Four things I wish I knew when I started programming.

Four things I wish I knew when I started programming

 Here are the four things I wish I knew when I started programming. So, without any further adieu, let's jump right into it. Hey, what's up? Now that you're here and I have your attention, this post is gonna be awesome and you're gonna love it. So let's jump right into it my friend.

Here are the four things I wish I knew when I started programming. Number 1, programming is thinking. Programming is thinking. Now this is something I did not know and did not understand for a long time. How I got into programming was my brother called me up. He's like, "Yo, Hadoop, developers make $200,000 a year." I'm like, "Cool, I'm in." I started learning Hadoop, then I realized there's a prerequisite to Hadoop called programming. That's how I got into programming, but once I discovered programming, I thought it was super fascinating and it was amazing because what it actually is is your thought. Whatever you conjure up here, you can actually turn into some kind of reality, virtual reality. For example, the thing that I think is really cool is when you enter Facebook, you're essentially entering the brain of Mark Zuckerberg, or whoever was creating it, and the same thing that happens with Twitter or any other platform you go to write, Instagram, whatever it may be, you're entering the brain of the human person who created it, which is really fascinating.

So you can take anything you have here,  and turn it into this tangible thing. So I wish I knew that, and I'll explain why I wish I knew that, okay? And then, the second thing is that what programming is is thinking, and then all you have to do is computer code or Python, right?  What is that? Or JavaScript, what are these? How I think about it is the computer is this ultimately powerful genie that can grant you any wish you want as long as you can speak to it in its own language. So, what is the computer's language? Well, the computer has a few different languages. You have C, C++, C#, you have JavaScript, Java, Python, and that's what languages are. It's this way to speak to the ultimate, most powerful genie that we know, that actually exists on this planet, and then you tell that genie to do whatever you want it to do, and then it does it but it all starts in thought. Now let's get a little bit deeper into that, so for those of you who are programming, you can actually get some benefit out of it. Now how this would actually help you if you knew this is because when people are coding, they spend too much time on syntax and not enough time on actual thinking, alright? They don't spend a lot of time on thinking and problem solving. So in the start, once you get past very few basic things, such as, you have to learn how if statement works, you have to learn how for loop works, you have to learn how a while loop statement is written, but once you learn a few of those things, realize that the overall program that you're gonna build is gonna be built up here and is gonna be a lot of thought.

So what does that mean? That means that most of my time is actually not spent actually coding. My time is spent actually thinking a lot, so for example it might look like, "Okay I have to make a Django app so I'm gonna be using the Django framework." Or, if I need a database, right? I'm like, "Oh I'm gonna have a database and this database is gonna be hosted somewhere." But let's say you're doing something simple, right? I'm imagining that most of you reading this post are probably more beginners than more advanced so this database stuff might not make sense. But even if you're writing like, a game  or you're writing a simple program, you need to be thinking about it more so. In one of my earlier videos here I talk about I'm gonna pop it up right here, how to think and problem solve in coding. In this post, I talk about how you take a big problem and you break it own into different structures, right? You break it's layers apart, so for example, if you have a Tic-Tac-Toe game, or a Rock, Paper, Scissors games, it's just different problems all put together, so for Rock, Paper, Scissors, you have the problem of first determining between rock and scissor, who wins? Then you have a problem determining between scissor and scissor, who wins? And between, you know,  paper and scissors, who wins? And all of those combinations, alright? those combinations and rules, they you have a different subset of problems. How do you make the game keep running? How do you make two players play? It's all different types of different problems.

What you should be doing when you're starting coding, and here's a really, really big tip, is spending a lot of time problem solving. Once you understand the problem is thinking, you need to learn that you're not gonna improve in coding by learning new frameworks. You're not gonna improve in coding  by learning new languages. You're not gonna improve in coding by constantly taking new courses and copying things and building them up. In the start, you're gonna improve in coding if you actually spend time learning how to problem solve. If you can start solving problems, you're now fixing the part of thinking, how to think logically. Then you can take that and bring it to any project you're doing and crush that project. So for example, you should use resources like HackerRank or Project Euler, and go there and actually solve coding challenges and coding problems. So that's why I emphasize programming is thinking.

It's not syntax. It's not memorization. If you ever feel like you can't remember stuff, it's because you didn't understand it well enough.  challenge that I'm doing, so if you want to be doing the coding challenge with me every day until the 30 days, then join me on this journey where I'm gonna be documenting all of this journey  send me a little message, and you and I can hold each other accountable and hopefully it will help you build that habit of, let's say coding 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes a day. Alright, so with that said, let's move on to point number two. Number two, pick one language and stick with it. Let's talk about this. Pick one language and stick with it. Alright, so if it is the case that programming is thought and it is the case that if you improve your ability to think by problem solving, you are going to be becoming a better programmer.

Well then, what that means is that you need to focus a lot less on syntax and a lot more on problem solving. What is an example of a syntax? The programming language, the structure of the programming language itself. If you spend a lot of time on syntax, meaning you spend a lot of time learning new languages, like javaScript, Java, Python, and then, you know, like, something else, are you gonna improve more that way or if you picked one language, let's say Python, and just spent a lot of time in problem solving. Which way will you improve the most? This is my question to you. Take three seconds to answer it. Three, two, one. Alright, so you probably got it right and I hope that you did, and if you didn't, you need to rewatch this video again. You will improve if you go the problem solving route and you stick with one programming language. Guaranteed, you will improve beyond measure compared with this person who's like, going crazy learning these different languages. What's cool about this person is he'll come up to you and be like, "Hey, I know so many different languages. How many different languages do you know?" But then, you go, "Well I only know one language." But what's cool about you is that you can actually do shit. This person will keep going through tutorial purgatory, will be stuck, will not know why his or her skill is not improving, and why you can build projects that are actually useful, and he or she is like, "What the hell's going on here?" So please understand this concept. Okay, so if syntax is weak and problem solving is what's gonna help you, then in that case, what I'm gonna say is you should pick one language, and stick with that programming language, okay?  So if you're on this channel, I always talk about Python and I love Python and I think it's an awesome programming language, and the best programming language to start off with. With that said if you want to pick some other language, you want to learn C++, or C# or JavaScript, maybe you have your own reasons to learn this, right? You want to do something with Unreal Engine or Unity, you want to do something with web development, you can choose different languages, but once you pick one language, if you want to truly, deeply improve, then you need to improve your ability to think deeply, and you need to do that by sticking with one language, so then you're not constantly changing your focus from syntax.

You're actually just working on one language, and you're able to focus on the real thing which is problem solving. Once you understand problem solving, then all it is is any one big project, is a bunch of problems put together. Once you improve at problem solving, here's what's taking place, okay? So problem solving, here's how it works. It has you do one challenge at a time, so it will be like, "Hey, convert the date and timestamp of this thing to this other thing." "Hey, turn this thing into this other thing." Now you're doing multiple problems, but now when you have a project, you can see the project.