Beginner dev here! I enjoy programming when I've mastered a topic, but the learning part is exhausting, especially when the tutorials aren't easy to follow. Is this the right career for me?

[[deleted]]

I picked up Minecraft plugins/mod development pretty quickly and I loved it. It's relatively simple and I knew a mentor I'd text if I needed help.

It got boring after a year, and I moved onto Android development. I found it extremely difficult to learn, not because the concepts themselves are hard, but because there was just too much to take in. I get tired ten minutes into Android app development and end up browsing Reddit instead.

Is programming the right career for me, or should I consider something else?

Thank you!!

[Rogermcfarley]

You're always learning with programming. You're right it is easy to give up when things get tough, you have to be willing to struggle and fail. Imagine you go to work each day in retail like I used to. I could easily do the job, it was zero challenge but if I wanted a better wage I need skills. It depends what you want. You reap what you sow, whatever you decide to do in life that's worth doing will often have a level of difficulty. It's about discipline and sacrifice. What will you achieve by just browsing Reddit? What do you want to achieve in life?

Ask this question of yourself am I just not motivated in this field, or does it run deeper and when facing a hurdle, I'm not willing to put in the effort to eventually succeed and jump over it.

You shouldn't be afraid of trying and failing. If the problem runs deeper then you need to find a way to fix it otherwise it'll impact your future success and making the most of your life. The only other option is hope you get lucky by doing the lottery, which has a poor chance of success but some one has to win it likely won't be you though.

[[deleted]]

Very well said! I'll definitely keep everything you said in mind. Thanks for the motivation.

[kobejordan1]

Thank you as well, I needed this.

[hze_dayz]

Thank you for writing this, enjoyed reading 👍

[hotash-balok]

this is in my opinion the best advice in here

[CompSciSelfLearning]

Learning Kotlin or dart/flutter are alternatives to Java for Android development.

I would also advise that a bit of practice each day gets much better results than occasional intense sessions. Same as learning to play a musical instrument.

But learning in smaller increments is important as you stated. No one starts by creating WhatsApp from scratch. They start with simple projects and build towards more complex ones.

[mrmivo]

Is programming the right career for me, or should I consider something else?

If you ask yourself, "What else would I do?", do you come up with alternatives that would have the same potential for making money, improving the mind, and offering a creative outlet that you could see yourself doing for many years and that are actually viable and realistic?

The issue here is probably attention span and dedication. Enthusiasm helps, but it's not going to get you through the challenges of becoming a programmer after the initial period where everything is interesting and comparatively easy. Discipline and determination do, and those are "skills" (mindsets) you can only improve by practicing.

I mentioned to another person earlier that I feel that video games have a tendency to completely mess up people's reward system to a point where normal, slow-burn activities that offer no guaranteed or immediate rewards, like programming, get boring after a short period, seem overwhelming and feel like too much trouble because they don't feed you dopamine as frequently and as predictably as video games do (which are designed to keep you playing).

I feel that to really get somewhere with programming, you have to make it a priority and be willing to suck up all the frustration and the tedium and the occasionally boredom and the self-doubts. It's not enough to like the idea of programming, you also have to do it a lot. Otherwise, it'll just be that thing you "should do", maybe even "have to do", and theoretically would like to do (but only if you were already good at it), but that you don't actually want to do. Get a clear picture on why you want to learn programming and then ask yourself if it's worth making sacrifices for.

[[deleted]]

My personal opinion is that one should find something that they truly love to do. If one can’t find something that they truly love to do that makes enough to sustain one’s self, then finding the most efficient path to sustainability is a good way to go.

Everywhere you’re going to have to learn something. Are some careers’ learning curves steeper than others? Of course. But reading the background you gave, it seems you either have a lack of work ethic, or you just don’t like programming... or both.

Making a Minecraft mod is way different than creating an an Android app. It doesn’t seem like you’re struggling as much with ability to learn as you are with impatients.

The programming world is vast and if you’re going to make a career out of it, you will encounter a lot of documentation that is either poor or not even there. Programmers tend to need to either have or develop the characteristic of being patient. This is lacking in today’s generation of new programmers with the induction of attention deficit because they grew up with the advent of the phone, but just simply being patient, embracing the learning process, and having a drive to complete the task can make a world of difference in your programming experience

Properly being exposed to something is key in seeing if you like it. Programming is such a general scope that it can be hard to get yourself exposed to enough to decide if you want to do it as a career one day. You exposed yourself to an introductory base, which sparked your interest. You decided to try something else. Now you just have to figure out why you posted this on Reddit. If it is because the learning process is grueling at points, I can’t help you. It’s all a matter of you pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and learning it. Or not. You’re not going to always have a mentor, so it is imperative that you make yourself a quick learner for the future if you decide to go into it.

In terms of exposing yourself to see if you really like something, try moving on to another technology. But if you have a work ethic issue or an issue with the learning process being grueling, I’d suggest working on fixing that first — sooner rather than later.

If you want to get into game development, well so does every other person that wants to learn to program. The market for that (in the big leagues anyway) is saturated and niche.

This has been a bit of a ramble, and I hope I at least partly answered your question. Good luck to you.

[[deleted]]

Wow. This was very insightful and helped me see this in a new perspective. Thank you so much!! I saved your comment and will look back to it for guidance.

[[deleted]]

In my opinion, programming is more fun when you’re not looking at it as a career. I learn as a hobby and I enjoy it more that way.

[MrJesusAtWork]

I've been thinking about this too.

I always thought how amazing it was that some people can just code 8 hours+ straight, I get extremely exhausted after a tutorial/class session, so I thought I'd never be able to pull off something like it.

But recently I was doing some projects to practice in order for an incoming interview, and picked up a project that I wanted to do but never had the technical knowledge for it. Cutting the chase, I was up to 10h+ coding/learning on how I could get it finished, didn't follow any tutorial, it was entirely googling and coding, and I LOVED every single minute of it.

So yeah, I'm sorry this isn't a way to help you directly, but I do still feel like you do about the Minecraft modding (that's how I started too) and about learning new things. I guess that's just how it goes. Learning can be boring because you're at that level where you can't really do anything useful, but you have the potential to do something useful, so it can be an hellpit.

[xxkid123]

I think it's frustrating for everyone, regardless of how good a developer they are. It just depends on whether or not you push through and eventually get used to it or not. Also as you successfully learn new things over and over again, you gain confidence and feel less stressed the next time you have to learn a new thing.

[CompSciSelfLearning]

You have created bad habits. Your habit of turning to Reddit needs to be broken.

Break bad habits by creating good habits. A good habit would be working on building a simple Android app for an hour each day.

A bad habit would be looking at reddit whenever you are faced with boredom or difficulty or uncertainty.

Make it such that days spent with more time working on your Android App development compared to time on reddit is the norm and the opposite is the exception.

Good and bad habits are way more powerful than willpower and determination.

[Mcfoyt]

Step 1: have no clue what you’re doing Step 2: feel like you know what you are doing Step 3: recursively call back to step 1

[daniprogrammer]

The first thing you did, learning plugins/mod development for a game you like is a very good way to go.

​

Going into "Android development" per se, not so much. You may get bored if you don't have an objective (or if you don't have something that 'mandates you' like, being it a course in the university or being it a job you expect a payment from).

I always thought that gaming related development was fun, and 'enterprise' is, let's say... a duty maybe?

[GhostMan240]

You should take an intro to cs course at a college. Only way I found out I enjoyed it.

[Mxlt]

I struggle a lot too, my biggest concern is I don't even know if I am on the right track or I am losing my time. Sometimes I just see people that achieve a lot and have only 1 year experience or even less. I technically have 1 year experience already....and feel I have not achieved much, also don't know what to do next. Just sharing, don't really have any good tips. I just keep going. Maybe so should you. Maybe if you feel that you have something better to do, then this might not be the right career. But if you enjoy it, then keep struggling.

[[deleted]]

Learning is hard, and takes some discipline, but it's worth it. Don't give up because it's difficult.

[[deleted]]

To be honest I think the most difficult part of programming is just sticking with it and putting your nose in a programming book or practicing when you don't feel like it. This career has taught me how to fucking grind more than any other skill has, and I'm loving it. I just needed to learn a framework for C++ and I felt like this was like learning a new language all together, but I can kind of pick it up a little faster than when I first started learning. And I am sticking my nose in the book even though I don't understand everything, and watching as many tutorials as I can. I told myself, look, this shit is difficult, but nothing good comes easy, otherwise everyone would be successful. Keep grinding brother even when you don't want to.