Atma Xplorer

Xploring Games, Computing, Photography

Guide to Programming Series: Week 1

Why Bother?

The first answer that anyone is expecting is a career. Given the boom that the IT industry is experiencing, computer literate professionals, engineers preferably, have hundreds of employment opportunities. If you’re on a different field of expertise, say medicine, but consider yourself to be tech savvy, you’ll consider learning to program so you can get the most out of your gadgets.

From asking some people I know, here’s some of the reasons why they picked up programming:

For fun: Just like the concept for StumbleUpon, you can creating programs that well, basically waste your time. Ok, maybe it’s the wrong idea I’m portraying here but the notion is ultimately the same. You create games or applications which in turn you play with and enjoy. Not only can you have fun with your own creation but you also learn (somewhat, it’s entirely objective) in the process.

Solving a problem: This is basically where demand for development comes into play. Instead of manually doing calculations, simulations or the like, many specialists create their own software in order the meet their needs. One such project is Folding@Home which was intended to perform intensive simulations and computations on protein folding and molecular dynamics.

A career: As I’ve stated above, the first thing that would-be programmers think about is getting an IT-based job. With computers taking over the world, you’re never unemployed for long if you know how to program a computer. There’s always a company or individual looking for someone to create programs for them and the only problem that you’ll encounter is competition and field of expertise.

If you’re already in the industry, then learning programming will increase your value within the company since you’re in a much better position that co-workers who master only their field rather than expand their knowledge.

The last, if not the most attractive option is to go freelance. You program where you want, when you want, and how you want. Relatively, it’s also the hardest because freelancers sometimes find it hard to acquire customers and make them stay. Long time go freelance because they have the experience as well as the reputation but for newbies, it’s basically a do or die thing.

An intellectual challenge: The best and most recent example is Alex Smith, Alex Smith, a 20-year-old British engineering student, who has proved that a Turing machine proposed by complexity guru Stephen Wolfram is in fact the simplest possible computer capable of solving every conceivable computational problem.

Why did he do it? Because the concept of the Turing machine intrigued him.

Like many others, I myself find programming a like a set of mathematical problems. It’s not really surprising that great minds are attracted to then pit their skills against the sea of computing. If find that using your computer is becoming boring, try writing your own program to help you use your brain more effectively.

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Comments ( 5 )

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  1. marckc22 Mark November 30, 2007 Reply

    Enrolling a few courses is a great way to learn the basics. from there you can start practicing and improving the way you code. I learned from doing small programs to focus on various topics and reading different books. I always do one or two small programs a week just for practice, trying out the new things I’ve read. i also learn faster when someone is teaching it to me directly rather than reading it from books.

  2. forum.providence Teejay December 1, 2007 Reply

    A Guide to programming! I hope to read more on this series. I am also conjuring up some tutorials on my website but it will be on web development.

    Keep in mind that most of the information I’ll be posting will have been derived mainly from books and/or popular knowledge that I’ve encountered.

    Don’t worry. Personal experience is much better than those being read on books.

  3. mcbillywilford McBilly December 1, 2007 Reply

    Cool new series sylv3rblade! The introduction was sweet and very informative. I’ve been looking into going deeper with programming but sometimes it’s just hard because of the lack of time. Plus like you said, there are already lots of classes and free softwares that you can find in the internet.

    Anyway, I’ll be looking forward to more of your programming tips. Hoping that I could get several tips and improve on my programming skills.

  4. atmaxplorer sylv3rblade December 1, 2007 Reply

    @Mark
    Everyone has his own “thing” when it comes to learning but newbies tend to get whatever they can get their hands on so this series (as of the moment) is targeted at them.

    @Teejay and McBilly
    Thanks XD. I’ve already laid out my uhh.. Lesson plan for the next few weeks. Hope you enjoy them.

  5. marckc22 Mark December 2, 2007 Reply

    yes and what i just said is what I did. I’m not suggesting that they do the same thing. Anyway, keep it up. I’ll keep on reading.

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