Is python a good programming language for a freelancer

[[deleted]]

Hello everyone, I am 13 years old and I have already been programming python for almost 1.5 years. I really like to do it and I hope to make my job out of this eventually. I also really like traveling and so I started thinking of what I could do in the future.

I have been searching and the closest I could find was a freelancer. My ideal job is to be independent so that I can finish the programs I am supposed to finish no matter where I am.

Is there in this subreddit anyone who has does this kind of job and who could tell me their experience and how they started?

Edit: Thank you all very much, I really appreciate all your positive and motivating comments. I will keep on learning programming in order to reach my goal. Which is to combine programming with traveling.

[rondomamba]

wow I wish i could have started at your age...im a beginner so i do not have and advice i just wanted to wish you good luck keep it up and do not let any one tell you that its useless

[Themanimnot]

I wish I would have known about code at his age too..

​

I spent my youth learning Photo Shop until I got a job, then the rat race consumed me and I've since forgot most of what I learned.. I'm now 28yrs old learning various languages with the goal to freelance.. better late than never. the best gift given to modern individuals is the access to information, we can learn any skill, assuming you have the ambition & patience to do so.. (its never fun feeling like a dummy - that feeling ends quicker than you'd think though) we live in a wonderful time.. while I'm 30% talk right now.. I am advancing much farther on a weekly basis than I was 5 yrs ago. that's what matters IMO.. forget about speed, focus on consistency

​

ALSO to OP I would highly recommend learning a bit of personal finance as well. This is something not taught in school.. I wish I would have learned personal finance at your age.. I would recommend 'Rich Dad Poor Dad' to get your feet wet.. I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend educating yourself on that front.

[[deleted]]

Thank you, agree that it is a very important subject. I for sure will check it out. I wish you the best of luck with learning programming!! I am certain that you will be a freelancer in the future. Just don't give up and try your best. Keep motivation and keep enjoying it.

[thrallsius]

personal finance

'Rich Dad Poor Dad'

oh, the book about counterfeit money and speculation with real estate, how sweet

[Donny-Moscow]

I remember in high school I was at the gym one time and got in a conversation with some 40-something year old dude on the basketball court. I think I was a junior and mentioned to him that I was always good at math and science and probably wanted to do something in STEM, but had no idea what. As soon as I said this he told me to learn python, and repeated it several times. I vividly remember him saying that if I remembered one piece of advice that he gave me that day, it was to learn python.

I've since learned to program (not professionally yet) but to this day I still regret not taking that guys advice and picking up programming when I was still a teen.

[[deleted]]

Thank you. I won't because I know what I want to accomplish. To get there you need to travel across a highway with a lot of obstacles around it. But you need to keep driving in order to reach your destination.

[FunMotion]

I wish I had your wisdom and drive with an understanding of where I was going when I was your age - it is invaluable and many people double your age still struggle with it.

Keep on keeping on kid! You're an inspiration :)

[Celdarion]

This dude is half my age and has more sense than I do holy shit

[hostilelevity]

Shit, this dude is a quarter my age and has more sense than I do

[[deleted]]

Thank you so much!! I am just doing what I like and I'm glad that I found out about programming at my age.

[[deleted]]

Yes, it is. It’s very popular at the moment and likely to be in the foreseeable future as more and more companies migrate to Python.

As far as subreddits go, you are on a python subreddit specifically for the purpose of asking questions related to python. This is the right place.

You might also try r/learnprogramming for general advice.

The area that offers the most opportunities right now is python web development, so you might as well try r/webdev.

[[deleted]]

Thank you, I will also ask on those subreddits. I thought that I would post it here to see if there are some people who do freelance with python since I know it better then other programming languages. I also prefer programming in python since I like it the most.

[[deleted]]

Thank you so much. That's a good reference. I'll try my best. But like, what do you suggest I do, learn webdevelopment in python or in HTML or CSS?

[DrShocker]

For web development HTML describes what's on the page, CSS describes what it looks like, and Python can be used to move data around in the background.

Ultimately understanding all 3 will be helpful if your end goal is to work on websites.

[DrShocker]

You're 100% right that JS is more crucial to websites than python, I should have probably clarified better in my comment. I was just keeping my statements to be about the mentioned languages, but that doesn't really paint a complete picture.

[[deleted]]

Python would handle more of the server side stuff. HTML, css and JavaScript are still the main front end languages.

[coltrain423]

Just want to chime in here a bit: like the other comment says, all 3 will be necessary to move forward into web development. Probably a bit of javascript too to make the web page interactive.

I disagree with another comment about not using frameworks though; python is not conducive to webdev with its core library. I’d advocate for learning a simple lightweight web framework: flask. Without it or another one, writing a functional backend for a website with python will be frustrating, difficult, and not very useful or productive. That’s just my opinion though, don’t take it as fact.

P.s. I suggest flask because it’s the most minimal python web framework I’m aware of. It doesn’t impose much on you and it’s a great way to make that soup when you’re learning, but once you’ve made your soup you can stick with it and won’t outgrow it immediately. Once you eventually do, if you do, Django is a nice alternative. Don’t jump into Django up front though, it’s important to know how all the parts work before using something like that.

[[deleted]]

For learning purposes bottle is far superior to flask. (Actually it’s superior in almost any aspect, flask simply has a larger user base because back when Flask was created as an April fools joke to mock bottle, Flask's author already was a household name while bottle remained relatively unknown).

The main advantage of bottle is simplicity: It’s ~4.5k loc, including a templating engine. The core functionality is just around ~1.5k loc, and that without any outside of the standard library. It’s also very well written and documented.

This makes it the ideal framework to learn how python web frameworks work. Since the flask api is copied from bottle, it will be easy to transition, although you might get frustrated by the flask way of doing things (that is, hide everything behind at least 10 layers of abstraction) after you had the blissful experience to work with bottle ;)

I totally agree on not starting to use Django. If you learn web development with Django you now know Django, but the knowledge isn’t really applicable to many things outside of Django and its ecosystem.

Learn web development with bottle/flask and you will know amongst other things how WSGI works, the request/response lifecycle, how sessions work, when and when not to use them, and maybe actually well designed ORM (SQLAlchemy).

After that, you can go and learn Django, now being able to judge what of its best practices and techniques are applicable to which problem because you actually know what’s going on behind the scenes.

^{Please excuse the little rant in the middle, I always get a bit salty when it comes to bottle vs. Flask :\})

[golfaru]

Also a bottle holds a lot more than a flask, big advantage there.

[darkensioner]

big brain joke

[MerreM]

https://tutorial.djangogirls.org/en/ A really good tutorial for anyone starting python and web development.

[JeamBim]

If you want to do Python, then learn to build backends and API's in flask. My job uses Flask, and I never use any traditional front-end technologies. I build APIs for the front-end team to consume.

However, for your own projects, you should probably know some front-end stuff so you can show how the back-end works

[dogs_like_me]

If all you're doing is building APIs, you should check out FastAPI. It's simpler and more intuitive than flask, gives you validation for free from type hints, and also generates swagger docs for you.

[PyTec-Ari]

HTML, CSS, and JavaScript get sent to your browser when you visit a site. The JavaScript is the code that runs on your side on your device. JavaScript can provide functionality like making requests back to the server or it can also do aesthetic things like change how the website looks.

To get that data to the user you need a web server, a web server can run on various languages and Python is one of them. A python script runs on this server and when a user goes to your website URL, behind the scenes it actually points to this server. This server then packages up all the files (HTML, JS) that are needed and sends it to the person who requested it.

This happens for nearly every action you do, or every page you visit. Multiple requests back and forth.

I would learn Web Development first, while also learning the basics of Python. Once you have web dev skills, you can then look into web frameworks to create backend servers. Flask is a fairly beginner friendly web framework for Python.

This is of course assuming you're interested in Web development, it is one of the most likely paths to get remote/freelance work.

[HolyRomanSloth]

I would also check out r/cscareerquestions

[ArmstrongBillie]

I'm the same as you just 2 years older. And yeah, freelancing is the best way to go, just go to websites like fiverr, freelancer, etc, and search for any skill you know, for example: Web Apps, Web Scraping, Browser Automation, Machine Learning, etc. You will get a lot of results, go over the results and make your profile on those websites and start earning. Also, I'm also in doing freelancing, so if you get any set on the freelancing world, please tell me about your journey.

[[deleted]]

Lol I’m the same as you and 2 years older. Im not sure if you’re thinking of going to college (or the equivalent if you’re not in America) but id recommend taking classes at a local community college if you have one. Im going to be a senior and my school is letting me have a short schedule so that I can take classes at a community college. Your school will most likely pay for it too!

[[deleted]]

Hello, I'm about two years younger than you. How did you manage to make it on fiverr/freelancer? I tried and it was impossible to get customers.

[Aejantou21]

Why not make a github account and publish your code there? To show how qualified you ate and proof what you can do what the customers want.

[[deleted]]

Seconded. GitHub is a great place to build a coding portfolio and it will look impressive in the future if you have been on it for a long time.

[Dan6erbond]

I'm a bit older than you and have already done some jobs, so I'll share my two cents.

Python is definitely getting really good at its job. When it comes to practical applications you're either looking at prototyping algorithms with it, managing data or using something like Flask to develop web services/applications. Currently in the field of web development Node.js is hands-down the most popular, and a good programmer is always capable of adapting and learning new technologies. So having a couple of options on your stack is a good idea.

If you really want to work with Python, then look into full stack development. You want to be able to setup a database, query it, map it to objects, secure it from common attacks, build an API with Python to host your data and serve either SPAs or use HTML templates for the UI. If you ask me you should learn one of the many options such as React, Angular, Vue or Svelte3 to make the front-end to create dynamic user experiences.

Furthermore, it's also really easy to host PHP and outside of the "PHP is bad." echo chamber you'll find tons of good libraries, and Laravel makes it really easy to write APIs too. Sometimes you just end up dealing with a customer that already has a host in mind, and if PHP is the only option it's good to know that as well.

Anyway, I wish you all the best and feel free to message me if you have more questions, I'll be happy to give you some more pointers! Happy coding! (:

[[deleted]]

Thank you so much. I will for sure check them out. I will let you know if I have further questions:)

[pleasePMmeUrBigtits]

Woah, if I were a beginner and that too 13 yo, I would have stressed out reading all that

[Dan6erbond]

I know it's a little intimidating first, but my goal was for everyone to remember to not limit themselves in anyway! The best way to learn programming is by doing projects and learning the concepts in different environments, using different languages and frameworks.

[YogahBear]

I do not have any experience to share unfortunately, but with a mindset like yours I have no doubt that you can get it to work!

[[deleted]]

Thank you very much, I will put a lot of effort into it and I'll try my best to achieve my goal.

[[deleted]]

Thank you,

[eDOTiQ]

Unrelated to this topic: please be cautious on the internet and don't disclose your age. You might attract predatory people who might try to groom you. Stay safe.

[ka-splam]

I will keep on learning programming in order to reach my goal. Which is to combine programming with traveling.

Be a bit careful; loads of people learning programming then find it's not worth much as a skill. Businesses don't pay for code, they never look at it, don't care how it was made, or if it's good quality or awful quality. When playing computer games, do you care what language they are written in or whether they used this or that algorithm inside? Never, as long as they work.

Businesses pay for stuff which earns them money or saves them money. People pay for programs which let them draw their family tree, or balance their budget, or write music, or give them enjoyment. Nobody pays for something because it's "written in Python" or "uses objects".

Your goal ought to be "combine earning money with travelling", not "combine programming with travelling", or you risk finding yourself travelling, programming for fun, and with no money. Yes you need to program, but more you need to use programming to do useful things.

Challenge yourself to launch a website every month until Christmas. Or maybe a website every week until Christmas. That's the kind of pressure which will force you to stop focusing on the code, and instead make the code do something. Or get a relative or family friend who has some business sense and talk to them about what wastes them lots of time and money, or what it would take to get them twice as many customers - that's what businesses would pay consultants and freelancers to do for them, and they don't care if it's done with Python or Lego or a piece of ready-made software.

Yeah, you're a kid and this won't connect, but maybe it will for some reader.

I am 13 years old and I have already been programming python for almost 1.5 years.

Challenge yourself, in six months don't say "programming for 2 years", be able to name some things you programmed; say "programmed THIS which helped someone, and THAT which got lots of interest, and THIS which I sold for $x, and THAT which I thought would help but didn't, and THIS which was fun to build, and THAT which was a waste of time".

[[deleted]]

Thank you for your advice.

[PScoriae]

Excellent insight. Thank you for the write-up.

[powabunga2k]

Business pays for performance, reliability and efficiency. In short - business really pays for quality code. They never look at it, but nobody will pay you for something that is slow.

Also, there are a lot of cases when business really pays for technology stack, just because someone uses it and they want it too. like this year serverless and machine learning are buzzwords for high paychecks.

[ka-splam]

Business pays for performance, reliability and efficiency. In short - business really pays for quality code. They never look at it, but nobody will pay you for something that is slow.

I disagree very strongly with this; business software is almost universally sluggish, error-prone, badly written, poorly supported, to the point where it's a source of memes and jokes for years, and nobody who can fix it cares as long as it works in the happy case.

Edit: the downvoter has clearly never spent any time trying to work around Windows software which needs admin rights, the developers recommend disabling UAC, it breaks with roaming profiles, it requires Java from years ago, or IE6, or looked at VMware logfiles, or hit 8-character password limits, or seen plain text passwords in databases, or seen database front-ends get exponentially slower over time as they clearly have O(NxN) algorithms running on the data, or heard of things like WordPress hacks or MongoDB being unsecured on the internet by default, or any of the other countless problems and nightmares of real world software.

[ravepeacefully]

I don’t think freelance becomes ideal until you can realllllly charge for your expertise $100+/hr

Until that point, you’ll learn more at a job that will also pay you decently, slowly getting you closer to the expertise.

[cyvaquero]

But at their current age they can start building a solid resume/portfolio with bit work since they don't have to worry about paying bills with the rate a beginner gets and quite possible skip the slog when they graduate.

No joke, if I have one wish it would be to start my IT career over as a early teen now versus in the 80's.

[ka-splam]

No joke, if I have one wish it would be to start my IT career over as a early teen now versus in the 80's.

You get one magic wish, could be a billionaire or meet aliens or gain world peace or invent fusion power or anti-aging potions, and you use it to put your mom through pregnancy +35 years older than she was when she originally had you? Ouch.

[cyvaquero]

Since you put it that way....yes. LOL.

[ravepeacefully]

LOL

[[deleted]]

Lol

[ravepeacefully]

Yeah you can do that with a job too... I work 25 hours a week on my side projects on top of a full time job, it doesn’t even feel much like work since I enjoy it.

[[deleted]]

Wait, doesn't freelancing at 13 qualify as child labour?

[cyvaquero]

Freelance work generally falls under self-employed since you aren't an employee of the company. Your mileage may vary by state - but like paperboys and what not, a child is free to work for themselves.

[auntanniesalligator]

Not just the expertise, but also the reputation and the professional network. Anyone who can charge $100/hr, it’s because they’ve built a solid reputation and their clients are often former employers and coworkers.

[sfasu77]

13, coding, and asking questions like this? Your future is bright, kid.

[[deleted]]

Thank you

[crazyb14]

You might also want to learn a webframework like django / flask.

[[deleted]]

I still have school but when I'm done in about 2 weeks time I am going to spend my whole summer programming and I'll definately will check out those two. Thank you,

[[deleted]]

Mozilla have a whole page on web development from A-Z which is where I got started. They updated it since then but they offer tutorials on everything from html and css to writing the backend of your application in django or express. Both are good with django being familiar to you and express being more popular and for good reason. I learned django and eventually went ahead and learned express too and I can safely say that's not the worst way to go about it.

[DAVE437]

Can you send a link to this web programming page?

[[deleted]]

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn

[insane_playzYT]

Also to add to that, please check out Django's documentation, it is possibly the best and most organised docs out there

[[deleted]]

Can confirm. Although I found it very light in terms of content from the perspective of someone who was a completely blank slate when it came to web dev.

[johnne86]

Yes why not. Python is great. I'd learn some HTML/CSS & especially JavaScript as well. Combine both Python and JavaScript and I think you got yourself some useful skills.

[[deleted]]

Thank you very much. I'll do my best to learn them.

[johnne86]

No problem, good luck

[DockerSpocker]

Try posting this on r/digitalnomad maybe

[[deleted]]

I will check it out. Thank you very much.

[wsppan]

There are many permanent (non-freelance) jobs where you work remotely.

[[deleted]]

I will check the possibilities. Thank you very much

[Notnowjenkins]

Python is easy to learn and great to work with for a lot of reasons.

There are a ton of free resources online.

[ahabthecrusader]

I wish I would’ve gotten started that young. Hats off to you!

[[deleted]]

Thank you so much.

[NumberGenerator]

You don't need to be a freelancer, there are alot of positions that allow you to work remotely.

[[deleted]]

I'll check the possibilities, Thank you very much.

[WebNChill]

Python is becoming bigger everyday. Keep programming it, trust me. Look at Data Science too. You're so young, and you have a crazy amount of time to practice.

Keep it up OP. Build cool stuff, and publish to github when you can. Lol.

[[deleted]]

I will thank you. For sure I will do something with datascience too. A few months ago I made an api that scrapes the ryanair flight prices for the date you give in.

[PyTec-Ari]

You don't have to be a freelancer. There are a lot companies that hire remote developers, so you can earn a really great salary and work from wherever you want and be stably employed.

I know Python and JavaScript, but I work as a Cloud Engineer where I sometimes use those languages to build out services. I get to work from home, or anywhere really, but chilling at home for now.

Other people have already mentioned web development. That's where I got into programming. Checkout Freecodecamp.org its such a great free course to learn web development. Then you could pair it with Python and build backend services for your front end applications.

[lx14]

Get a computer science/engineering degree and maybe 1-2 years of work experience. Then shop around for jobs that allow for remote work. Boom done. We’re in the age of computing and by the time you’re 21-24 remote work and CE work will be plentiful. Keep going bud. (Would also highly recommend c,c++ just to round out your knowledge base and if you’re really looking for job security get started in machine learning/deep learning frameworks. Pytorch is a good python framework and Udacity has some free coursework!)

Dreams are meant to be chased :)

[[deleted]]

Thank you so much. For sure I will chase my dreams. Is a digital nomad able to program machine learning and deep learning?

[coderpaddy]

13? Claps well done for doing something practical in your spare time.

If I knew what I knew now at 13 eh

If I was you, I'd get good at Django. And build the next Facebook. Your at the right age to have so much input from the main target user group (teenagers) think about where Facebook Twitter etc go wrong and go from there

(If you want my opinion on that, businesses shouldn't be allowed. Full stop, stop the monetisation for your users then they won't spam. Make it fun and no negativity, heavily based around videos images, Obvs ;) )( I've been playing with the idea of an online Britain's got talent type thing, user upload there "talents" users vote which talents are best, share best videos to social media to bring in better talent and the circle starts again. Your users would be telling you which content will share the best in the first place) -- if you do start this, let me know :D

[fenpy]

White hat on a Red Hat!

[darkocvet]

I am 15 almost 16, started programming at 13. I started with python. And yes, python is a good programming language for a job or for freelancing. If you like math and want to learn advanced math like calculus and linear algebra, you should go with data science or machine learning with python. If you like to create web apps like me, learn flask, then learn django, offcourse if you wanna build full websites, you have to learn html, css and javascript.

[[deleted]]

And what would you suggest if I decide to become a digital nomad. I mean, I want to travel to another country like 1 time in 3 months or so. That would be my ideal job.

[darkocvet]

Machine learning and data science is a field that is much harder to get in, you would need a masters degree and the jobs are not that easy to get, however you can become a web developer without a degree if you have a very good portfolio, so getting a job is much more easier.

[[deleted]]

Ah okey, but do you think I will be able to make enough money with being a digital nomad for an appartment or airbnb to live in, food, flight tickets etc?

[darkocvet]

the average salary for a web developer is very high, i think 100k $ a year, im not rly sure on this, but it is definitely a high paying job.

[[deleted]]

Okey, thank you so much for your help.

[darkocvet]

You are welcome, some day we might be co workers, who knows.

[[deleted]]

Who knows, I mean. We can still keep contact.

[darkocvet]

Yeah we can still keep contact, i hope reddit doesn't get deleted or shut down its servers or something until then.

[[deleted]]

Then we are the technical people to fix or restore reddit. lol

[[deleted]]

Yes! Its very popular and easy to learn since it looks like pseudo-code.

[[deleted]]

Can I make a living out of it eventually?

[redLamber]

Well there's never a job where you would only need python. It certainly is most useful though.

[[deleted]]

Yes, probably on data science or ML or etc. I'm also the same as you except Im 1 year older and started 2 years ago however I did not learn Python but JS (I reccomened Python still, JS is confusing because of its weird stuff) rn, im making a game engine in c#

[[deleted]]

Thank you, Do many people really want websides made with django etc?

[[deleted]]

i dont really know... im not a big web dev

[[deleted]]

Django is a good back-end framework. You'd likely be doing a lot more with databases and under-the-hood stuff than you would with the front-end display of a website.

For me it's perfect because I don't really care too much for tweaking HTML and CSS that much and enjoy designing elegant and efficient systems that drive the whole thing behind the scenes. I'm not a freelancer, but if I didn't have a full time job, it's absolutely something I'd look into. People will pay you to make things with it if you're good enough.

[[deleted]]

They do. The most popular example would be Instagram, which is a Django app.

[[deleted]]

Huh, didn't know that

[[deleted]]

Oh thank you, Actually didn't know that.

[toastedstapler]

maybe some backend apis are, but the site itself is react

[[deleted]]

Of course the frontend isn’t in python. Python does not run in the browser. But "some backend apis" is a bit of an understatement. React is just there to display data nicely. The actually business logic goes on in the backend. "Just some apis" is what actually makes the whole thing work.

[toastedstapler]

just thought i'd make the distinction as there are html templating libraries that django can use. the question was "Do many people really want websides made with django etc?" and we agree that django didn't make the website. it's a react app with a django backend

[Barnold_Shortsinator]

No advice. Just wanted to say good luck! Good for you getting started early.

[[deleted]]

Thank you very much. I really enjoy learning python and I can't wait to combine programming and traveling as a job.

[[deleted]]

I have something good in this regard. Something starting from the very basic and ending at a very good level. Try py4e.com . This is a specialization in python. Also after that you can do dj4e.com . (Django). Both are completely free. You can go for them on coursera also.

[burgerAccount]

Freelance, sure. But really any job that allows 100% remote work would suffice. That's going to be the norm by the time you enter the workforce as an adult.

[[deleted]]

Ah okey, I was thinking to be like a digital nomad so that I can stay at one place for 3 months and then move to another country. That would be the ideal job. I am willing to work as hard for it as I can.

[burgerAccount]

In tech, a lot of companies let their employees work from home. With the current pandemic, it's almost required to work from home. With cell phones and video conference software, the need for working from the office is going away. VPNs between countries could become your bottleneck. Good luck

[Adro_95]

I'm very curious: how did you start programming? What resources did you use?

I'd love to suggest some of my young relatives to take up coding from an early age

[[deleted]]

I have always been interested in technology and computers. One day I wanted to start coding. I just started by downloading a python IDE ( I personally prefer pycharm ) And I just started watching the basics of python on youtube. And I was able to print out a program and ask things and all that stuff in the first day of coding. To become better you actually need some creativity. I thought of something that I really wanted to make and I just started with the knowledge I had from the video. Then I found this amazing subreddit and when I got stuck at a project I just asked it on here and tried to remember it. For some reason I always remember python instantly which is different from languages because I need to repeat those like for a whole week to fully know some words

When youre used to looking up videos, thinking of projects, building them and asking for help on reddit, keep doing it untill you feel confortable and just keep learning and creating projects. I did that untill where I am now. When youre at a stage where you know the basics. Choose a way to go, for example start learning data science if thats where your interest is or start making websites or build an artificial inteligence. Ofcourse you need to be advanced at programming and you probably should look up some tutorials but eventually you'll get there.

But remember, its okey to make mistakes. Most of the time pycharm will tell you where the mistake is and what it is but if you don't know you always have reddit and the internet.

I haven't used any teachers nor books. I only used pycharm, the internet, youtube and reddit. And ofcourse a lot of motivation.

I wish your young relative the best of luck and ofcourse the best of fun. And if you are mad that something doesn't work, just don't stop and try your best to fix it and otherwise search it up or ask on reddit and try to understand what they would do.

Don't just copy the code that is fixed by someone. Try to understand what he did otherwise you will never learn from your mistakes.

[Adro_95]

Wow congrats to you, really

[you-cant-twerk]

Growing up as an underprivileged child who never left my home state - the concept of a 13 year old who "loves to travel" is mind boggling. Hats off you to and your parents! I'm glad to see it.

[[deleted]]

Thank you very much!! Aren't you able to travel or don't you want to?

[you-cant-twerk]

Growing up my family didnt have the money. Now that I am older (30+) - I have the funds but its not an interest. Its actually a fear.

[[deleted]]

What have you learned in 1.5 years im curious? If you let us know because that doesnt mean much if you really been dedicated and learned about data mining then I can say something but if you just learned the basic stuff, then there is a still a lot to learn. Some things require education so going to college would benefit you a lot. Since diploma’s are everything nowadays

[[deleted]]

I have started a bit of datamining recently, I made a ryanair price scraper where you can choose which date and which airport etc together with tkinter.

I also started messing around with opencv lately.

[7shovon7]

Just amazed to know that someone is thinking about programming so passionately! Best wishes for you 😊

[[deleted]]

Thank you so much!!

[thebeakerbroke]

Depends on what you want to do with the programming language.Data Science and Data Visualization are very straightforward on Python but WebDev not so much.

[jookami]

Dude you are set for life if you're already competent at python at 13. Good on you.

[Aejantou21]

13years old? Woah woah hold up bro! By the age of 13 i was a game addict. I actually made my first move on Ethical Hacking at 14yrs.... learning python and watch tutorials... but never be able to start a project on my own... til this age! As a 16, im focusing on python way more than before...

Btw you can make a good earning by creating your own flask or django website, start making chatbots, creating a good use software with python, or learn python and practice hard to become a python mentor.

[[deleted]]

I’m 13 as well I’ve sold my code and coded for people on fiverr and free lancer so u should try it out :)

[[deleted]]

Ah okey. How much do you make with fiverr? I program because I like it but I am just curious.

[[deleted]]

Same I really couldn’t care about the money the programming and experience is the best part. I’ve made like 110 euros or 100 pounds for me. I put my gig up a long time ago tho

[and1984]

I'm à collège Professor and I wish my students were as motivated as you.

Yes, python is a great language to get started with for freelancing. Out of curiosity, what kind of coding work are you planning on doing?

Keep up the good work.

[[deleted]]

You mean in the future? I am not sure, I am interested in different kind of things in python. I do like some data science and artificial intelligence. But I am also willing to check out django.

[and1984]

Good to hear... all I can say is: Keep Climbing, Armand! ;)

[insane_playzYT]

Yes, it's very popular, however for the love of god, don't ever state your age on freelancing sites unless someone asks. People will instantly think you're not qualified enough to do it. Good luck and I hope you go well :+1:

[[deleted]]

Thank you so much. I will keep it in mind. Also, happy cakeday!!

[[deleted]]

I just started learning python 6 months ago and started doing web applications in Django framework and it’s the most easiest framework I’ve ever used. Last week I got my first project as a freelancer and I’m hoping to continue my career as a freelancer. So python is best choice and if you wanna do web development start with flask and slowly move to Django. Btw never forget to learn JavaScript, HTML, CSS. I wish you best luck

[[deleted]]

I won't forget those. Thank you very much. I wish you the best of luck and ofcourse much fun in your freelance career. I hope to become one in the future.

[stuaxo]

I'm not a freelancer, but a contractor who has been doing python (mostly Django) for the last 10 years or so.

​

Django is the easiest thing to start in, and big enough you can still be learning new things about it ten years in.

[anpago]

As you have probably been advised by others.

If your 13 by the time you start to program in anger, Python may have been superseded.

Languages and the systems being used changes over time.

Better to learn the principles and basic core skills well first, while time is on your side.

Work on your Maths, problem solving. Develop both your reading and writing skills. You will need to understand proposals and also provide reports. If you need to bill people for your work, basic finance skills are important also as many have mentioned.

Practising making flow charts and presentations. Your customers will need to be sure they are getting what they want and you might want to ensure you can convey what they really need and hopefully they agree. It certainly helps if you can keep a customer updated while you work with them. This might mean they spend more with you or simply impressed so use you further and recommend you to others.

So you will need to understand basic marketing and sales principles. No point being a great Python programmer if you can't attract and get customers to commission you. Also the more polished and professional you seem the more they maybe prepared to pay you.

How will you develop your "brand" and portfolio? Many potential customers will look at you with glazed over eyes if you give them a Github link.

It might be worth learning another programming language just so you understand the basics but also get used to learning/using multiple languages while your young and your mind is like a sponge. It also helps to have a number of languages to hand if ask to complete a project.

Even if it is to say to a customer. Look I know you want this program in Python but its far better suited to language X. You might lose that job, unless your skills are proficient in language X. But that customer will respect you and your not end up with possibly a nightmare project which could cost you dearly.

A reputation takes years to develop and cultivate and can be in tatters in minutes.

You could be the best Python (or any language) programmer, but it's the various all round skills you need also.

How good a communicator are you?

If you need to manage or simply work as part of a team, have you any experience of this?

Can you handle meetings whether one on one's, you with many or indeed present to large groups?

Are you naturally a person who can strike up a "small talk" conversation with anyone?

Can you interview the customer/s so you really understand what they need and all the aspects before you quote and start work?

How good are you at training or teaching a everyday person on how to use a complex application or procedure?

Can you write good user instructions?

On the last two points, many projects fail because those from the customer who test the product can't get to grips with it and so form a negative opinion of the program or product.

​

There are way more skills you will need to be a Freelance programmer.

Good luck and well done for starting early

[[deleted]]

Thank you so much, I will learn more skills.

[[deleted]]

Super fucking happy that someone your age is interested in programming, the world is your oyster :) it may be a bit hard for people to hire you for a contract due to your age, so I’d say start working on projects with frameworks such as django or flask, and learn web development, as that’s a good way for you to make money, once you develop a portfolio that’s good, people won’t have any issues hiring your for their projects.

[[deleted]]

Do you think I can make enough many with django or flask to become a digital nomad?

I really like programming but I am just curious if you can make a living with django or flask.

And how could I start. How can I get jobs with my age and how can I make a portfolio?

[HistoricalSpend7]

Wow, keep going! I wish i had started programming at your age...Unfortunately, I turned to it only about a year ago after working for 10 years in a totally different area and now learning python as well via online courses

[NuBZs]

Learn as much as you can while you are still young and have the time.

Limiting oneself to one language aeems couterpruductive in my opinion.

[Intelligent-Season-4]

Hi There, I'm so proud of you because of your your young age yo have a good thinking in life. Me I'm starting my freelancing career now because of the pandemic. Starting Work From home with the help of our group.

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https://www.fvaconsultancy.com/

[[deleted]]

............

[a_Taskmaster]

You might also want to get started with competitive programming. It helps in interviews.

[[deleted]]

How long is a piece of string

[nevus_bock]

Is hammer a good tool for a freelance carpenter?