Current Events > How in the hell is coding/programming a hobby to some people?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Programming combines problem solving and creation in many intellectually stimulating ways. Also, unlike many jobs, there is, to varying degrees, tangible and long lasting results of your work that isn't just "you hit your sales this week." This works as a hobby as well. Of course that doesn't mean its for everyone or that programming a mythical career for everyone and no issues.

As far as which language to learn, it doesn't matter that much, though most schools usually go with Python (which I agree with). Easier syntax, still widely used, and is a swiss army knife that can be used with most applications with solid success. Javascript is another option because its so wildly used. HTML is fine and often used because its so fast and direct to see your results translate to a webpage.
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It is basically a complex logic puzzle. You are given a task you need the computer to accomplish, and you have to translate it to a language the computer can understand. You have to plan for every inevitability. You have to correct mistakes and bug test. Most of the time, there is no one single correct answer; every programmer has a different method for programming. I like it, but I'm no expert; I finished some Code Academy courses and programmed some stuff myself (IP checker/port scanner, a battleship game, etc), but I just didn't know what sort of project to do next so I sort of gave up.

Some people are masochists and enjoy rough grinds since they lead to extremely satisfying accomplishments.
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Teen Girl Squad posted...

Programming combines problem solving and creation in many intellectually stimulating ways. Also, unlike many jobs, there is, to varying degrees, tangible and long lasting results of your work that isn't just "you hit your sales this week." This works as a hobby as well. Of course that doesn't mean its for everyone or that programming a mythical career for everyone and no issues.

As far as which language to learn, it doesn't matter that much, though most schools usually go with Python (which I agree with). Easier syntax, still widely used, and is a swiss army knife that can be used with most applications with solid success. Javascript is another option because its so wildly used. HTML is fine and often used because its so fast and direct to see your results translate to a webpage.

A couple of comments to elaborate on your post:
- Many programming jobs aren't stimulating, though. Often it becomes rather mechanical, lots of meetings and processes and administration to just write a few lines of code in a system so large that you may not be sure what it does. There's a very wide range of jobs. But in general I agree with you.
- HTML isn't a programming language. I see a couple of posts ITT that amount to "I tried programming, started with HTML and it wasn't for me", which essentially just means that they didn't try programming in the first place.
- Schools often use Python because it's widely used in academia. It's a very good language for people who just want to get stuff done and aren't necessarily interested in programming. Of course, it's also nice for programming nerds, but so are a bunch of other languages. Your Swiss army knife comparison is apt. (and if you want to pick a language that will get you a job, Python, Javascript and Java are all really solid options)
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IllegalAlien posted...

Like my girlfriend told me about this task she had to do at her old job which involved copy/pasta a bunch of city voting data or something. It took her days but if she knew how to program it would have taken maybe 2 hours and then there would just be a program that would be able to do the task forever. It's a beautiful thing having this sort of power.

Lol that's hilarious
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Baneposting posted...

How repetative is it?
Like, me trying to learn say, C# was a bit like: make button, make 6 text boxes (for example) type in a bunch of code that's more or less the same with variants of "textbox1.text".
It seems really, really boring since it was repetative to me.

Just my take on it - I genuinely would like to learn coding properly outside of learnign scripting for job related stuff

@ROD
https://www.codecademy.com/

Keep in mind that it's not the most advanced in terms of what you can do but ultimately, if you have a computer (an actual computer/laptop with windows/linux/iOS on it) then you can learn to code. If you're on GameFAQs, you can learn to code. Most of the tools are free. take say, Java, you can get some tutorials online for free - just Google, they're legally obtained so you're not pirating or anything. And then just go nuts. NetBeans is an IDE (integrated development environment) where you can debug code, etc. So you could use that for Java, say, following tutorials that start with it. Most good tutorials start with a setup of the IDE

awesome post, thanks dude
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for me, its not, and probably never will be.

Ive tried to work on passion projects, but I just can't. I have a few ideas that I consider 'good', and I know I can complete them with my skill, but when I get home from work programming is the last hobby I want. I don't want to spend all day programming just to go back to programming when I get home.

My uncle runs his own business where he sells televisions and spare parts online. He wanted to migrate from one platform to another, and this would've involved manually re-entering thousands of parts into a new database due to unsavory migration options that either cost a lot of money or were complex.

So I wrote a simple script that took in the old data and generated an import file for the new database. It took a couple of hours to get it working and fast, and it saved him a lot of money because he didn't have to pay for an expensive migration or do any work manually.

Things like that are very satisfying and they can save people a lot of money.

byron posted...

ROD posted...

Baneposting posted...

How repetative is it?
Like, me trying to learn say, C# was a bit like: make button, make 6 text boxes (for example) type in a bunch of code that's more or less the same with variants of "textbox1.text".
It seems really, really boring since it was repetative to me.

Just my take on it - I genuinely would like to learn coding properly outside of learnign scripting for job related stuff

@ROD
https://www.codecademy.com/

Keep in mind that it's not the most advanced in terms of what you can do but ultimately, if you have a computer (an actual computer/laptop with windows/linux/iOS on it) then you can learn to code. If you're on GameFAQs, you can learn to code. Most of the tools are free. take say, Java, you can get some tutorials online for free - just Google, they're legally obtained so you're not pirating or anything. And then just go nuts. NetBeans is an IDE (integrated development environment) where you can debug code, etc. So you could use that for Java, say, following tutorials that start with it. Most good tutorials start with a setup of the IDE

awesome post, thanks dude

I've heard good things about this resource:

http://mooc.fi/courses/2013/programming-part-1/

*takes note*
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No idea, people like weird shit. I do it for a living but I'm not going to program shit for "fun". I can understand using it as a means to accomplish something fun like making a game.
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TomNook20 posted...

No idea, people like weird shit. I do it for a living but I'm not going to program shit for "fun". I can understand using it as a means to accomplish something fun like making a game.

the first week of making a game is fun, where you have all these ideas and you're world building and coming up with cool gameplay ideas and setting up all of the easy stuff.

and then you realize how much work you actually have to do after that and it suddenly becomes not so fun