My name is Brian Kung. I'm a developer, mostly self-taught, and I'm extremely passionate about helping people learn to program. Throughout high school and college, I avoided programming because I thought I wasn't smart enough for it, or because I thought it was the same thing as my high school job, fixing computers (Information Technology), which I hated. It wasn't until I graduated from college that I discovered that I had the capability to learn programming.� Within a year of deciding to learn to program, I had landed a job at the Chicago Sun-Times as a Ruby on Rails web developer.
I'm not going to assume that you want to program professionally. Maybe you just need it for one project. Or maybe you just needed in order to be able to communicate with people more technical than yourself. Whatever it is you need to learn programming for, it's helpful to know the lay of the land, which is what I'm here for. As someone relatively new to the field of programming, I know what it's like to start learning, but as someone a bit further along the way, I can help point you in the right direction and give you tips and warnings that are particularly relevant to your journey.
It's an increasingly important journey to take. Software is eating the world - software runs everything from your phone to your electric blender. And while nobody is going to understand all the code being executed around them, understanding just a small corner of that world is a major win. It won't demystify all of software, but it should give you the confidence that you, too, can make sense of it. Like anything else, it's a matter of persistence.
There's an intensive programming bootcamp called Dev Bootcamp whose motto is "Coding is the new literacy." I don't think programming skills in any way replace literacy, but I do think there are strong parallels between the commoditization of literacy and the increased interest in programming. While it may not replace literature, code is certainly a new kind of literacy. And just as learning to read and write is incredibly beneficial to one's personal growth and effectiveness in society, learning to program also has significant benefits.
By way of example, my friend Sam recently took over someone else's role in her company. Leading up to the changeover, Sam was worried about dealing with the new 70+ hour a week workload. However, I checked in with Sam a week or so after the change had taken place, and he said it was no problem. The job that had taken the other employee 70+ hours a week took less than 30. Sam had managed to automate most of the job away and more than doubled her coworker's efficiency. Automation is probably the most useful programming concept for day to day life.
Again, this is not an in-depth guide on how to program. Instead, it's intended to paint a picture of what programming is. It's a lantern in the dark for all the people peering into this new world, curious, afraid, or both.
Come on, it's a big place. There's a lot to explore!