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A 37-year-old wanting to learn computer science

(initcoder.com)
165 points chbkall | 1 comments | 05 Jul 25 08:52 UTC | HN request time: 0.258s | source
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pglevy ◴[05 Jul 25 17:04 UTC] No.44474037[source]▶
What I took away from your post was not that you want to learn computer science but that you want to build things with software. If so, now is a really exciting time because it's never been easier for people without a CS background to go from idea to working software.

As a UX designer, I've worked with developers for a long time, so I've picked up knowledge along the way. I've read some books and merged some PRs at work but nothing that would qualify me as a developer.

What am I'm having a lot fun with right now though is building with LLMs. If I have an idea, I'll just throw it into Replit or Claude Code to see what it comes up with and then decide if I want to pursue it further.

My 2 cents: learn by building. Start working down your list of ideas and dig deeper into questions and topics that come up. Will probably keep things more interesting than slogging through a course.

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1. seadan83 ◴[05 Jul 25 17:42 UTC] No.44474288[source]▶
> If so, now is a really exciting time because it's never been easier for people without a CS background to go from idea to working software.

If this means to "learn" by using a LLM, I would be so wary of that advice.

Not learning CS was a shortcut many people took. Sometimes lack of time (ie: they haven't learned it yet), sometimes a lack of will. Either way, I feel that CS fundamentals is like a car mechanic knowing how an engine works. Tends to make for a better mechanic.