Is programming a craft that requires skill or an art that has its foundation in an inexplicable and somewhat unattainable talent?
The motivation behind the phrase "I want to be a programmer" is probably self-explanatory and acceptable. Programmers are relatively well paid today, there are far fewer of them on the market than the market needs and wants. Moreover, the trends are such that we will need more and more programmers and that programmers, if they are not already, will become highly sought-after prey for every employer. There are few professions in which we are in a position to choose both the salary and the employer... so who wouldn't want to do that?
Okay, we've figured out the motivation, we've decided to become a programmer. All we have to do is find out how.
Udemy, Coursera, CodeAcademy, Udacity, EdX, Khan Academy and many others - it seems that the number of online courses that offer us the answer to this question of ours is growing day by day. There are more and more choices, and the prices are getting lower. With only a few dollars (or for free) we can become programmers and get a job where we will earn quite a lot of money.
But doesn't that sound a bit like a " too good to be true" scenario? We have to invest and give so little to get so much?
Personally, I think that this scenario of ours ignores two big problems. The first is the employer's expectation that the programmer really knows how to program, that he or she has very usable skills and knowledge that will allow for the easy " plugging in" of the new programmer into existing processes and organization. The real question is whether the course that the person is taking really offers just that, the right knowledge, the right framework ... but also the right depth? The fact that we learned to make the legendary hello-world program in the course does not mean that we have become an expert, but perhaps that we have only scratched the surface of what the world of programming represents.
And the second problem is the one from the beginning of the story, from the subtitle, in which programming balances between a craft and the esoteric art. Programming is far more than knowing the syntax of a language, the capabilities of a particular tool and the framework in which we develop our applications. A real programmer simply knows that in a certain place a certain algorithm needs to be applied or their data needs to be organized in a certain way .
So in the end... how to become a programmer?
1. Choose what kind of programmer you want to become
We cannot know everything. We can be a developer who writes applications for mobile platforms, we can become a web developer, we can become a desktop application developer, we can write in this or that programming language.
Whatever you do, think about what the market is looking for. According to statistics from Silicon Valley, more than 30 percent of job offers refer to Java developers (if Java is your cup of coffee).
2. Choose a quality course/education
You can learn the syntax of a language yourself, completely free of charge. The Internet is full of all the necessary excerpts and eBooks that allow us to do this. Enroll in a training course where you will not be taught the syntax of the language, but specific processes and programming through real examples and practice. The experience of a real person on real projects is valuable. Choose a training course where you will actually create a specific program (project), and not learn algorithms for sorting data.
3. Program, program, program
Programming is not an esoteric art, but neither is it a simple skill that can be mastered in two simple steps. Programming is a skill based on experience. A programmer has broad knowledge that he is able to apply in the context of the problem he is solving. Programming is problem solving using all available means. Even when he works somewhere full time (as a programmer or something else) the programmer always has at least one project on which he programs in his spare time.
Did you know that Java is one of the 5 most popular programming languages? Do you know the basics of this programming language and would you like to take it a step further? You can acquire the knowledge and skills for one of the most sought-after professions in the world in the lifelong learning professional education program at VERN' Polytechnic – "Programming in Java".
Dean Nižetić, lecturer at the VERN' Polytechnic and the lifelong learning program "Programming in Java" .
