I started programming, because I found out that the majority of jobs were unbelievably repetitive and boring. I found out early in my career that computers could do repetitive things way more efficiently than I could. I have no patience.
I had no patience for medical records and phone call center work. I had no patience for data formatting and analysis in Excel, because VBA could do it so much more efficiently. I couldn’t handle ETL, BI and Data Warehousing projects, because in the end of the day all that work was just a slight variation on something I had done before (within that job). Once you build a dashboard, a ETL data flow or data mart… the next one is infinitely easy. Easy in part, because you can also just read a few books on the subject and execute relatively quickly.
Programming, not so much. There is so much depth to programming even within a single language. For example, you have all the parts of the computer that you can interact with: Operating System, Networking, Compilers, Web Servers, Natural Language Processing, Machine Learning… Hacking. Where does it end? Where does it end? It doesn’t. You always have a new subject you can get into. Are you tired of procedural programming, try functional. Don’t like functional, read a few books and try your hand out at OOP. Don’t like doing that, try event-based programming. Data Structures? Image Processing. It’s honestly endless. There are 10 hour programs just on the Python compiler. Then, if all that doesn’t keep you happy, pick up a new programming language and die from exhaustion! It’s a never ending stream of curiosity.
Programming was the only job I’ve ever done where a computer does all the work for me: 24/7/365 days a week and provides value to unspeakably many people. It’s the only job I know where once you complete something it keeps on giving and your focus is purely on improvements! Even when those improvements are just porting stuff over to new platforms! It pays pretty well too, well except if you compare yourself to: project managers, doctors, lawyers … I still make about 5 times my original salary and can afford to purchase a house in the city! Overall, 5-stars curiosity and 4-stars payment potential! It can all be yours if you spend enough time on youtube, do some tutorials and read some books!
Only thing I regret right now is not investing more into these topics! That’s why I’m starting a masters in machine learning next fall and taking classes at Harvard in January!
Anyway, hope this motivates… I’m passionate about programming and just wish I was better at it. Try to improve everyday. Learning starts slow, but if you stick with it, it’s honestly amazing!
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