The Journey To Coding Nirvana

Greetings all,

It’s been awhile since I posted a weblog and this is a return to fulfill a desire to blog more often. Today I decided to write about “restarting”, in this case, it’s about my return to teaching myself how to code.

Like many things, picking up something, learning something out of sheer excitement and desire is often very easy in the beginning. It’s not until you encounter obstacles (of any sort) that you learn just how mnuch you really want to accomplish what it is you’ve set out to achieve. I can directly relate to this from my experience in working out/maintaining a physical fitness regimen. For me, it began with working out in the gym. It came easy and I was able to achieve satisfactory results as long as I maintained a regular habit of doing things. As often happens, life situations may prohibit those habitual activities for a day or two, which may turn into a week, then maybe months, even a year or more. The key is to sometimes force yourself to get back in the saddle and reinstate those habits that were netting you the results you were hopping for.

I draw this direct correlation to coding. I took my first programming courses a very LONG time ago in college, but did well in both – to the point that even took the skills I learned and coded simple programs to help me complete duties that were given to me as a young engineer. Coding and programming wasn’t a regular hobby for me, so I didn’t do much of it for years to come. That said, since my last go at coding, things have changed a GREAT deal, and in 2013, I felt it was time for me to ride that wave again and take advantage to explore all that was new in programming languages and what they can do, not only in the professional workforce arenas, but from a hobbyist standppoint. After all, I did well in coding way back then, I know I can do well in it again. In addition, the approaches to learning coding on your own today gives far greater flexibility than having to be confined to a formal classroom setting.

So there I was, back in 2013, after some research, finding myself on Codecademy to learn Python, a scxripting language that I dound was very relevant in my field of work as well as for programs I want to code for my own personal use. Python is a scripting language that is widely used in areas like software testing (spaecraft software, etc) and has wide ranging use in other scientific and technical fields. Along with Python, there is a long list of other languages (high and low level) that are suited for various things that I found I’d like to learn as well, such as Java, Javascript, Ruby, CSS, Hadoop, Linux, and this goes on….and on…and on.

In my net travels, I ended up subscribing to adn.net (The Application Developer’s Network), a network much like Twitter, originally created for developers to forge relationships and discuss softeare development, but has turned into a nice social network as well. It was while I got to build me followers list that I met a programmer there by the username bayprogrammer who became very helpful and unselfish in sharing all he could about the nuts and bolts of coding with respect to the major (and minor) languages out there and what they are best used for. I’ll take a moment to thank him for investing the time he took to share the knowledge (and he continues to) with me.

So, here I am, starting again at a place where I got stumped. The difference is I know that if a push is not made, the achievement won’t be either. That being said, there are tons of resources on the net as well as two regular Python coding meetups every week here in the DC metro area. I know the satisfaction I can achieve in learning to code (and this is in line with and beyond the pish to get “everyone learning how to code” in the US these days). I’m a techie, a builder, and a creator….coding, I know, is for me. Wish me consistency and good fortune in this journey.

Thanks for the read, have a great day.