Don't Just Be a Programmer - Advice from a fellow programmer (@casweeney)

On daily basis, I get a lot of questions regarding programming and I want to use this avenue to address that issue because newbies always want to be guided so that they don't go the wrong way and some other geeks who are already good in the field, program for the wrong reasons.

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I don't think most of the questions I get about programming are the right questions to ask. You get questions like:

• How many language do I need to learn?
• What language do I need to learn to get to company X e.g Google?
• What's the difference between this language and that language?
• Which language makes more money or gets a higher paid job?
• What are the exact steps I need to take to become this and that?
• What kind of program should I write to build up my resume`

Why Don't I Like These Questions?

People who ask such questions shows that they are learning how to program just for the sake of learning how to program. Hope that is not confusing?

NOTE: Programming is just a tool. Being a programmer means you write code to automate things or to make things perform certain actions. E.g, programming a refrigerator to turn on the lights when the door is opened. Now when you think about that, programming is just giving a series of instructions to a machine over and over again until the right action is being delivered.

Most people who code today are doing it just for the pay. If the pay wasn't great, I don't think many of the programmers out there will want to sit in front of a computer for hours and writing a bunch of logic.

Most times we get caught in the race of learning the best programming language and fantasizing on working with the biggest company that we forget the reason why we actually wanted to learn programming in the first place.

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These are the reasons why you wanted to program.

• You wanted to program because you saw the amazing things that can be built using programming. So don't just dive into learning programming, you have to built something that matters.
• Build something that solves a problem: You are a problem solver, a creator, an innovator. You are not just a programmer.
  Note this down: Programming is just the tool you need to build something amazing. It allows you to express your innermost self using codes. But programming itself is nothing special, it's like a pencil which could break if you press it hard enough, but with a pencil you can create amazing things, you can draw paintings and design plans for a sky scrappers or anything limited by your imaginations.

You don't learn how to program to get to google, you learn how to program to build something meaningful and useful. Something that helps real people by solving human related problems.

It is your call today to build something useful and impacting with the tool you have. Change the world positively around you.

• If you like working on the blockchain, build a secured supply network to help distribute aids to the people in need.
  
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• If you like working on AI, make bots that aids real-time communication.
  
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• You like working on Data Science? Analyze and predict what the effective population needs before they even ask for it.
  
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That is how to program, thanks and hope you learnt something new?

You can also check out some of my points in an argument on my Linkedin post on this same topic: HERE

I am @casweeney.