4 & 1/2 Facts I wish I knew before starting coding

Coding can bring you happiness.

That’s what all the coding success stories we’ve heard said, anyway.

We’ve all heard them before, in one form or another, passed along from friend to friend or as casual stories shared at water coolers about so-and-so who was working a dead-end job but starting coding and now they’re living the life that we all envy.

Wild and amazing success with every move they make, flying all around the world and making tons of money along the way.

Every so often, we even hear about some guy who started with an app made in their garage and now they’re rich and considered one of the shakers and movers of society.

After hearing how so many people are living their best life, the impulse to quit your job and rotate into those golden dreams can rapidly become appealing, especially when your other prospects look unviable.

But from my experience (so far) as someone who DID quit my job to dive headfirst into coding by attending a software engineering immersive, let me be the first to say that those perceptions aren’t exactly as they seem.

These personal observations have been popping up in mind over time as I started attending software immersive, refined in various ways, into these bits of advice I wish I knew before I got started.

Now, let me be clear right now, these are my personal opinions, others may disagree with parts or even all of it.

And that’s valid.

Everyone’s experience with coding is unique and exactly their own. What some might see as wild impossibilities could be someone else’s sovereign truths simply because of the difference in experiences they had.

But there are certain similarities in those unique experiences that I wanted to point out.

Here’s the first.

1. Coding is easy to start but hard to master.

Wow, starting off with a contradiction! Such zen, much philosophy, so wow. At this point, you might be just scoffing at this hedge bet, but hear me out, this first point is the basis for the rest.

1. What I mean specifically is that when people start coding, they might start with some youtube videos about HTML and Javascript and coding beginner videos, or look at some free courses online. And that’s good! That’s a great step to take! You got a bit of momentum going, and you deserve a break.
2. But then after a few days of “this is a quick break I swear”, people might lose interest and go back to looking up distracting videos like “how long can a man survive on sourdough alone before he gets scurvy” or “famous diss tracks ” or any wide range of trivia while occasionally taking a glance at that problem you were stuck on and before long, 3 weeks have passed and nothing gotten done.
3. At that point, any interest in coding just fades out until they don’t even pretend anymore and just quit. Some might even make excuses that “coding was too hard and I’ll stick to my day job” or “coding is boring and I rather be a streamer”.

All that I said so far? That was my experience with coding for the last 8 to 10 years or so. Every couple of years, I would play around with the idea of coding for about a few days to a week, attempt a challenge or two, promptly get stuck or bored and then quit.

It wasn’t until I started taking things seriously did I start making any progress in my learning. That change in thinking? That’s my 2nd point.

2. Coding needs dedicated time spent on learning and trying to understand.

Like any skill, if you want to learn to code, you have to spend the time trying to learn. Practice what you’ve learned to reinforce those skills and try to learn new concepts. Try to get used to reading code and try out some coding challenges, like those found on Codewars or on various similar sites.

1. Coding is tough, it’s a new language, but if you are serious about this move into coding, this has to be your priority (see above example of how quickly I got distracted)
2. Yes, many of coding challenges and various ways to study code will be difficult, but by repeatedly attempting them, you will develop an eye for reading code and start understanding problems and niches. Soon enough, you’ll be able to see a problem and know what solutions might work BECAUSE you have seen them work before.

For myself, once I started looking for solutions to coding problems I didn’t understand AND THEN see visible progress did my understanding grow. But that takes time, like.

The issue with this need for diligence in the face of a difficult struggle is that, often enough, I would get disheartened and give up. And that leads to the following point.

3. You can’t code in a vacuum, find a community.

The thing is, not a lot of people can learn and succeed fantastically alone. Most of us can (and will) get discouraged or confused or stuck (or all of the above, as I often ended up doing) and like many, my motivation would just die there.

1. If you’re the lone wolf type who can succeed on their own, that’s fantastic! But that wasn’t me. Even after weeks of learning intensively, that still isn’t me. Getting a helping hand when I don’t understand how this bit of code works with that bit of code, or even a fresh pair of eyes after I’ve driven myself mad when I’m above my head can really keep momentum going long after my spirit is spent.
2. Just as frequently, I would be distracted and have nothing to show after hours of sitting at my computer cause all I’ve done was distract myself by roaming the realms of the internet for amusement instead of actually studying like I told my friends and family.
3. Having a community who knows enough about coding to call you out on the BS excuses (Like the time you spewed out nonsense to cover up the fact that you just spent 6 hours binging Community episodes instead of coding) is an amazing thing that can push you forward (Sounds familiar? It should! It’s a callback to the 1st point. )
4. If you’re not sure where to start looking for a community, try Codewars (Another call back, but 2nd point this time around) or other social media where people are trying to learn to code (GitHub, StackOverflow, freeCodeCamp, Reddit, etc).
5. Oh, and before you try to avoid connecting because you “don’t want to bother them” or “they have better things to do”, trust me when I say there are plenty of people who do vs who don’t want to help. In my opinion, there are way more people in the community who love to help you understand and grow and learn.
6. On a side note, can’t believe I have to say this, but don’t take this as a blank check to to harass anyone if they don’t help. Often enough, they’re busy with jobs or personal lives (like the ones we want), so just thank them either way and move on.

For some, they were doing just fine on their own. The idea of fear of failure in the public eye unacceptable. This leans into my final point.

4. You have to be open to making mistakes.

For so many of us, we believe (and often justifiably so) that we have to be right and perfect the first time, everytime, in everything. Anything outside of that is unacceptable. But here in the world wide community of coding, that’s not always the case or even the case at all. (When it comes to learning anyway. Failing in a job would probably going to affect your performance review. But that’s a problem for a different article.)

1. In fact, when it comes to learning, those mistakes and flaws in our code point to where we need to brush up more practice or review. That’s not a bad thing when learning. It’s about growing.
2. But that’s life in a nutshell. No one is perfect, no one codes perfectly the first time, everytime. If you let yourself be open to being honest and truthful about your learning process, people will repay that honesty with kindness.

It’s hard for me to talk about this point, but in my experience so far, admitting my mistakes, misinterpretations about code and badly written nonsense has been met with kindness, understanding and teaching moments, and it’s honestly a little baffling. But accept the failures and allow yourself to grow from it, and you can grow too.

tldr; Coding is tough, struggle through the learning, find a community to lean on, be open to making mistakes.

Oh, and PS, compared to 10 or even 5 years ago, the job market has been heavily saturated with graduates from the many bootcamps out there. Some may have less hours spent learning, many have more hours spent learning. If you want to get a job, you have to work hard. It’s not easy, it won’t be a breeze, but if you keep at learning and growing, you can make it too.