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I'm Saron Yitbarek, Founder of CodeNewbie — Ask Me Anything!

Saron Yitbarek on February 04, 2021

Hey CodeNewbies! I'm Saron Yitbarek — Founder of CodeNewbie. I introduced myself here a few weeks back but today, I thought I'd open up a dialogue ...
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Ben Halpern

What is your advice to newbie coders considering taking a "less technical job" because they haven't had success in their job search for a coding job?

For people who think they are ready for a junior developer position, but not finding success in the job market.

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saron profile image
Saron Yitbarek • Edited

Ooo good question! I think it's hard to say without understanding the financial implications of waiting for the right job. If you can wait, I think it's probably safer to wait, but if you need the money, by all means, go and get paid! But if you take a less technical job, I'd make it clear to whoever is hiring you and who your manager will be that your ultimate goal is getting a junior developer position. I'd ask them if there are on-ramps to getting to that role, what support and resources they offer for that transition, how often they hire from within, and if there's a way you might be able to do some coding as part of your less technical role. If you see a path at the company where you can get to where you ultimately want to be, I think taking a less technical job can be a smart move.

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Jess Lee

How did you get into software development?

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saron profile image
Saron Yitbarek

I got interest in coding when I was working at startups and felt like what the developers were doing was so much more interesting than the business development stuff that I was doing. I also felt like as far as career planning, there was more of a future and job security in being a developer. But it took me a few years to ultimately make the switch and learn to code full-time. Before that, I tried a bit of the Intro to Programming course on MIT Open Courseware, which intimidated the hell out of me. It was really discouraging and delayed my entry to coding by a few years because it just made me feel like I couldn't do it and that coding wasn't for me. But I tried again, thanks to Codecademy and a few other platforms like Treehouse, that made it way more accessible. And now I'm here!

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Yelitza87

I also try to constantly develop professionally, for this I learn about experience and life hacks from a useful resource. There is also an opportunity to choose the necessary vector image, oak tree vector on the resource. Images can be searched by species, colors, locations, and orientations.

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Peter

I wore a t-shirt to my wedding

I love this "fun fact." As someone currently planning a wedding, how did you ultimately make this outfit decision?

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saron profile image
Saron Yitbarek

lol I'm cheap and pride myself on being non-traditional so wearing a dress was out. And to be honest, the wedding just wasn't important to us. We'd been together six years, had already been living together, shared bank accounts, did all the serious adult relationship stuff, and getting married just felt like a formality. So it wasn't important enough to us to be worth fussing and getting dressed up over. My mother strongly disagrees lol

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Mmiillls

Oh my gosh, I love this 'fun fact' too! 🎉 As someone currently in the midst of wedding planning, I totally relate to making outfit decisions—it’s such a fun but tricky part! How did you finally decide on the perfect one? 🤔 Also, if you’re in the same boat and still looking for photo and video for your wedding or curious about wedding videographer cost, you should definitely check out this amazing service. I’ve recommended them to all my friends, and they loved their photographer and videographer near me search results! 💕✨

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Shannon Crabill

I love this fact too.

Does the t-shirt have any significance (a favorite design, a plain shirt, etc)?

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saron profile image
Saron Yitbarek

Nah, not really. It's just a shirt I like :)

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Nick Taylor

I’m curious where the idea for Disco came from? You’re a great podcaster and communicator, so was it just the next logical step?

And a follow up question. What hurdles did you encounter getting that business off the ground?

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saron profile image
Saron Yitbarek

Yup! I'd say it was a logical next step. I love audio and I love education and helping people move forward in their career and this felt like a great way to continue on that journey. I'd say the biggest hurdle getting the business off the ground was picking what community and what type of content to focus on. Producing audio courses means you can cover any topic, and I tried and tested a few that didn't work before I landed on machine learning and that one seemed to stick!

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Priyadarshini Chettiar

Though I completed the JavaScript course, I still find it difficult to develop applications and be creative. It just feels like I lack the capability to apply for junior developer roles. Have you ever doubt yourself?

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Lee • Edited

Hey Saron 👋🏼

When you started CodeNewbie, did you ever think it would turn out to be so popular? Did you have a gut feeling or were you just shooting for the stars?

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JohnBanas

Hey Saron, big fan of CodeNewbie Podcast, there is a lot of good information from some really interesting guests. I was wondering when you were first getting started coding, what was something you wished you knew then? Perhaps something that would have made things a little easier on yourself? Maybe even a few things : ) Hindsight is always 20/20 and all us newbies could learn valuable lessons from that perspective.

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Timo Sarkar

Hey there 👋🏻

What’s your favorite programming-language?

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saron profile image
Saron Yitbarek

I know mostly Ruby and a teeny bit of JavaScript, so by default, my favorite programming language is Ruby lol

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Timo Sarkar

Whats your opinion about Lisp? ^^

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saron profile image
Saron Yitbarek

I've never tried it, so I don't really have one!

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shiko teck

يبحث الكثير من الناس عن طرق لتوفير المال عند التسوق، وتعد أكواد الخصم واحدة من أفضل الطرق لتحقيق ذلك. أكواد الخصم هي عبارة عن رموز يتم إدخالها عند إتمام عملية الشراء، مما يؤدي إلى خصم مبلغ معين من السعر النهائي للمنتج أو الخدمة.

اليك اكواد الخصم

1.كود خصم بوتري بارن

احصل الان علي كود خصم بوتري بارن
2.كود خصم سيفي
احصل الان علي كود خصم سيفي

3.كود خصم نون
احصل الان علي كود خصم نون

4.كود خصم دبدوب
احصل الان علي كود خصم دبدوب

5.كود خصم وفرها
احصل الان علي كود خصم وفرها

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Matt C

Greetings Sharon,
Congratulations on the roll-out of Codenewbie. I look forward to seeing where it might go. I have been reading Dev.to for over a year now and really like the depth and breadth of content. The content of Dev.to (in my tiny mind ;)) encompasses both newbie tips and sophisticated and detailed advice. Seeing your AMA here made me want to reach out.

Q.What was your goal or vision on how you felt Codenewbie could be different from Dev.to? And what lead you to this conclusion?

This morning I woke to read both Dev.to and Codenewbie and found two identical articles on each site.

My point is (not to blame/shame but) that when I looked at the two posts I could not tell which site was most appropriate for that content.

Q.Even though it is still early, do you feel that Codenewbie is going in the direction you foresaw?

Best to you,

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saron profile image
Saron Yitbarek

Great question! Right now, we're for sure cross-posting so we can build up some momentum and kick-start the content creation process, but we're hoping that's more of a short-term thing. Dev.to and CodeNewbie definitely have some overlap but I think there's value in having a community that's explicitly for beginners. Having a safe space on the internet where everything is optimized for people just getting started with topics that are designed for their experience level, where there might be more stories as opposed to more technical content, is very valuable to new devs and people who may not quite be ready for the range and technical expertise that Dev.to offers, and that's what we aim to be.

I've always wanted CodeNewbie to have a home on the internet, and this is the first time I feel like we've had that, so it's definitely going in the direction that I'd hoped. Before this, we lived on a bunch of other people's platforms and now, we finally have a place of our own! I'm really excited to see all the awesome stuff people make and share here :) I hope that answers you question!

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idkwhattoputhere121 • Edited

I've been attempting to learn JS for a while now... Started learning for about a month and a half but then school appeared... During when I was struggling I came along a discord server that helped me greatly about the basic knowledge of coding, github, etc.
But, then I realized that all of these youtube/online tutorials wasn't really going to help me actually learn and understand each string/function/variable in JS (and including npm packages). Can you help me? This is the last website I could find that is based off of this topic.

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Rushan Khan • Edited

In regards to your new venture Disco, who is your targetted demographic? How will disco be better than other edtech websites, considering they have video too which is particularly helpful in explaining technical topics?

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sheriffderek

If you were starting from zero: and you wanted to learn programming / or design - or whatever - as deeply - but also as soon as possible to get into the industry... in a position so you could be getting paid while learning... what path would you take?

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Rachel Ombok

Congrats on launching CodeNewbie. I am working on my own social network type of site right now and I wanted to know, how did you spread the word and share your site with others. What was the development process for the site like over time?

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amananandrai

What are your suggestions for someone who wants to start podcasting or create Youtube videos?

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saron profile image
Saron Yitbarek

Podcasts are tough. I think they're a really great medium as a consumer, but as a producer, it's really hard to grow and get discovered. I got lucky that I was invited to a bunch of other people's podcasts and had a bunch of speaking gigs that helped me get exposure. In fact, I actually launched the CodeNewbie Podcast while I was a panelist on someone else's show and they helped me promote it to their already huge audience. That helped me so much.

YouTube videos are way more work than a podcast, but the upside is the discoverability. Videos are easier to share, repost, they get tagged and indexed better, all making it easier to get viewers. If I was starting from scratch and didn't have much of an audience, I'd probably start with YouTube videos.

I don't really make YouTube videos, so take what I say with a grain of salt, but if I were going to do videos, I'd make short little videos that are super specific. I'd try and find topics that are commonly searched or errors that people are likely to look up. I'd also look at other coding videos that are super popular and see what works and how I might find things to either try out myself or identify things that are missing from their content that I can do. Hope that helps!

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amananandrai

Thanks for this elaborate explanation and for sharing your experience it is definitely utilitarian.

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MrMyatNoe

I am self-taught programmer currently living in Myanmar. I have 4 years experiences as Backend developer majoring java language, Spring boot.Let me know how to get job on abroad. I asked this because almost all countries facing with covid 19 cases.

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sheriffderek

What are you learning right now?

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rhymes

Thank you for doing this!

How does Disco inserts itself in the resurgences of podcasts? Will it be also be a podcasting community geared to developers somewhat?

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saron profile image
Saron Yitbarek

I think right now we're seeing a rise in audio outside of just podcasting. Podcasts are great, but as a business, it's tough. Podcasts are tough to discover, hard to build an audience around, especially nowadays when you're competing with all of these celebrity-driven shows, and you're pretty limited to advertising as a business model. People are starting to realize that there's much more to audio than just podcasting and we're going to start seeing other businesses pop up with that medium at the center. That's where Disco is -- we're using audio as our tool for education, starting with a focus on developers. And instead of relying on ads, we're implementing a content subscription model. Hope it works!

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Axel Martínez

Is there anywhere we can learn more about your gear / workflow for the podcast(s) production?

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Saron Yitbarek • Edited

Nope, but happy to tell you about it! We use the Shure Beta 57a mic, the Mackie Onyx Blackjack, and we used to use Adobe Audition for our audio editing software and now use Pro Tools. If you're new to audio and do not plan on doing it full-time, I do not recommend learning Pro Tools. It's very powerful, but also difficult and confusing. Learning Audition is way easier. We also use izotope to clean our audio. I believe our producer, Levi Sharpe, also uses some additional plugins but I'm not sure what they are. Feel free to ping him for details!

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Axel Martínez

Thank you!

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andy profile image
Andy Zhao

What made you want to try podcasting?

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saron profile image
Saron Yitbarek

I've always loved audio. I grew up spending hours listening to books on tape and my first job out of school was working at NPR. When I think about interviews, audio is one of the first mediums I think of, so when I wanted to do something for CodeNewbie that involved interviewing devs, podcasting felt like the obvious choice!

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taximkawy profile image
تاكسي الكويت

تاكسي الجوهرة خدمة سيارات الاجرة الحديثة داخل الكويت ، خدمة امنه وسريعه تصلك في اقرب وقت ممكن وتنقلك لاي مكتن داخل الكويت باريحية تامة ، سيارات متوفرة بجميع مناطق الكويت ، توصيل مطارات بسيارات احجام مختلفة ، اسعار تنافسية خدمة عملاء متوفرة علي مدار 24 ساعه ، يمكنك طلب الخدمة عن طريق الاتصال بنا اوعن طريق موقعنا الالكتروني تاكسي الكويت

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Gracie Gregory (she/her)

What are some of your strategies for juggling multiple large, long-term projects at once?

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saron profile image
Saron Yitbarek

Spreadsheets! I love spreadsheets. They make me feel like my whole life is organized. I try to map out major milestones across projects and see where things overlap and might compete for my time and attention. Calendars are my second love. Seeing everything mapped out, including due dates for tasks, helps me manage multiple projects at once and makes me feel in control of the process.

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Mike Ekkel

Do you have any words of advice for someone who's trying to be more involved with the developer community by being an overall supportive person, but also by making their own content.

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saron profile image
Saron Yitbarek

Yes, blog! Writing is one of the easiest ways to make content, way easier that trying to produce a podcast or make videos, and it's super accessible. CodeNewbie Community is a great place to write, so is DEV.to. And if you write and post it on twitter and tag us, we'll do our best to retweet it and help share what you write.

I think one of the hardest things about making your own content is overthinking it. People worry about whether it's new enough, interesting enough, if anyone will read it. Don't worry about those things! You're only job is to write, tweet then write, tweet then write, tweet. Just do those two things and you'll get better at writing and slowly get more readers. Hope that helps!

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sheriffderek

What "role" in tech - is more important than any other (in this moment) ?

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Rypop

Hi! I’m interested in computer science and programming as it relates to the field of healthcare informatics. Any tips or suggestions you have related to this would be great. Thanks!

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sheriffderek • Edited

All designs have a goal: What is the goal of CodeNewbie ?

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demolatheo profile image
!Demmy

Good day ma, Thanks for the opportunity to ask you a question.
At what age did you start coding and what keeps you inline without thinking if you ever going to make it out of coding??

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saron profile image
Saron Yitbarek • Edited

The very, very first time I tried to learn coding, I think I was maybe 22 or 23. That lasted maybe a month or two. The second time I learned to code and actually stuck with it, I think I was 24. I'm not sure what you mean in the second half of your question, but feel free to elaborate and I'll respond. :)

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sheriffderek profile image
sheriffderek

What was the biggest / confusion - or blurry mental model that held you back - for no good reason?

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sheriffderek

What are your top 3 favorite bands? Which one would you (pretend) like to live with - in college and why?

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shak23 profile image
shak23

Any tips on maintaining learning consistency? That's always been my biggest issue, consistency.

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João Santos

Will you still be the host of Command line heroes?

I really love that podcast format. Could you recommend any similar podcasts?

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saron profile image
Saron Yitbarek

Yup! I'm still hosting Command Line Heroes. To be honest, I don't know any other podcasts who are doing history type of content on coding, sorry!