Not being a programmer is okay too

In the past three decades the technology industry has had a lot of impact on our way of life, and it has created the illusion that being a programmer is an empire skill.

From social media to mobile apps to electric cars and AI, almost all areas of our lives has been transformed completely and everything seems to be revolving around the fact that Technology is the future.

That could be true, and knowing that fact does make some of us feel handicapped.

When you read about the latest technological advancements it does make one wonder:

“What next for us, the none tech guys?”

“Do I need to have that skill to build something worthwhile?”“ Should I jump into the wagon and learn programming?”

Well that is totally up to you, but I’m here to say it is also ok don’t want to do that just yet. Not Being a programmer is ok too.

The little time I have done some software development, I have realised two things:

The first being, programming is a very useful skill and I have come to love how logical it is. It does teach you problem solving logics and a way of thinking and approach that can be useful in our everyday life. The thought that if you can think it you can solve your way towards it is priceless, and the more you solve problems the more confident you become that you will be able to solve even the bigger issues.

The second thing is that, though it is a good skill to have, it is no longer a very difficult skill to attain and like most things it has its down side and that side is not portrayed too often. Programming alone is not enough, and not every programmer can be the next mark Zuckerberg just because they know how to program. And maybe we should look at that in its entirety.

I mentioned earlier that it is portrayed as an ‘empire’ skill, by that I mean that the view of programming, by most non-programmers, is that once you acquire programming skills you can build an app that will magically turn into a billion dollar business.

Well, it doesn’t work like that.

With the necessary skills, yes you can easily duplicate a product that the tech mammoths of the industry are offering. You can create your own Facebook or Instagram or WhatsApp if you want, but that alone won’t make it into a billion dollar business. There is a lot involved in building a business, therefore a programmer has to have a lot of accompanying skills to supplement those skills if they want to make it in the business world.

You will never become rich just because you know how to code.

And maybe you should focus more on your strengths and find a compatible programmer to supplement your skills instead. That is a good alternative.

Another downside is that once you start programming consistently you start to lose your social skills. This is probably not rocket science, but Programming can take up a LOT of time. I can count the number of times I have been to social occasions in the past year, and I can now count the number of friends I have with one hand (the latter is actually a good thing, but that’s an article for another day).

Instead of interacting with humans, programmers spend their time interacting with machines. The more you program the more you begin to understand the language of machines. You soon become capable of telling a machine what to do and if it doesn’t, you fix the problem and do it over and over and over again until it does.

Do that too often and you will soon find yourself being happier dealing with machines rather than humans, because unlike machines humans have a free will and they don’t work that way.

Tell them one thing and they do the other. And when you stop interacting with humans, in no time at all you soon become the guy at a party who stands in the corner and can’t wait to leave or worse the guy who goes to the bar and has a beer alone.

The more you spend time on a computer the more your social skills deteriorate, and chances are the only other people you spend time with will be programmers who are no better than you will be.

And on top of that you will also not fair well on the emotional intelligence part either. Spend a whole month writing switch, if or else statements all round and you will lose the ability to reason emotionally.

Social skills and emotional intelligence are important soft skills needed to thrive in any industry and maybe if you can easily understand people and make decent friends, you are better off where you are.

Programming is a good skill to have but it is not essentially vital to have, you can make a change even if you don’t acquire it.

The key, with just about everything, is think bigger and better. If you can think of ways to solve problems that humans are facing, you will make a change and technology can only be used to help you along the way.

What are your thoughts on this? Leave a comment and share your thoughts in the section below.

Thanks for Reading :)