The Programmers life Predicament

Programming is not easy, you can learn. I think my friend really elaborated on that in his article (That inspired me to write this one). Though this article won’t sound erudite, I hope readers find what they were looking for.

There is a time in everyones life where you really want to do or achieve something. Well, putting in the effort to achieve ones goals on the is not so interesting as just merely aspiring to do it. First of all, I seek to clear the stereotype that programming is for nerds who dont have a social life or friends. I’m not a nerd without a social life, none of my friends are either and I’m sure a whole lot of programmers can attest to that. Back in my sophomore year of college, I happened to get a new roommate that I didnt really know so well. All I knew was “he’s a web developer”, “he listens to good music”, and “he is not an unsavoury character”. Spending a year with him as a room mate, we shared allot of ideas and equal interest in programming. It was obvious he was more experienced in programming than I was( not that he had any significant prior knowledge of programming but simply due to hardwork and conviction to study it in college) so I guess I was doing the listening most of the time. What I learned in that year was that, people think you’re cool if you Major Computer Science ,or code. But the truth is that a lot of people don’t really put in that much effort to actually code the way my old roommate use to code and I guess I started coding keenly because, I realised it was paramount I transcend from the “I want to code and build an App or be the next Zuckerberg, i guess i can keep dreaming and having faith and I’ll get there” and start doing “I am actually working towards my goals, its not easy but i’ll put in all i’ve got”. Being a great programmer requires a lot of sacrifice, sleepless nights, missing parties, missing game nights, missing class sometimes(I’m not advocating skipping of class), proper time management, avoiding unnecessary conversations or procastination. Often, people dont have an excuse. I was able to manage being in my college basketball team, regular swimming, Class and a whole lot and still had time to personally practice and code, not because I’m extra ordinary, but when you have such little time at your disposal you just wanna make use of every second you have. Now for the people who actually do code. Everyone is tired of coding in that console and learning the basics and sometimes you just want to jump to that framework or start developing that mobile app you’ve been dreaming of. It is never advicable to skip the basics and jump on to something bigger. I found myself in my junior year of college taking “Learning C# book for biginners” e-book and studying from scratch. Even though I was developing Windows Mobile and WPF by that time. Why I did that? I lacked a lot of significant basic knowledge and rushed into advanced concepts. Eventually I got confused about many things and it was as if the story building of knowledge I had constructed just fell apart. This made me feel frustrated and depressed, I felt like giving up. Its not like I will be doing anything else if I gave up anyway. I just pushed my self back to my feet and studied my basics all over. I believe that was one of the wisest decisions I made. I wont say I’m the best or one of the best programmers in my class now. All I can say now is that I’m on the right track. And I hope this will help all my fellow programmers get back on the right track someway or somehow. Lastly, I wanted to use this paragraph to just rant about how much I hate when people make some crazy nonsensical comments like “Your in Ghana, you can never be better than someone at Microsoft”, “People don’t do proper programming in Ghana”, “In Ghana, they wont teach you anything” Or blaming College lecturers for their lack of proficiency in programming. You can always be good at something if you put your mind to it. You should never blame you college lecturer or your environment or country for you lack of knowledge especially in an era where the knowledge is just some clicks away. Why blame a college lecturer. Programming is not easy but it is not impossible either, it just requires a lot of effort, dedication and conviction that you should be ready to put into it. Never give up. It is good to hope, but laziness does’nt take you anywhere either. The sacrifice for greatness is worth it.