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Start small - Eddie is right that a lot of the "boot camp" experiences are a rip off.
You could start for free to see if it makes any sense to you; if you mind works the right way.
Go here: Downloads | IDE, Code, & Team Foundation Server | Visual Studio[^] and grab a copy of the Community Edition (older versions than 2019 are available via the "older versions" link on that page if your hardware is relatively limited) - it's free and complete, as well as being the best IDE on the planet.
Then go here: .NET Book Zero by Charles Petzold[^] and grab a copy of the book.
Now start reading, and see if you can understand it. If you can, then it's worth considering a career in software. If you can't ...
Getting that job though; that'll be the hard part. Experience counts in this business - just as it does in architecture - so getting the first job may be a struggle.
Whatever happens, good luck - I hope it all works out for you.
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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A few months is a short period... Especially when all you're doing is learning.
You'll really start learning out in the field.
Anyway, you'll need to get some basics covered before anyone would even consider hiring you.
Get some certificates to assess and prove your skills.
Also very good, write some blog posts to show you're really into it.
I'd apply for a junior job with low pay and then work your way up, then switch jobs and get paid what you're actually worth by that time (which is usually a lot more than you get from an intern/junior position).
Good programmers are hard to find, so the people willing to learn should get a chance.
I started working in IT from scratch, no previous experience.
I had a little help as my uncle bought my dad's company and so I could work there because of my connections.
After about half a year I became lead developer, which really says more about the skills of the company than about me.
Then again, I spent 8-9 hours programming on the job, I had a mentor, and I continued at home for another 4-5 hours every evening (I was still living at home and I had only a few minutes commute).
It's possible, but not easy and you need a bit of luck (and a lot of perseverance, I've been on the edge of quitting because I really didn't get the hang of it at first).
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Sander Rossel wrote: and a lot of perseverance
Or plain stubborness.
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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This thread is why I love CP. Just a treasure tomb of practical feedback with a bit of hot sauce tossed in from JSOP occasionally.
In reading, I agree with the others that your background will easily give you the practical knowledge to solve problems. You don't get an MS in Architecture without learning how to think creatively. Some of the best developers I've worked with have alternative degrees - music, math, physics. But, I think you need to be realistic and focus a bit. The boot camps might get you started, but in reality you're looking at 1-2 years of effort, probably more to the longer time period.
I underlined developer above (not programmer) to point out that we (developers) create applications to solve problems. As part of your learning process, you need to be looking for that moment when you say to yourself, "Dang, I get paid for this." And you're having fun. Obviously, you don't like architecture  There will also be times of intense frustration (as other's have mentioned above).
I happen to have an electrical engineering degree, and I love being close to hardware. In my senior year a long, long time ago, my project was to write a device driver for a daisy wheel printer using a parallel interface, and I was hooked. I've worked with missiles, test equipment, EW systems, GUI development for embedded systems, etc. Unless I am starving, I will never do anything web, and java script horrifies me.
So, if you pursue this interest, you'll find yourself learning a lot of different things (I STRONGLY recommend a class in data structures and algorithms once you get a few programming classes under your belt). Over time, you'll do projects that resonate with what you like. The other side of it is you'll get a really crappy assignment where you are paid a lot of money to overlook the crap.
Good luck. Oh, one other thought. As an alternative to "boot camps", go out to youtube and search for college classes that the universities are making available for free. I am routinely amazed at the amount of information available.
Charlie Gilley
<italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape...
"Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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m4444 wrote: if I can realistically self-teach myself programming in a few months,
Yes, I don't see why not if you have the aptitude. But note that "programming" is a bit like "knowing how to use a steering wheel". Just as knowing how to use a steering wheel isn't going to get you ready to race in the Indy 500, "knowing programming" is very unlikely to make you job-ready. It doesn't work that way. That being said, I encourage you to learn software engineering if you have the aptitude. It could lead to a very rewarding career and more happiness that you could probably imagine. No, really.
I urge you to read this Quora post:
Ravi Bhavnani's answer to "I want to start learning how to code. Where should I start? What do I need?[^]
/ravi
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I can't use JSON for rendering a parse tree because JSON does not preserve the order of subelements and because of the way multiple values are presented it gives json problems.
XML can do it, because XML preserves element order and an element can be present more than once within its parent container.
But I don't want to bother if everyone hates XML.
What would you do?
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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If XML is what you need use XML!
See your options and pick the best (optionally the 2 or 3 of them) and use it...
Neither JSON nor XML is rocket science... If using XML, just remember to provide a working schema...
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge". Stephen Hawking, 1942- 2018
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There can be no schema for these ones. Or rather, the schema is in EBNF, not XmlSchema/XSD
It's by design. This is a parse tree. The elements are going to be different depending on the input grammar.
For any input grammar, you should define one XSD to go with it.
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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Maybe (however as EBNF is finite, and it makes the input finite, which makes outpute finite), but you can create XML schema for every grammar the same way/time you parse it... It should not be that hard...
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge". Stephen Hawking, 1942- 2018
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i can, but i have no real reason to although (related) eventually I may make something that compiles XSD documents into fast parser/validators for specific XML documents
what i mean is i can potentially do xml validation and xml parsing in one sweep. The XSD could actually speed up the parse compared to parsing raw XML
maybe down the road.
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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looks like someone already had my idea. 
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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When would you ever want a parse tree as a string? Actually when would you want a parse tree at all, instead of building some more convenient (and garbage-free) representation immediately?
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The way my parser works you can practically shape the parse tree however you want.
Plus you can hard type the values from the lexer - even with your own types.
So you basically get an AST straight from the parser.
Spitting to JSON just gives you a tree structure you can pass around as JSON
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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I think I misread you at first so let me try this again.
I don't want to parse any strings. I created a tool that allows others to generate parsers to parse strings.
As to why you would want to - most of the internet runs on text based protocols. XML and JSON are text based, as are most internet data exchange formats.
Also there are things like programming languages. Say you want to parse one, or create your own. This helps with that, or making a query engine, making a SQL DB of your own, or parse SQL scripts whatever.
There are plenty of reasons to use a parser.
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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I know what a parser is, obviously. But if the output of the parser is a string (such as XML or JSON), then you're building some Rube Goldberg machine that keeps parsing and serializing and parsing again.
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That's not the main output. It's just an option to use with the parse tree.
The output is actually a pull parser underneath it all, such that
while(parser.Read) {
switch(parser.NodeType)
{
case LLNodeType.NonTerminal:
case LLNodeType.Terminal:
}
}
It builds a parse tree using that, if you want it to, or you can use it directly
It works almost exactly like XmlReader
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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To me the advantage of using XML with Visual Studio is that all functionality is built-in, when using an external library like the Newtonsoft.Json.dll you can get in DLL hell.
Especially when using NuGet packages everybody seems to be using their own version of Newtonsoft.Json.dll 
Here is an Ebook about XML: https://bookdl.com/978-1484231043/[^]
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You are assuming that everyone hates XML. XML/XSLT and the API around it are mature in Java and .NET, and many systems were build based on these technologies.
Caveat Emptor.
"Progress doesn't come from early risers – progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things." Lazarus Long
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I think you misunderstood me. I didn't say everyone hates XML. I only suggested it as a possibility (now that JSON is around)
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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codewitch honey crisis wrote: But I don't want to bother if everyone hates XML.
Aw, ffs, most people will not even know that it is being used. We're not religious, so we can't burn XML just because a few people don't know what it is for.
If you create entire databases in XML, you'll hate it, yes. If you use it as a communication-protocol, you'll hate it too. Use it as an exchange-format, and it will work perfectly.
I would store a tree in an in-memory SQLite3 database. Quick, efficient, and easy to write to a SQLite-db on disk and have the user send you their tree by mail, if you need it for debugging.
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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I'm not even using the XML. It's just a feature i'm thinking of adding for end user devs that use my stuff.
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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Consider yourself to be SQL Server; do you allow export in XML, or would you prefer not to because a few people "hate it"?
Programming isn't politics, technologies don't have to be popular.
Bastard Programmer from Hell
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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I do crap that's not popular all the freakin time. 
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
-----
You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
-----
When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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#realJSOP wrote: I do crap that's not popular all the freakin time.
Like asking who took your template-permissions? 
Bastard Programmer from Hell
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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