Becoming a programmer

Petras

Petras

— 2 min read
Becoming a programmer
Photo by Fotis Fotopoulos / Unsplash

I want to become #hackerman. Not a phony script kiddie, but someone who is actually competent in a programming language and can create interesting projects and ideas out of it. I've always enjoyed the idea of programming and dabbled with stuff like C++ and Python, but never really stuck to it. This time, I'm doing to do it.

"Why?" I hear you ask. Well, I've created a lot of spreadsheets at work, particularly leveraging formulas, mail merges, and other technical solutions to try and automate and improve the repetitive aspects. Not to mention, I get on really well with the IT guys and genuinely enjoy learning about the projects they work on as part of their role and wish I could do it. Not to mention that I have my own self-hosted server and enjoy tinkering with stuff, as well as solving technical problems and creating something new - something that's entirely my own. Also, I opened up VS Code on my MacBook and thought it would be really cool to actually genuinely need it on my computer.

So where do we begin? Well first, we need to pick a language. I learned Visual Basic in school for A-Level Computer Science, but I've all but forgotten how to use it after not having touched it for effectively 7 years and I dislike that it's primarily tied to Windows. I want to learn a language that can be used across multiple OSes, is (relatively) easy to pick up for a first language, and carries a lot of capability. Both my brother and my cousin, a CS student, know Python. So maybe we should start there? We'll see.

9:17 pm
It's come down to three languages:
* Python 3, because it's very versatile and easy to learn
* Swift (iOS), because I have an idea for a messaging app that I want to build
* C++, because it's powerful as hell and can do a lot of cool things, along with the added benefit that it feels like an all-star, definitive programming language

Picking C++ as a first language and also because it's cool seems like a bad idea. Swift, while handy, seems quite niche as a first language. In that case, Python it is.

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