Nowadays being a programmer is common, we see a lot of people interested in the new technology and it seems like everyone goes to school/college to learn computer science and become a coder. With that being said, there's a shortage of a few hundred thousand developers nowadays and the percentage is raising massively daily. Why does something like this occur when everyone is trying to learn how to code?
Well, it's simply because schools don't know how to teach anymore. Programming languages move at such a fast rate that no one is able to predict what's coming next and the college books become obsolete really quick, especially if they're a few years old. If you're interested in being a programmer you have to realize that you'll do a lot of self-teaching and no one will hold your hand on the way through. You have to take the initiative and build up the discipline to become a competent coder, going to school will only help you with fundamentals and some core concepts but that's about it. Frameworks, plugins and all that jazz need to be found manually.
With the internet being at an all-time high in the current day it's pretty easy to learn how to program, there are countless of free-resources online on sites like Udemy, Coursera, CodeAcademy and the likes. If you want to get up to speed with current-world programming standards you'll be able to do it in no time as long as you stay dilligent. There are a lot of incredible resources for web development like FreeCodeCamp or Treehouse where you can even get certifications for finishing the lessons, it's an easy field to enter if you're interested.
The most important thing is probably consistency. I know programmers that struggle with logic yet their work is amazing, you don't need to be a genius to be able to code, it's just how people perceive it since there's so much to learn. You'll bang your head against the wall many times when a simple bug will arise, but that will be a learning lesson for the future. Don't be afraid to start, once you get the ball rolling your progress will snowball. I never would've dreamed of being a coder, when I started out I struggled with the most basic things but I stuck with it until it made sense in my head and it was worth it.
Some things that you may want to look at besides a programming language: start looking out for version control, Github is an amazing tool and you'll need it in every job you'll be employed for.
Learn how to properly indent your code, make your variables as explicit as possible and comment out your code so when you look back at it in the future it will be easier to pick it up again.
There are a lot of self-taught individuals out there already and they are sooo young! Of course, it depends on personality and level of interest but it can be done. Not to mention there are a lot of useful and detailed information on software programming available for free in the Internet, too!
