Programming - A Mind Game

Programming - A Mind Game

Not everyone is cut out to be a programmer. Sure, anyone can learn how to program, but learning how to program is not the same as making a career out of it. In fact, it’s entirely possible to be a talented programmer/coder and still be a mismatch for the career. It sounds strange, I know, but it’s truer than you might think.

“Tedious” and “boring” are two words that don’t sit well with programmer. We are an analytical bunch and oftentimes come with a degree. And we are much more capable than tying a front-end and a back-end together using line after line of code. Perhaps we could even use our skills and capabilities to make our job easier. When I tell people I code for a living, they roll their eyes and ask me is programming boring? So many other programming bloggers tell us that you have to be passionate about programming if you want to be good at it. Thus, implying that you have to start passionate before you can ever write a line of code.

People spent over a decade earning a degree in bachelor and thinking it was the career for them only to realize that it wasn’t — and that’s coming from someone who enjoys the programming workflow and the associated challenges. There’s more to it than the act of coding. You have to consider the entire picture. If you aren’t completely sure that you are meant to be a programmer, here are some signs that may point you in the right direction.

 1. You Lack Experimental Creativity:

Despite being heavy on the logic, programming is ultimately a creative art. A new program is like a blank canvas and your paintbrushes are your languages, frameworks, libraries, etc. You’re creating something out of nothing and this is a process that hinges on experimental fearlessness. Without natural curiosity, you will develop tunnel vision and always approach your coding problems from the same angle. At that point, programming becomes rote work and loses much of what makes it rewarding in the first place. There are many ways to write the code and you should be willing to experiment.

2. You Are Not Self-Driven:

All good programmers need to be self-driven and there’s no way around this. When you strip away all of the extraneous details, programming is fundamentally repetitive. If you have no personal stake or ambition in the code you write, then you’re just going to be miserable. This is true of any creative endeavor (and no matter what anyone says, programming is creative). Your motivation to write code has to come from within. You have to love the act of coding just as much as the potential for walking away with a final product. If you don’t love the process, you’ll never reach the output. If you wake up in the morning and you don’t feel a burning desire to work on your project, perhaps programming is not the right outlet for you.

 3. You Hate Logic Problems:

 Despite being a creative endeavor, programming is more about fixing than it is creating. While other creative outlets do involve a fixing process (such as writers who need to revise their drafts), programming is unique in that most of the problems that pop up are based on logic-based faults. This fixing process, known properly as debugging, is the heart of programming. Are you fascinated by riddles and logic puzzles? Do you have an innate desire to repair that which is broken? And by extension, are you naturally inquisitive about the inner workings of things? You should be able to answer “Yes” to all of the above. Much of the reward in programming comes from fixing bugs. The more complicated the bug, the more rewarding it is when you finally solve it. If you find no satisfaction in this, then programming will be nothing more than an endless string of frustrations.

 4. You Can’t Sit For Long Periods:

The nature of programming requires that you sit in front of a computer for extended lengths of time. You may be able to work around it by building a standing desk but the essence is the same: you are going to spend a lot of time in front of your computer. There are some concerns when it comes to this kind of computer-related sedentary lifestyle and it can lead to serious health issues if you ignore it for too long. Along similar lines, you may have to wrestle with mental issues like unwanted distractions, cabin fever, and lapses in productivity. Ultimately, the question is - are you comfortable being in front of a computer for most of your day? In fact, comfortable may not be enough, you have to prefer being in front of a computer. If not, productivity and happiness are going to be uphill battles.

 5. You Want Normal Work Hours:

 Programming careers fall into one of two types: 1) you work for someone else or 2) you work for yourself. Either way, it’s not uncommon to hear stories of late nights, long coding sessions, and an overall low quality of life. Programming is a deadline-centric industry and deadlines don’t play nicely with traditional 9-to-5 work days. As deadlines loom closer, Programming teams often enter a phase of “crunch time” defined by all-nighters. Even when working for yourself, you’ll have to pour in many daily hours if you want to stay ahead of your competition. In addition, programming problems tend to get stuck in your brain and follow you around everywhere you go. You’ll be working through solutions while in the shower, while commuting, and even while lying in bed. Because so much of programming happens in your head, compartmentalization can be difficult if not impossible. If you are lucky you may be able to find a company that doesn’t do crunch time, but I wouldn’t count on it.

 6. You Expect To Get Rich Quick:

There was a time when programming was a lucrative pursuit. Nowadays, programmers who get rich quick are the exception to the rule. If your primary motivation for being in this industry is to make a lot of money in the shortest amount of time, you are in for some disappointment. Overnight success stories, such as the popularity of Flappy Bird, can lure us into false expectations and delusional confidence. A lot of people have tried their hand at indie program development in the hopes of striking similar levels of success only to flop and leave the industry altogether. Can you make a lot of money as a programmer? Sure, but it won’t be an easy road. If you are looking to get rich quick, you might as well play the lottery instead.

 At the end the blog -

There are many other things. Everything in your program's environment is unstable and you must constantly update the program to keep up. Your program gets cluttered with options and you forget what does what. There are cases you didn't test – spaces in the names, empty data fields, reverse order of value. As a result, maintenance means dealing with misbehaving programs that eat data, send trash around, or simply make you wait for an hour and then watch them produce garbage. Programming is a never ending process, we can't just make fun out of it. When something useful cannot be done quickly and isn't the average person's idea of fun, it becomes the business of professionals.

Maybe I'm wrong, maybe there are plenty of places where a sprinkle of logic – in textual form or graphical form or whatever form – can be figured out quickly, left alone and be useful ever after. It's just that it's usually the opposite with me. Every time I have a nice little idea it takes me 10x the time it "should" take to implement, and most things keep biting me once in a while for a long time.

"Programming isn't for everyone because it is not fun to maintain what was fun to program."

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