This Is Why Coding Is Awesome

In simple terms programming is the art of telling computers a set of steps to solve a problem. But if you’re creative enough, It’s about giving your imagination all the resources of modern day computers.

When I discovered programming and software development I immediately became interested in that path. I may have been highly influence by the ever-growing job market and the good salaries. However, five years later as I’m writing this, coding has changed the way I see the world around me.

Without further ado, here’s my love letter to Programming.

Life makes sense with logical thinking

Computers don’t allow ambiguities, any program you write needs precise inputs in order to operate correctly. The program’s decision making process relies entirely in the factual data provided by those inputs.

After some time writing software I personally started to adopt a similar mindset in some aspects of my life. I began to observe and analyze more the things around me and develop the habit of questioning everything.

But most importantly I started to draw my own conclusions based on inputs and feedback, my critical thinking became an important factor in all my decisions.

Since computers can normally do only one thing at the time we must learn how to divide big problems into small ones. This is a pattern we start to recognize in our lives to. We might feel overwhelm by the magnitude of obstacles we face, but it’s always easier to overcome them by one step at the time and achieve great things.

Your imagination takes form in the real world

Imagine all your ideas your mind can come up with as colors, then programming comes in and says “Hey, here you have a blank canvas where you can totally mess it up, edit, undo, compile and share your creation with the entire world just with one link and in a matter of seconds”…cool right?

To be fair learning how to write code might be slightly harder than learning how to use a paint brush, but trust me, it is worth it.

Programming can definitely be considered a way of self expression. You can materialize your ideas and not only that, but turn it into usable art that people can interact with. Just like a blank canvas you have total control of what you want to design and create. The rules of interaction are totally up to you.

Code is basically building blocks for your imagination. It gives you so much power that we are amazed every year by new projects people create that we didn’t know were possible or just didn’t think of it in such creative ways.

Your code is an artistic solution to problems

Writing is a beautiful art form and a wonderful activity for our minds. But writing a solution that runs on a computer to solve problems, that’s just exciting.

Guess what? Your code has all the traits that make writing an art, it has an idea, an organization, a word choice, sentence fluency and conventions.

After some years of writing code I’ve inevitably developed a problem solving mindset, I like to see every task, no matter how small or boring It is, as a challenge, a problem that needs its own strategy in order to be solve.

There is this feeling when you find out a better way to solve common problems that is beyond incredible. I live for those moments.

When you find a successful solution, you feel a sense of achievement that is rewarding. It gives you motivation to keep doing your job with joy and satisfaction. You feel like a winner who didn’t give up.

Mistakes are the main guests at the party

Here’s a universal truth, effective solutions rarely come without trial and error. For many reasons code is prone to errors, at the end of the day we are still humans.

However in this field we kind of embrace mistakes to a certain point, sure nobody likes to fix errors and we would love It if our code just worked smoothly and efficiently all the time. But the truth is that’s just impossible.

There’s no other way to improve and write better code than just writing it and fixing the errors that may occur along the way.

Eventually in our job and in life in general when we are no longer scared of making mistakes is when we start growing exponentially and we dare to try things that we wouldn’t if we stopped to how bad failing would be.

Failure is part of the road. It’s hard to overcome our fear of failing but when we do, we can walk our way to achieving what we want.

As the next universal language, your code speaks for you

Programming is an objective activity. It’s about understanding a problem thoroughly so you can teach a piece of metal how to solve it.

That means no matter who you are or where you’re from, if you know how to create solutions with code your talent is proven and speaks for itself.

Of course this is by no means a perfect industry full of respect and equal opportunities. Many people in this field have to deal with awful things on a daily basis. We must condemn that kind of toxic culture.

Good news is many companies are starting to acknowledge this problem and developing better cultures. There’s yet a lot of work to do.

All your talent and determination to become a better developer will always be demonstrated in your code no matter what.

So those are a few reasons why I love an enjoy coding. It’s one of the most beautiful ways of self expression. Learning it changes your whole perception of the world around you.