- So how fast can you become a programmer?
So in other words, how fast can you learn the technology
and understand programming?
Let's talk about that in today's video.
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Welcome back my name is, Tim Buchalka,
with another programming tip of the day
and this video is in relation to a question I get asked
fairly often by students, and
how fast can I learn to programme is the question.
That's typically from someone
who's just starting out in a course,
they're very keen and eager to get started,
but they wanna know, they want to put a timeframe
on when there gonna quote unquote become a programmer
or when they're gonna understand programming.
Well the answer is that it's not really possible to
necessarily figure that out in advance, because
a lot of this comes down to factors
that only you can control.
Firstly, how much time have you got to allocate to
this endeavour and, you know,
people can have one or two hours a day.
Other people can have 30 minutes a week available.
So it really does depend on how much time you've got,
the technology you're learning,
your aptitude for understanding,
and like for example your logic skills.
And I've got another video that talks about logic
so check that out up here if you're interested in that,
but learning logic is a key part of programming.
So you'll need to understand that.
Some of the basics can take quite a while
if you haven't had any experience in that field,
but look I think you're asking the wrong question.
This is the truth here,
that, you know, if you're coming from that mindset of
how fast am I gonna learn this
I think you need to take a step back and think well
okay I want to learn programming,
but I want to learn it properly.
So learning fast often means you're taking shortcuts.
That's the reality.
Like if you want to get to point A to point B
as quickly as you can often you have to,
you basically have to jettison
some information along the way.
So you have to decide that
you're not gonna learn this aspect or
you'll gloss over other areas,
because you just want to get to that stage of
quote unquote being a programmer.
That's the wrong mindset in my opinion.
What you need to do is just think,
okay I want to become a programmer,
I want to learn this technology,
and I'm gonna take as long as it takes to get there.
That's not to say you should take 10 years obviously
and it's not gonna take 10 years either,
that's the other thing, but
if you're putting a timeframe on yourself
you're just adding all this pressure
to get yourself to that end point
and you're gonna be rushing through it.
You're not really gonna be taking care
to understand the material that is being
shown to you if you're going through a course
or an eBook or bootcamp or whatever it is.
So make sure yo don't necessarily put,
you know, hard limits on how long it's gonna take
and just realise it's gonna take as long as it takes
within reason, I mean you might decide that
you know, you think you can give yourself to
you know, maybe to the end of the year, for example.
That's better than saying I need to learn by next month,
because I've literally had students who will ask me
can I get my first programming job in a month's time
and they've had no programming experience.
Well no, almost certainly that's not going to happen.
I mean that's the reality in almost any industry
that is skilled in a similar alliance to programming.
You're not going to start with no experience
to getting a great paying job in a month's time.
I mean that just will be very unlikely.
It's possible, I guess anything is possible,
but very unlikely, so
try not to give yourself a hard constraint,
but also realise it's not going to be years.
You can basically work at it
and just keep working at it consistently
and reassess where you are on a regular basis,
because the other thing that is important with this
is as you progress and you're learning,
you pick up a language, say you start with Java or Kotlin
or C++ or C# or whatever it is you might decide
once you've been through part of one of those courses
that okay, I think I know where I wanna go now.
I want to get more into programming games, for example.
Then you'd maybe choose the C# route,
because that's, Unity 3D is a great framework
or Xamarin are two great platforms, cross platform
packages or frameworks to enable you to create games
and other apps across platforms.
So basically the more you understand,
and I've talked about in another video
the four principles of becoming a programmer,
four stages if you will.
So check out that video as well if you're interested in that
but just realise that this is a journey.
Try not to put this artificial time constraints on yourself
and just realise it's gonna take as long as it takes
and try to enjoy that journey.
Remember don't just focus on the destination,
but try and enjoy the journey along the way.
Be thorough with your training, go through it all
systematically and really try and understand
what you are going through and trying to gloss over,
not trying to rush ahead, because that's ultimately
gonna give you the better skills that you need
to become a programmer and to make the most of those skills
when you start getting into more advanced
areas of programming.
So good luck with it all, and just try not to put
artificial time constraints
on how long it's gonna take.
It's gonna take as long as it takes.
All righty, so I hope that helped.
If you've got any questions feel free to leave a comment
and I'll get back to you.
If you're ready to look at the next tip
click on up here and you can check that out.
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