My Tech Journey: A Little Background
A great way to understand the big and infinitely awesome world of development is to tell it from a personal perspective.
For me tech has always been a part of my life. Studying the sciences gave me the foundation I needed but it always felt incomplete. While learning algebra and the rest of the science block, there was always one question on my mind; how does one apply this in real life? I guess that's one of the many shortcomings of classical education. Its a common joke among students that how has 2x + y = 45 helped us in real life? Totally legit question by the way...
I had forayed into web development through the use of web builders like Geocities and Wix and then I stumbled on Wordpress. I started learning Wordpress and became fairly good at it until I realized it wasn't enough anymore. There were lots of things I was trying to do that just weren't forthcoming. It wasn't that it couldn't be done. Its just that I wasn't willing to learn PHP. Also I didn't realize the amount of abstraction that platforms like Wordpress and site builders like Wix had implemented. These guys can make you feel like a rockstar dev when in reality you are just being held by the hand, toddler style. Reading through forums really cleared up my fuzziness and I began to research about which programming language to learn.
I finally settled on Python due to its readability and ease of learning but I wasn't prepared for the way it rewired my brain so to speak. For the first two years of learning, I didn't fully understand a lot. This was due in part to the fact that there was a dichotomy between the Python versions at the time. I started with Python 2 with "Learn Python The Hard Way" by Zed Shaw. That guy is as blunt as they come don't worry. After getting to object oriented programming I decided it was time to give it a break. The concept was too alien to me. I then read up more forums and realized that Python 3 was the future so I dumped the book and moved on to video tutorials. Zed was working on his Python 3 version of the book but I wasn't waiting around for that.
Another reason why I settled for Python was because of its vast application across a wide variety of fields. I guess you could say its a learn once use everywhere language. I happen to be into 3D designs and film production so the fact that it could be used to create entire production pipelines like the ones at ILM made it all the more attractive to me. I really don't get it when people claim to have mastered Python in 3 months or even a year. I am still learning and will probably keep learning. The invaluable resources at Real Python has greatly contributed to my development as a Pythonista.
Finally those algebraic expressions and statistical methods have started to make sense seeing as the use of it in data science brings them to life. The use of Jupyter notebooks has made all those years of labouring in math class worth it even to the point of wishing I had paid more attention in class. Science is fun again.
Oh and I had to learn JavaScript. The sweet icing on the cake. Its tight integration with web browsers and its vast applications and limitless potential was too great to ignore although I'd rather stick to Python for the backend though.
Truth is its a brave new world out there and my journey as an autodidact programmer has been one of interesting twists and turns. I have been marooned severally. Robinson Crusoe got nothing on me. For the sake of brevity let's end this here. There are worlds to conquer. Join me on my quest.