in my knowledge, the kind of things you would learn in a CS degree.

I could learn on the job. It's difficult to know how much you can self teach yourself before you are ready for employment. I could probably write a 2D/3D game engine over a couple of years, again as there is so much reference on the internet. Plenty ofopen source engines for example but I think I could hack away at one.

So is there a place in the industry for a hacky coder?

Anyone have any tips here?

Based on my dealings with industry, it includes lots of hacky coders. Although few people in paid positions openly behave like script kiddies ... doesn't go well with expectations of employers.

That said, you're going about it backwards. Rather than trying to find a place in the industry that suits your skills, I suggest you try to identify what type of work you'd like to do. By that I don't just mean "writing code" or "writing perl" or "writing C" or "writing C++" or "creating databases", because those are so unspecific that they are meaningless. I mean identifying specific types of problems you wish to work on, challenges you wish to accept, environments you wish to work in, the types of people you want to work with, and things you want to do when working. From there, you'll be able to work out what skills you need to develop, and identify where jobs that interest you are within the industry.

If you don't know what type of work you'd like to do, then investigate. Find articles about all types of jobs, and what they involve, and try to picture whether you would be happy doing that work. Talk with people who have jobs about what they do and ask them questions - which shows interest (so they'll be more likely to talk with you) and also gets you more information so you can narrow down to what interests you. Think about what subjects interested you in school, and try to find out more about them. Take as long as you need to investigate whether it is days, months, or years - it doesn't matter if you don't know now but, if you actively seek out information, you'll gradually build an idea of what works for you.

Most programmers do Google all the time, but the difference between script kiddies and good programmers is that script kiddies Google for code snippets to use without fully understanding them, and good programmers only need to Google up say API references, and have good understanding of fundamental concepts.

For example, a script kiddie may not understand polymorphism well, and has to look up code snippets on how to use a library because it requires the use of polymorphism. A good programmer may only need to Google because s/he doesn't remember what a particular class is called in a library, or what functions are available. Things like OOP, how stack and heap work, algorithmic complexity, etc, should not require Googling (unless you need some very specialized knowledge, like exactly how glibc manages the heap).

The problem with the first group is that not only is it time consuming, it's also dangerous - it's very easy to introduce bugs copying and pasting code one doesn't understand.

Most employers would not hire people from the first group.

I'm sure there are companies that do hire hacky coders (especially when the person doing the hiring has no technical background), but most of the biggest software companies probably would not, and definitely not game companies.

I don't think you're a bad programmer if you look up some example code of how a library works... That's just called learning by example.

You're a bad programmer if, like you said, you just copy-paste without thinking.

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Originally Posted by jim_0

I could learn on the job.

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In that case you are ready to work in the industry.

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Originally Posted by jim_0

How do you know when your ready for a job in the industry?

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It might be good to start by using the word "you're" when you mean "you are." Serious grammatical errors like that will make you look like a script kiddie, no matter how good you are at writing code and solving problems. Effective written communication is extremely important in software development. Nearly everything you do is in text, in one form or another.

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Originally Posted by Elkvis

It might be good to start by using the word "you're" when you mean "you are." Serious grammatical errors like that will make you look like a script kiddie, no matter how good you are at writing code and solving problems. Effective written communication is extremely important in software development. Nearly everything you do is in text, in one form or another.

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The most helpful burn I've seen in a while ^_^

Yes, proper grammar is important but let's be real guys, I'd hire this in a second : https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/1966172928/h375D0F68/

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Originally Posted by MutantJohn

Yes, proper grammar is important but let's be real guys, I'd hire this in a second : https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/1966172928/h375D0F68/

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Yes, but you wouldn't rely on it to produce working software when needed.

Oh who cares about the software, you could literally just market that and still make money. XD

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Originally Posted by MutantJohn

Oh who cares about the software, you could literally just market that and still make money. XD

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Sadly, so true. So much junk software out there that makes companies millions.