Why I Love Programming and Developing
By: Faiza Anan Noor
Tags: Web Development, Development, Apps, Coding, App Development

Hi! So this is my 10th blog(woohoo) and so I was thinking of becoming a little more personal in this one in celebration of that and I was thinking about sharing why I actually love programming and what really got me into it.

So my relationship with coding and developing is quite complicated really. We had a bumpy start and we still have rough patches sometimes! But everything is still super good in spite of that and it’s getting better as days are going by!

Photo by Christopher Gower on Unsplash

If I were to mention the things that made me inclined towards coding, I would probably state the following things right off the bat:

It makes you feel like an artist:

Photo by Maik Jonietz on Unsplash

As corny as it may sound, its true because coding gives you that sense of achievement or accomplishment of making something with your own very hands and actually see them come to life. So this is why I think it gives you the same feeling an artist gets when he/she sees his brush strokes actually bringing life to something. The feeling is unreal when you chalk out your whole algorithm, make ideas about the UI, and then actually dive into developing something and succeed! The working version of your software or website or whatever you built stand as a testament for your hard work and they prove that you’re capable of building enormous things, however small the apps might seem at first! But experimenting with small apps and actually doing the study go a long way to culminating and honing your existing skills and they work as a stepping stone for your future projects! Coding makes you see and showcase your own craft and it can help greatly in boosting your confidence.

2. It makes you sharper. It actually does.

Coding and developing challenges you and makes you think. It helps you think of the best ways to tackle a particular problem and the more you solve, the better you’ll be at solving more things! Studies show that coding actually lead to cognitive improvement and so it actually makes you sharper! Coders have a different way of approaching things, they almost end up approaching everything with their logic. Nowadays coding books are being included in elementary school too! I noticed a significant improvement in my memory and reasoning skills now that its been a while since I’ve being been coding. In the past it took me a little more time to solve problems, and by problems I don’t mean just problems that are related to coding concepts specifically. I’m actually referring to the problems that we encounter at every walk of life.

3. It can provide ways to help other people

Coding and developing things can play such a good role in helping other people and you can actually get the chance to understand their needs and build something for them accordingly. This may be as simple as building an ecommerce website for your friend or acquaintance who is just starting to invest on his start up. Other examples might include building a platform where people can raise their voices, stand up for themselves and seek for help whenever anything bad happens. The scopes and opportunities are endless and I can keep going forever.

A boy in my country recently got awarded with the Children’s Peace Prize for building a anti cyber bullying app. The sheer joy of making your code be of use to people is totally worth the hard work!

4. Coding is actually fun.

Well this point is a given. It might seem counter intuitive provided that coding itself is hard to get a grasp off. Right off the bat it seems pretty daunting, with all the weird looking variables and syntax and everything. When I started out it took me a while to fall in love with it too. There are endless things you need to learn and it’s continually evolving but once you start getting the hang of it everything feels like they’re falling to the right places again. Once you get the basics down it’s actually pretty easy to adapt yourself to the newly emerging technologies. And that’s where the fun begins! Some bits may seem horrendous and might be a little tough to get a grasp of, but that’d seem like a piece of cake if you’re willing to make it one!

5. Coding builds a great community:

The coding community is strong, diverse and full of people just like you. They’re always there to help, pick you back up whenever you’re stuck on a bug or a problem. There are endless resources and online and offline communities for you to be a part of and it’s hard being lost in this vast world of coding. People also have meetups, hackathons and other kinds of stuff and it’s a great way to meet and greet with other people and build strong connections.

6. Coding broadens your tech knowledge:

Coding actually broadens your horizon and makes you way more knowledgeable about the field of tech. The situation is actually co-dependent. To become great at tech you might wanna get started with coding to actually know what’s going on under the hood. And then to become great at coding, you might wanna be familiar with a lot of tech based concepts because it’s highly likely that your work will have their involvement. So whenever we are on the learning process or work process of code, since we have to be engaged with these stuff it automatically calls for being aware of those stuff too. And besides, coding also clears up your basic ideas and being involved in a particular field of development, for example the website development can help you get acquainted with other sides as well even to a small extend, like mobile app or desktop app development.

7. Coding is a great hobby and also a great job field

Not only does coding help you utilize your free time but it also pays well. In this day and age even non tech based jobs favour people even with a little bit of tech or coding knowledge. So in a way this can make your job application stand out.

And besides, even for people in this field there are endless opportunities and most of them have a great pay scale. People can not only code for the fun of it , but they can also earn money by doing so. They can earn money by teaching other people in person or through website blogs or video tutorials. They can earn a great deal by doing some outsourcing or maybe by making projects for people locally. There’s an ample amount of software engineering/development jobs opening up everyday and they’re always willing to find the most suited person for the job and so the biggest opportunities lie here!

Coding can also help you hop on the bandwagon of hardware programming as well. In a word, the scopes are endless. So you better get right into it!

I can keep going forever, but this is all for now.

If you’ve survived through my writing, kudos to you! Please start coding if you haven’t already, it’s worth the while, trust me!