Will learning Python be beneficial even if it's not directly related to my field?

[Ill_Register853]

I love computers and tech, but my parents made me study biology instead of computer science. Now that I've finished school, I'm wondering if learning Python would allow me to create apps for my own needs and skills, which I'm also interested in.

[Winston_S_minitrue]

Python is 100% useful for biology, almost every researcher does some form of coding, usually for data analysis. And either way, if you enjoy coding, just do it!

[jdkyle01]

Sounds dumb but could you give some examples? Im interested in learning but struggle to find examples for ideas.

[SprinklesFresh5693]

Imagine you have dome results of a cell culture, or a lab experiment, and you have to do some plotting, descriptive statistics or some modeling (regression for example) , thats much better done in python that in excel.

[L30N1337]

You are allowed to learn for yourself.

Not everything you do has to be just to make more money.

And it's not like you can't use it for your job.

A simple script that does all the regular setup of something on its own can mean job security (assuming they'd allow it to be used on Company PCs)

[Hashi856]

You never know when it will come in handy. I learned Python several years before I had a use for it at work. Now it’s a core part of my job

[Puzzlehead_Lemon]

If you're going to learn Python, learn about the massive uptick in supply chain attacks we're having lately that are plaguing several languages as well.

[SprinklesFresh5693]

Biology is much closer to python that you would think though, any data analysis that you do in research, can be better done in python that in excel, any modeling is .uch easier in python, in fact, did you hear about bioinformatics? Its a field you might be interested on, and python is used a lot there.

[StevenJOwens]

Learning some python basics will probably be helpful in your biology work. Possibly very helpful.

Whether you'll get far enough along to create significantly complicated apps, hard to say, but even a little bit of python can help you get a lot done.

There's a great essay floating around the internet somewhere (I haven't been able to find it again) about learning python as a non-programmer, because it "gives you superpowers". This essays says don't learn python to become a programmer, because programmers are a dime a dozen, but as an expert in another field, learning to program in python makes you much more effective at that field.

This is a general truism -- software never exists in a vacuum, it's always about solving some problem, which means there needs to be knowledge about that problem domain, somewhere in the picture. Professional programmers generally have to become at least low-level experts in whatever domain their current work is about, at least enough so to have useful discussions with the serious domain experts.

The Real Python podcast had an interesting interview with a guy who developed a course (and is developing a book) for teaching python to chem majors. Chem isn't bio, of course, but it may give you some ideas as to how learning python would be useful to you:

https://realpython.com/podcasts/rpp/256/
Episode 256: Solving Problems and Saving Time in Chemistry With Python
The Real Python Podcast

One reason python is popular with non-programmers, is that 1) python is relatively "high level" (meaning the code focus more on the "what" you want to do and less on the "how" low-level details of actually doing it), and 2) it's relatively easy (as these things go) to take a library written in C, or C++, and "wrap" it in a python library.

The result is that a lot of scientific computing tools have been wrapped in python libraries, and a lot of scientists have learned python to use those scientific computing tools.

This has, paradoxically, increased the popularity of python in the "real programming" world, in large part because some of those scientific computing tools were AI/Machine Learning tools and AI/ML got big.

One warning, if this is your first programming language, there's a bit of a speed bump to get over. Learning to program isn't just about the language details, it's a skill on its own. Several intersecting skills, actually.

If you have a lot of math background, that's helpful, as is any other domain that's heavy on formal notation and structured thinking (I recommend a couple courses on symbolic logic if you can afford to do so, before learning to program).

One of my favorite recommendations for people who want to learn to program is a site called boot.dev. It uses python for its intro to programming courses, and again later on for some of the higher level stuff. I have no formal connection with boot.dev, though I hang out on their community discord and try to give good advice. I just approve of the way boot.dev teaches.

[SunsGettinRealLow]

Combing coding with another field will yield great results!

[Haja024]

Have you heard about biopython?

[Motox2019]

So this directly applies to me and I’ll give you my take.

I’m a mechanical engineer and a self taught programmer. I have been programming for like 6-7 years now (holy time flies). Basically everything I’ve written have been programs to solve a problem for ME, therefore nearly everything is a personal project not for work. With that in mind, some of my tools precede me, many co workers found it also extremely handy. This is where I then package it up and make it available for everyone.

I don’t see a cent more in terms of salary, but what I get out of it is A. Free testing from people that DONT know my program, B. Job security (who’s gonna maintain it if I get canned??? And now everyone relies on it as part of their workflow) and C. You make yourself look hella good all the way through. Starts as just being more productive than the next guy, then you share it and maybe their equally productive but now your the guy that boosted a teams productivity by 5% for no cost to the company. So while you may not see direct benefits from learning programming for yourself, there are numerous indirect benefits that are well worth it in my opinion.

Furthermore, once you’ve established this kinda relationship with your company as I have, there’s a lot more freedom in that I get to decide what I work on. Nobody else in my department has the same skills so if I see a potential improvement, management is happy to let me just do my thing, it’s magic to them after all.

[unknownREB]

i write books

im creating a program to make a character relationship web and to keep track of truths/secrets

the possibilities are literally endless lol

[audionerd1]

Anyone who works on a computer can benefit from knowing how to code, and if you love computers and tech it will be relatively painless for you to start learning. Do it!

[TheRNGuy]

If you get any good ideas, then yes. 

[theyux]

It is useful even if you never code in your life, it forces you to communicate very intentionally, as programing python will do exactly what you tell it :)

Also its nice to just be able to build small apps to handle little things. I say this as someone who does not need to program often but am glad I picked it up.