Writing computer code - I know very little - last time I made a serious effort the primo language was fortran and I could punch a mean set of cards to do simple mathematical equations.
Medical coding on the other hand, I was a certified trainer for several years when ICD-10-CM was new. I’m not an expert, per se, but I’m damned proficient, especially within my areas of clinical expertise.
But if you are delving down the rabbit hole into genetic coding, but knowledge is 40 years out of date. I understand basic Mendelian genetics and the concepts of dominance and recessive but not the detail we know today. And when you delve into epigenetics … well … let’s just say my offspring talks about how epigenetics makes a dog a pit bull and my eyeballs start to glaze over.
I could say more, but I think I would rather sleep.
Did you know the ICD-10-CM code for primary insomnia is F51.01. However, if you are sleep deprived it is Z72.820 and let’s not forget Insufficient sleep syndrome F51.12
That’s my code I think, not enough sleep.
Had FORTRAN and COBOL classes in high school, and every geek/nerd knew a bit of BASIC back in those days. Did well in my college programming class (C? C++?).
Zero since then. Nada. Zilch.
But my kid is a whiz at Python, and probably anything else related to coding you might throw at him. So that’s something, right?
I learned about c++ and html when I was in high school and college (not college classes though). Is that coding? Or is that programming a different thing than coding?
I enjoyed making little programs in my Ti-83 calculator.
@LaserEyes
Pretty much the same thing, but generally coding is more broad. Technically things like HTML and CSS are not programming, but they are coding.
@LaserEyes I always heard “coding” used as a less formal word for programming. I’d not include writing HTML in either of those… as it’s more of a straightforward description of text and images with formatting. JavaScript yes, by contrast. Just about any Turing-complete language, probably.
I should know a lot, being a software architect by profession. But I have not coded in many years and the new development methods have me stumped. The fundamentals are well known, but mostly calling APIs from someone else’s code concerns me.
I’ve worked as a systems software engineer for going on 42 years (plan to hang it up this summer). My wife has an electrical engineering degree and worked in high tech until we started a family. So naturally, our three children went into biology-related fields.
The only thing my computer science degree taught me was I hate programming. I’m pretty proficient at SQL and know enough powershell to make my life easier but beyond that I’m just going to stick to my scrummasterly duties.
@show_the_maw My dad and stepmom are programmers but I just can’t do it. And I only copy powershell scripts, which for some reason there’s always one thing wrong, so they don’t work first time out.
I’ve been doing IT work for 25 years but never had to lean too much on coding. In my youth I wrote in basic, cobol and pascal. I can follow code pretty well these days but I have to do a lot of googling of syntax if I have to write something.
My crowning achievement in programming was writing a program called lazy.exe. In the late 90’s, before tabbed browsing, I had the worlds greatest collection of 80’s music (thanks Napster!). I used WinAmp and would have to minimize IE to change the track if I wanted to (windows 95/98 days). So I wrote a VB program that hooked into a WinAmp api that would monitor the position of the mouse and if the mouse went to 0,0 (upper left) it would advance to the next song. I didn’t have to minimize anything, heck I didn’t have to stop reading the page I was looking at… just move the mouse up and left. Yeah… that’s right. I invented the swipe left in the 90’s
My original major in college was business/programming. That was COBOL and RPG wwaaayyy back in the day. I remember very basic (no pun intended) stuff, but not enough to write code anymore.
@tinamarie1974 sounds similar to my degree which is Data Processing way back in the day. Started out as a COBOL programmer but have had jobs doing everything in between. Now getting back to coding and learning Javascript because that’s what our automated testing tool uses for scripting.
@ironcheftoni oh we learned a bit of Java too. I remember when our professor was telling us about it, it was brand new and he had just came back from a seminar to learn the code. We giggled and wanted to know if it tasted good (java, coffee, dad joke).
But now I work in int’l business. The experience has been helpful though. Years ago I PM’ed a transportation software install at my companies major mfg sites in the US and MX. When the programmers told me something wasn’t possible I said, oh but can’t you build a table to cross revenue the data blab, blah, blah. Their eyes got real big like oh shit, she knows how to code. Little did they know I exhausted everything I remembered about coding in that statement. But it kept them from lying to me to avoid extra work
There weren’t any computer classes when I started college in 1958, majoring in math. A couple years later there were two classes, done by the math department. Fortran was one. By the time I graduated several years later there was a full fledged undergraduate major, and the beginnings of an advanced degree program.
I checked "It’s my job, but have to admit it has been many years since it was my job. Happily retired now.
Sons and grandkids all in tech-related or pure tech jobs.
@smyle I used to do a fair amount of coding; not customer facing but libraries and functions that the customer programs used. Still do admin scripting in DCL on the systems that remain. Its surprisingly capable, and actually fun work.
Back in the early 70’s my high school had a console modem that dialed in (literally… used a rotary dial) to the mainframe at Mac Douglas in StL. You dialed the number, put the handset in the cradle, and then entered your program… As in typed each line of the code–basic at that time-- in then ran the program, got your results, then, when you broke the connection to the mainframe… PFFFT it was all gone. Actually enjoyed the process of writing the programs from an analytical and thought exercise point of view. Haven’t done any in almost 50 yrs now, so not really up to par.
BTW, now that I think about it, it’s amazing that we had access to such resources back in that day. Now-a-days if you gave a bunch of high school kids access to the main computers at Mac Doug they would be 3D printing out fighter jets by the end of the day.
I write actual code at actual job, but it doesn’t go into software that has much of a footprint anywhere, it’s not the majority of my job, there’s no peers, no code reviews… just glue and automation, so it’s probably all severely mediocre.
@jennypopachzimu If you like it and you get good at it, you’ll never want for a job. A satisfying well-paid job. On the other hand, you’ll probably be learning a new language every few years. So make sure you like learning also. Speaking from too many languages to count, but happily comfortably retired from the industry after many enjoyable work years.
back when friends and i were all using livejournal, i learned to do enough CSS to make mine look the way i wanted. if i tried again today, i probably wouldn’t get too far but could easily google what i needed to know and refresh my memory.
so, i know more than that it exists, but probably less than doing “basic stuff” since the scope is quite limited. basically, i know enough for aesthetics but nothing beyond.
“Coding” is a term only non-coders would use, right? It’s so generic i coded SQL for 11 years and I know both Oracle and SSMS syntax. But i don’t know any other coding language.
I’d probably be able to pick up on some pretty quickly… i think of sql coding like algebra. I don’t know how to explain why i think that, i just do.
I miss the programming I used to do. The job I had was much more varied and required more versatility than what I’m in now, which is basically changing diapers on broken microsoft systems with occasional sparkles of networking fun. I recently had to rewrite some DCL procedures I created 20 years ago though to take account of system changes. That was fun!
“Enough to do some pretty BASIC stuff.”
yuk yuk
please be specific in formulating your questions.
Writing computer code - I know very little - last time I made a serious effort the primo language was fortran and I could punch a mean set of cards to do simple mathematical equations.
Medical coding on the other hand, I was a certified trainer for several years when ICD-10-CM was new. I’m not an expert, per se, but I’m damned proficient, especially within my areas of clinical expertise.
But if you are delving down the rabbit hole into genetic coding, but knowledge is 40 years out of date. I understand basic Mendelian genetics and the concepts of dominance and recessive but not the detail we know today. And when you delve into epigenetics … well … let’s just say my offspring talks about how epigenetics makes a dog a pit bull and my eyeballs start to glaze over.
I could say more, but I think I would rather sleep.
Did you know the ICD-10-CM code for primary insomnia is F51.01. However, if you are sleep deprived it is Z72.820 and let’s not forget Insufficient sleep syndrome F51.12
That’s my code I think, not enough sleep.
Had FORTRAN and COBOL classes in high school, and every geek/nerd knew a bit of BASIC back in those days. Did well in my college programming class (C? C++?).
Zero since then. Nada. Zilch.
But my kid is a whiz at Python, and probably anything else related to coding you might throw at him. So that’s something, right?
@compunaut right there with you. Took an intro to c++ my last year of college, because my school had just started offering it.
I learned about c++ and html when I was in high school and college (not college classes though). Is that coding? Or is that programming a different thing than coding?
I enjoyed making little programs in my Ti-83 calculator.
So yeah, that’s how much I know about coding.
@LaserEyes
Pretty much the same thing, but generally coding is more broad. Technically things like HTML and CSS are not programming, but they are coding.
@LaserEyes I always heard “coding” used as a less formal word for programming. I’d not include writing HTML in either of those… as it’s more of a straightforward description of text and images with formatting. JavaScript yes, by contrast. Just about any Turing-complete language, probably.
I should know a lot, being a software architect by profession. But I have not coded in many years and the new development methods have me stumped. The fundamentals are well known, but mostly calling APIs from someone else’s code concerns me.
Code Monkey
@ironcheftoni I like this interpretation:
I’ve worked as a systems software engineer for going on 42 years (plan to hang it up this summer). My wife has an electrical engineering degree and worked in high tech until we started a family. So naturally, our three children went into biology-related fields.
@macromeh i have a degree in social work and have coded sql for 11 years. Makes perfect sense!
The only thing my computer science degree taught me was I hate programming. I’m pretty proficient at SQL and know enough powershell to make my life easier but beyond that I’m just going to stick to my scrummasterly duties.
@show_the_maw My dad and stepmom are programmers but I just can’t do it. And I only copy powershell scripts, which for some reason there’s always one thing wrong, so they don’t work first time out.
@show_the_maw I love the designing the program. And even getting it started. But the debugging kills me.
@regnowsin @show_the_maw Pro tip: don’t put bugs in your programs in the first place.
I’ve been doing IT work for 25 years but never had to lean too much on coding. In my youth I wrote in basic, cobol and pascal. I can follow code pretty well these days but I have to do a lot of googling of syntax if I have to write something.
My crowning achievement in programming was writing a program called lazy.exe. In the late 90’s, before tabbed browsing, I had the worlds greatest collection of 80’s music (thanks Napster!). I used WinAmp and would have to minimize IE to change the track if I wanted to (windows 95/98 days). So I wrote a VB program that hooked into a WinAmp api that would monitor the position of the mouse and if the mouse went to 0,0 (upper left) it would advance to the next song. I didn’t have to minimize anything, heck I didn’t have to stop reading the page I was looking at… just move the mouse up and left. Yeah… that’s right. I invented the swipe left in the 90’s
I know it’s that thing that Biden says you should learn to do when you lose your job because of one of his policies.
My original major in college was business/programming. That was COBOL and RPG wwaaayyy back in the day. I remember very basic (no pun intended) stuff, but not enough to write code anymore.
@tinamarie1974 sounds similar to my degree which is Data Processing way back in the day. Started out as a COBOL programmer but have had jobs doing everything in between. Now getting back to coding and learning Javascript because that’s what our automated testing tool uses for scripting.
@ironcheftoni oh we learned a bit of Java too. I remember when our professor was telling us about it, it was brand new and he had just came back from a seminar to learn the code. We giggled and wanted to know if it tasted good (java, coffee, dad joke).
But now I work in int’l business. The experience has been helpful though. Years ago I PM’ed a transportation software install at my companies major mfg sites in the US and MX. When the programmers told me something wasn’t possible I said, oh but can’t you build a table to cross revenue the data blab, blah, blah. Their eyes got real big like oh shit, she knows how to code. Little did they know I exhausted everything I remembered about coding in that statement. But it kept them from lying to me to avoid extra work
There weren’t any computer classes when I started college in 1958, majoring in math. A couple years later there were two classes, done by the math department. Fortran was one. By the time I graduated several years later there was a full fledged undergraduate major, and the beginnings of an advanced degree program.
I checked "It’s my job, but have to admit it has been many years since it was my job. Happily retired now.
Sons and grandkids all in tech-related or pure tech jobs.
I said it’s my job, but it’s really not. I’m a sysadmin and I write lots of scripts, and look-but-rarely-touch a lot of “real” code.
@smyle I used to do a fair amount of coding; not customer facing but libraries and functions that the customer programs used. Still do admin scripting in DCL on the systems that remain. Its surprisingly capable, and actually fun work.
Back in the early 70’s my high school had a console modem that dialed in (literally… used a rotary dial) to the mainframe at Mac Douglas in StL. You dialed the number, put the handset in the cradle, and then entered your program… As in typed each line of the code–basic at that time-- in then ran the program, got your results, then, when you broke the connection to the mainframe… PFFFT it was all gone. Actually enjoyed the process of writing the programs from an analytical and thought exercise point of view. Haven’t done any in almost 50 yrs now, so not really up to par.
BTW, now that I think about it, it’s amazing that we had access to such resources back in that day. Now-a-days if you gave a bunch of high school kids access to the main computers at Mac Doug they would be 3D printing out fighter jets by the end of the day.
Not as much as I should.
I write actual code at actual job, but it doesn’t go into software that has much of a footprint anywhere, it’s not the majority of my job, there’s no peers, no code reviews… just glue and automation, so it’s probably all severely mediocre.
Teach it interwoven with our high school physics program since we do not have classes for computer science here in the middle of nebraska
My C and oracle SQL is quiet good but things are moving to .net and I don’t have time to learn it
I am a freshman about coding, and I planing to study python and SQL,
@jennypopachzimu If you like it and you get good at it, you’ll never want for a job. A satisfying well-paid job. On the other hand, you’ll probably be learning a new language every few years. So make sure you like learning also. Speaking from too many languages to count, but happily comfortably retired from the industry after many enjoyable work years.
back when friends and i were all using livejournal, i learned to do enough CSS to make mine look the way i wanted. if i tried again today, i probably wouldn’t get too far but could easily google what i needed to know and refresh my memory.
so, i know more than that it exists, but probably less than doing “basic stuff” since the scope is quite limited. basically, i know enough for aesthetics but nothing beyond.
“Coding” is a term only non-coders would use, right? It’s so generic
i coded SQL for 11 years and I know both Oracle and SSMS syntax. But i don’t know any other coding language.
I’d probably be able to pick up on some pretty quickly… i think of sql coding like algebra. I don’t know how to explain why i think that, i just do.
@mbersiam That’s because SQL is algebra. Just one that operates on sets and tuples rather than numbers.
Filters apply boolean logic, set unions and intersections are joins, outer and inner, etc. all just operators in higher dimensional algebras.
@mike808 makes sense.
I miss the programming I used to do. The job I had was much more varied and required more versatility than what I’m in now, which is basically changing diapers on broken microsoft systems with occasional sparkles of networking fun. I recently had to rewrite some DCL procedures I created 20 years ago though to take account of system changes. That was fun!