Advice From An Old Programmer
You’ve finished this book and now you have decided to continue on with programming. Maybe it will be a career for
you, or maybe you’ll just do it as a hobby. For whatever reason you’ll need some advice to make sure you continue on
the right path and get the most enjoyment out of your newly chosen hobby.
I have been programming for a very long time. So long that it is incredibly boring to me. At the time that I wrote this
book I knew about 20 programming languages and could learn new ones in about a day to a week depending on how
weird they were. Eventually though this just became boring and couldn’t hold my interest.
What I discovered after this journey of learning was that the languages didn’t matter, it was what you did with them.
Actually, I always knew that, but I’d get distracted by the languages and forget it periodically. Now I never forget it,
and neither should you.
The programming language you learn and use does not matter. Do not get sucked into the religion surrounding
programing languages as that will only blind you to their true purpose of being your tool for doing interesting things.
Programming as an intellectual activity is the only art form that allows you to create interactive art. You can create
projects that other people can play with and you can talk to them indirectly. No other art form is quite this interactive.
Movies flow to the audience in one direction. Paintings don’t move. Code goes both ways.
Programming as a profession is only moderately interesting. It can be a good job, but if you want to make about the
same money and be happier you could actually just go run a fast food joint. You are much better off using code as
your secret weapon in another profession.
People who can code in the world of technology companies are a dime a dozen and get no respect. People who can
code in biology, medicine, government, sociology, physics, history, and mathematics are respected and can do amazing
things to advance those disciplines.
Of course, all of this advice is pointless. If you liked learning to write software with this book then you should try
to use it to improve your life anyway you can. You should go out and explore this weird wonderful new intellectual
pursuit that barely anyone in the last 50 years has been able to explore. Might as well enjoy it while you can.
Finally, I will say that learning to create software changes you and makes you different. Not better or worse, just
different. You may find that people treat you harshly because you can create software, maybe using words like “nerd”.
Maybe you’ll find that because you can dissect their logic that they hate arguing with you. You may even find that
simply knowing how a computer works makes you annoying and weird to them.
To this I only have one piece of advice: they can go to hell. The world needs more weird people who know how things
work and who love to figure it all out. When they treat you like this, just remember that this is your journey, not theirs.
Being different is not a crime, and people who tell you it is are just jealous that you’ve picked up a skill they never in
their wildest dreams could acquire.
You can code. They cannot. That is pretty damn cool.
