Learn why to code!

One thing always catches my eyes on the Internet, ‘Learn how to code’. Due to resources available globally over the internet, it is super easy for anyone to start learning how to code anytime. As a software engineer I believe programming has given us the power to unleash our inner creativity and solve the problems around us in a way that one has never imagined before. This popular phrase saying ‘Learn how to code’ pushes me into a thought process where I look for differences between programmers and problem solvers.

We live in an information rich world which is powered by machines. While we follow the crowd into learning some basic programming languages I believe we should also be learning some basic principles behind foundation of programming languages. On the other hand side, Why do you need to learn a programming language? is it to get a good job? Or an ambition to develop another Facebook and to become a billionaire? Whatever the reason is make sure to invest your time wisely. In other words, have enough knowledge about your car before driving it. 

From a professional perspective, if you worry about personal growth in the industry then think where, why and how much code you need to write to solve a problem. Developer community writes best practices for everyone to follow. The reason for that is not only to show us how to write clean code but also think before writing, think do I need this new methods, think can I do this job in less lines of code, etc. 

What I always look for is a problem solver. Programming languages are just tools to solve a problem. The good thing is that there is so much of basic stuff that has already been developed and matured over the period of time, all we need to sometimes do is find a proper use case for it. For example, say a business wants to store some bookkeeping records and a problem like this could be solved by helping them learn how to use Excel Spreadsheets rather than writing big piece of code which will solve the problem in a similar way.

In today’s world programming knowledge is easy and valuable for short and long term as well. However, if you want to stand out from the crowd you need to decide whether you want to be a 9 to 5 coder who wants to impress his/her manager or you want to solve problems by delivering effectiveness, not only efficiency with the code you write. Whichever path you choose to follow you need to ask yourself, why learn to code.