Is it worth learning programming? Or maybe something else?

[GamerGry123]

Is it worth learning programming or maybe something else in the field of computer science?

 

[shadow_ray]

Could you give us more context?

[Fjolfrin]

Depends on what you wanna do.

If wanna go on building websites or apps start up straight with programming.

 

If you want to delve in algorithm theory, learn a language like python/cpp/Java but also see some theory about, say, algorithm complexity.

Same with networking but without those languages, you’ll just need a network simulation software to experiment in.

 

If you wanna go on Neural Networks or Computer Vision definitely study a lot of theory first, and then move on to programming.

 

As far as books go for Algorithm Theory you can look “Introduction to the Design & Analysis of Algorithms” by Levitin, for Networking check “Computer Networks: A Systems Approach” by Peterson and Davie, and for Neural Networks “Neural Networks and Learning Machines” by Haykin.

 

When it comes to whether it’s worth it, well it depends on what you wanna do and how much time you want to spend on it. Some stuff require quite a lot of dedication, so you’d better look deeper into it depending on your interests.

[1518]

I personally would not go for programming as everybody seems to be learning it and I think in the future there will be too many programmers and too little of other jobs. But if you really enjoy it's worth a try. It's also the way of thinking and solving problems that you learn when you study/become a programmer.

[SupaKomputa]

Yeah learn it, why not, if you have interest in it.

Learning programming will teach you about logic and troubleshooting, it will be beneficial to anything that you will do in the future.

[shadow_ray]

45 minutes ago, shadow_ray said:

Could you give us more context?

I found OPs previous question and it provides a little context

 

[DevBlox]

Yes. It's great as a hobby and as a career.

 

Can it be really - nut-crushingly - difficult career (depending on what you do of course)? - Also yes.

 

Can you sort of coast through in some cases, if you're not reaching too high? - Kinda, but not worth the time investment IMO (it's far too interesting to me), also you're not likely to get paid as much as ones that constantly hone their skills, it shows usually. If it's a hobby, who cares, it's a hobby.

 

Should you reach high for a career? - Well that's for you to decide, we're not your dads/moms out here to discipline you. But it'd be best if you at least learn to love it, it'll be more natural.

[GamerGry123]

3 hours ago, aeliasov9 said:

I personally would not go for programming as everybody seems to be learning it and I think in the future there will be too many programmers and too little of other jobs. But if you really enjoy it's worth a try. It's also the way of thinking and solving problems that you learn when you study/become a programmer.

So now a lot of people learn programming and the competition in companies will be big and now it is impossible to think of something cool because it has been invented a long time ago Facebook, Gmail, YouTube ...
It was already made up over 15 years ago and so are other things.
So when it all started, people had a chance to get rich from programming. If not programming, what else is in the field of computer science?

[Slottr]

2 hours ago, GamerGry123 said:

So now a lot of people learn programming and the competition in companies will be big and now it is impossible to think of something cool because it has been invented a long time ago Facebook, Gmail, YouTube ...
It was already made up over 15 years ago and so are other things.
So when it all started, people had a chance to get rich from programming. If not programming, what else is in the field of computer science?

 

5 hours ago, aeliasov9 said:

I personally would not go for programming as everybody seems to be learning it and I think in the future there will be too many programmers and too little of other jobs. But if you really enjoy it's worth a try. It's also the way of thinking and solving problems that you learn when you study/become a programmer.

 

Thats not the right way to think about it.

Programming isn't just one path. Programming/Computer Science can mean data science, AI, software engineering, database management, etc. And even under those sections there's thousands of options you can go down.

 

You don't have to think of something new to shoot for a career in development.

 

Meanwhile I'll give this anecdote:

In high school I was a 50's/60's student. I thought computer science might be something interesting but ended up finding it kind of intimidating. Not to mention my math skills were weak.

 

So I enrolled into university for a commerce program for marketing. That pushed me to shoot for something different because it was quite boring so I looked into computer science again as a few people I knew were either in that or electrical eng.

 

I'm now in my final year of a BSc in Computer Science.

-----

 

So:

Try learning python. It's extremely accessible and has a very intuitive syntax. You'll learn some basic principles quicker there than you would with something like HTML/JS.

[steelo]

I went into computer science right out of high school. I was an average at best student in high school and very weak at math. In college, I quickly became overwhelmed and dropped out then joined the military. Being 41 years old now, I'm finding that I do learn things more slowly, but I have a lot more patience and really try to understand what it is I'm learning. After the military, I went back to college and it for the most part was a breeze, although my degree is in business mgmt.

 

As of today, I work for Anthem insurance and in the beginning I found the position to be extremely boring and non-rewarding. I had a conversation with my supervisor how I had somewhat of a background in computer science. He then began giving me several small projects which involves using SQL to pull data for reports. 1 year later, I'm still not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I've become more 'useful' to my employer. I get a steady stream of 'tickets' that nobody (other than my supervisor) in my department would be able to do. My point is, if you're currently happily employed find out how you can become more valuable to the company. These places always need IT people and are usually willing to teach you a little at a time. Take on small tasks and prove yourself and you can easily slip into that position.

 

I've also learned a little python in my spare time using a raspberry pi. It's not at all useful in my current work environment, but it's become a hobby for me.

[trag1c]

7 hours ago, aeliasov9 said:

I personally would not go for programming as everybody seems to be learning it and I think in the future there will be too many programmers and too little of other jobs. But if you really enjoy it's worth a try. It's also the way of thinking and solving problems that you learn when you study/become a programmer.

It has been one of the most in demand fields for decades at this point and it will continue to do so as we increase our reliance on technology. E-commerce is exploding with business like Shopify offering something like 1000 full scholarship + salary to a couple Canadian Universities so that they can rapidly expand their work force. Embedded development is only getting crazier with IoT on the horizon as well as the amount of new technology being pushed into cars. App development is ridiculous with every business trying to go digital, databases, tool development.....There is no end in sight, we're full steam ahead into the digital era. 

[AzzaNezz]

On 4/7/2021 at 1:34 PM, GamerGry123 said:

So now a lot of people learn programming and the competition in companies will be big and now it is impossible to think of something cool because it has been invented a long time ago Facebook, Gmail, YouTube ...
It was already made up over 15 years ago and so are other things.
So when it all started, people had a chance to get rich from programming. If not programming, what else is in the field of computer science?

You dont need to invent new Facebook or things like that to get rich.

Depending where you live programming can be a great job with good pay.

There will be always demends for good programmers.The world is moving,and IT job market is blooming.

Even if you cant find a full time job as programmer,there are always sites where you can do extra jobs,like freelancing and earn a nice bit of money.

[GamerGry123]

55 minutes ago, AzzaNezz said:

You dont need to invent new Facebook or things like that to get rich.

Depending where you live programming can be a great job with good pay.

There will be always demends for good programmers.The world is moving,and IT job market is blooming.

Even if you cant find a full time job as programmer,there are always sites where you can do extra jobs,like freelancing and earn a nice bit of money.

I would like to get paid for freelance making websites in html? Frontent of the website in html. Would it be possible to earn for you and to what level do you need enough html to create websites and earn money on freelance?

[AzzaNezz]

21 minutes ago, GamerGry123 said:

I would like to get paid for freelance making websites in html? Frontent of the website in html. Would it be possible to earn for you and to what level do you need enough html to create websites and earn money on freelance?

Well you should learn HTML and CSS,it aint that hard.For instance go to site called Upwork,there you can find freelance jobs.Go to HTML job section or front end jobs and look what are normal requirements for that line of work.

When you work in company you normal have some specific thing that you do,for instance you will only to front end,or back end.

If you want to earn a good money its good to be a full stack programmer.

For instance my friend does web developing and he need to have a good knowledge of html,css,javascript,some frameworks and libraries.And the constant changes in those languages and frameworks forces him to learn something all the time.You will not learn a programming language and use it the same for a long time,since updates come out that improves your workflow.

You learn by doing,so you can first learn html and css,try to do couple of websites on your own,apply for some low paid jobs,you can even say that you will do it for free,cause you want to gain experience.

You start doing it,google what you dont know and learn it.After you make some websites,gain a bit experience you can start to tackle different programs/languages which will make your skill and chance to get employed bigger.

 

[wasab]

All CS program at universities will be teaching a broad area of topics before letting you specialize. This means intro to alogrithm, programming, computational theory, discrete math, ect will be compulsory regardless whether you want to specialize in them or not.

 

Also many people seem to be misunderstanding computer science. It falls under theoretical mathematics. Think of theoretical physics. They ponder things that are difficult to experiment upon and difficult to manifest in real life. 

 

E.g. theoritical physicists may come with crazy theories about multi-universe and higher dimensions, a computer scientists may ponder things like is it possible to compute something which is xyz infinitely countable etc.  To be honest, I have no idea what these actually mean and ignore most of them when I was a student. They aren't very relevant to your day to day life unless you are doing researches on them. 

 

[GamerGry123]

20 hours ago, wasab said:

Wszystkie programy CS na uniwersytetach będą obejmować nauczanie szerokiego zakresu tematów, zanim pozwolą ci się specjalizować. Oznacza to, że wprowadzenie do alogrithm, programowania, teorii obliczeniowej, matematyki dyskretnej itp. Będzie obowiązkowe niezależnie od tego, czy chcesz się w nich specjalizować, czy nie.

 

Wydaje się również, że wielu ludzi nie rozumie informatyki. Podlega matematyce teoretycznej. Pomyśl o fizyce teoretycznej. Zastanawiają się nad rzeczami, na których trudno jest eksperymentować i które trudno zamanifestować w prawdziwym życiu. 

 

Np. Fizycy teoretycy mogą mieć szalone teorie na temat wielu wszechświatów i wyższych wymiarów, informatycy mogą zastanawiać się, czy można obliczyć coś, co jest nieskończenie policzalne xyz itp. Szczerze mówiąc, nie mam pojęcia, co to właściwie znaczy i ignoruję większość z nich, gdy byłem studentem. Nie są one bardzo istotne w Twoim codziennym życiu, chyba że prowadzisz na ich temat badania. 

 

What you write is some scientific stuff, not computer science. Computer science and math are different things.

[wasab]

7 hours ago, GamerGry123 said:

What you write is some scientific stuff, not computer science. Computer science and math are different things.

[Jeday]

On 5/9/2021 at 11:25 PM, GamerGry123 said:

What you write is some scientific stuff, not computer science. Computer science and math are different things.

Computer Science (at an university) and math are literally the same thing. In CS there are usually several mandatory courses that are pure math and most of the other courses are math heavy or at least require some math.
When you really want to avoid math, computer science is not right for you.

Programming can be fine without beeing great at math, I still think it is important and if you want to become a good programmer you should probably also know some math.

What you might confuse with Computer Science is just "IT".

There are plenty of IT jobs that don't require you to write code or do math (although often it's still good to know). Something like becoming an administrator or IT support in a local company could be interesting for you.

[GamerGry123]

15 hours ago, Jeday said:

Informatyka (na uniwersytecie) i matematyka to dosłownie to samo. W CS jest zwykle kilka kursów obowiązkowych, które są czystą matematyką, a większość innych kursów jest ciężka lub przynajmniej wymaga trochę matematyki.
Jeśli naprawdę chcesz uniknąć matematyki, informatyka nie jest dla Ciebie.

Programowanie może być w porządku bez bycia świetnym z matematyki, nadal uważam, że jest ważne i jeśli chcesz zostać dobrym programistą, prawdopodobnie powinieneś również znać matematykę.

To, co można pomylić z informatyką, to po prostu „IT”.

Istnieje wiele zawodów IT, które nie wymagają pisania kodu ani matematyki (chociaż często dobrze jest wiedzieć). Coś takiego jak zostanie administratorem lub wsparciem IT w lokalnej firmie może być dla Ciebie interesujące.

I know two programmers who know little math and program somehow. One does not like mathematics in general and programs in HTML, CSS, Java script, now programs on Python and the other knows mathematics on average and started with the web, now programs in Java. The latter helped me in mathematics, but not colloquially, so that I could do it for programming, but that I would pass the tests in mathematics, translate average and speak himself, not remember everything and must recall, and this was primary school fractions.

 

 

Now I learn math from a tutor and he knows this math at an advanced level because at school he had extended maths and he explained much better and understandable, then when he finished school he also took the extended exam. Then he finished economic studies where mathematics is need. And he doesn't even know much about programming, but he knows math better than programmers, I mean those programmers I know. I know there are programming codes where math is needed, but for example,

 

As you can see, without knowing math you can become a programmer, and even more so as a web programmer, you don't need it.

 

 

 

[Jeday]

1 hour ago, GamerGry123 said:

I know two programmers who know little math and program somehow. One does not like mathematics in general and programs in HTML, CSS, Java script, now programs on Python and the other knows mathematics on average and started with the web, now programs in Java. The latter helped me in mathematics, but not colloquially, so that I could do it for programming, but that I would pass the tests in mathematics, translate average and speak himself, not remember everything and must recall, and this was primary school fractions.

 

 

Now I learn math from a tutor and he knows this math at an advanced level because at school he had extended maths and he explained much better and understandable, then when he finished school he also took the extended exam. Then he finished economic studies where mathematics is need. And he doesn't even know much about programming, but he knows math better than programmers, I mean those programmers I know. I know there are programming codes where math is needed, but for example,

 

As you can see, without knowing math you can become a programmer, and even more so as a web programmer, you don't need it.

 

 

 

I literally said:

 

17 hours ago, Jeday said:

Programming can be fine without beeing great at math

 

Go ahead and learn programming if you want to, depending on what you do you will not need any advanced math, or maybe no math at all.

But I would heavily recommend anyone who wants to become a programmer to learn math as well.