Computer Programming is easy, no buts…

I’ve had people ask me what computer programming entails and how difficult it is. Most people believe it’s this intricately complicated process that involves a whole lot of maths.

I think of computer programming as the art of precise thinking. And it is only as difficult as the problem you are trying to solve. You could learn to program computers in hours. The frustrating part is using what you’ve learnt to teach computers to solve a problem. You’d be amazed at how complicated even the most simplistic problem is, and how much detail our subconscious takes care of without us realizing, when you sit down to write unambiguous and very detailed instructions for solving a problem.

As for being difficult, I’ve been programming computers for around a decade and the most math I ever do is Junior secondary math. If I was programming computers to solve quantum physics I’d need to be very experienced at quantum physics but so few programmers write programs for such problems. Most write programs to solve simple basic human problems.

Where computer programming gets difficult is, over time people from across the world have invested a whole lot of resources in finding smart ways of solving a lot of common problems. You can either re-solve those problems or you can study what they’ve done and reuse.

This is what I and most Programmers spend their time doing, It is also the most difficult aspect of programming computers. There are literally thousands of solutions to most problems out there. And for the most part you cant judge which is best without personally studying several alternatives. And as soon as you finish learning one you’ll hear of a possibly better solution some programmers in Japan came up with and you also have to learn that or slowly become irrelevant.