What it’s really like learning Python.
Let me give you a bit of a backstory here. I’m 16 and I live in Nigeria, where the ‘normal’ way to earn a lot of money is to become a doctor, lawyer, or one of the other big professions. I found myself thinking, “If everybody has one of these jobs, there’ll be no jobs in a few years.” Were there really no other ways to become wealthy or at least, well off, without doing as everyone does? Then, as I explained in my previous article, I started programming, Python specifically.
I’ve been learning and practicing Python for a few months now. I grew from thinking this would have me churning out apps every other week at my leisure to knowing how difficult it is to actually code and seeing it for what it truly is. Brainwork. “Don’t you use computers while programming?” you may ask. I do, but you can only ‘create’ apps by copying source code for so long, without getting disinterested.
The only way to enjoy programming is to think thoroughly before creating. I have nothing against looking up ideas on Google, StackOverflow, GitHub, or anywhere you might see an interesting idea for a project. I do so myself, as I am still a rookie. One of the very first projects I made, I copied line for line, in fact, I just copied directly and pasted it into my IDE. I was shocked at how uninspired I felt. I had a new project done in 5 minutes, 4 of which I used to look for the project. This was not the way. (Kudos if you get the reference)
Starting over, I looked for another project that had variables to be adjusted(a golf kind of game), so I could make mine similar but not exact. I then wrote the code myself, stopping after every command to study what they meant and how it affected the code. I was learning far better than from just tutorials. I finished writing the code, and could accurately tell what each different command was supposed to do. I ran the program and it worked. Great! I then went back to my code and tweaked virtually all the variables, noting how they affected the output. Many, many times, the code would not run. It was hard, but I was learning a great deal. Noting which changed variables affected the program’s running, I then rewrote the code, this time using variables I felt were better suited to me(window height, vectors, and the like). Since then, I think about my projects before starting them and study each line of code so I know exactly how it affects the output.
So, what’s it really like, learning Python? It’s easy to watch a bunch of courses and claim you know Python, but it won’t amount to anything more than you knowing all the fancy words that come with it. Learning Python has forced me to learn computaional thinking, which is approaching a problem logically and finding the most efficient way to fix it. It was not easy at first, but it is slowly becoming part of my work process. Python is easy enough to understand, but mastering it takes a great deal of thought. Seemingly easy, but complex at it’s very core.
I think one of the main reasons why people don’t go into programming is because of the mindset and workload required. I can’t imagine that everyone would sit in one place from 9 pm to 4 am working on a program that doesn’t work at the end of it all(Yes, this happened to me just a few weeks ago). It can be very tasking. I went to bed tired, woke up, and felt even more drained. The mental gymnastics required were quite frankly exhausting, to me. Nevertheless, I love programming not only for what it is, but for what it can be. It has taught me that there is a way to solve every problem, you just need to think thoroughly.
