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This post is structured as follows.
- It Is New to Most People
- It Is Fundamentally Different
- It Is Associated with Too Many Expectations
- It Requires You to Make Many Mistakes
- Learning the First Programming Language Is Extremely Hard
Every day, we keep on hearing that programming is important, that the world needs more coders, that it is the most in-demand skill set in the world, with no reasons to lose this position for years to come.
However, when most people try to study it, they suddenly find out that it is extremely difficult to master. Of course, there are the lucky few to whom it comes naturally.
They seem to have no problems mastering new programming languages, effortlessly jumping from C++ to Matlab and from Python to JavaScript.
Nevertheless, the majority of those trying to study coding find it fundamentally mind-boggling, and no amount of studying can alter this perception. So what is so difficult about programming? Why do so many people need help when dealing with it?
Let us take a look at a few explanations.
It Is New to Most People
One of the reasons why programming is so hard is because it is completely new to most people.
Those who are currently adults most likely did not have full-fledged programming courses in school, and what they know about the subject (unless they deliberately studied it on their own) is very limited.
As for the current high school and college students, the share of schools actively teaching coding is highly overestimated by most people. The majority of educational institutions do not have programming courses that would meet modern standards, for a variety of reasons.
These range from budget restrictions to the impossibility to keep up with the development of the field.
It Is Fundamentally Different
Take a look at your average programming assignment and compare it with homework related to almost any other subject. Chances are, there is nothing in common between them.
Coding is just fundamentally different from most other skills we have to use throughout both our education and our real lives. It requires its own skill set and its own way of viewing information.
It is no wonder that many people find it necessary to resort to the help of services offering the assistance of online experts when it comes to programming assignments.
When dealing with such a service, you may have to be careful to specify that you, for example, need Matlab assignment help in particular, but once you do it, you know what you are going to get.
It Is Associated with Too Many Expectations
Most of us grew up hearing how difficult coding is and how much effort it takes to learn even the most basic aspects of it.
However, over the last decade, we saw so many online courses, programs, boot camps, and other initiatives related to teaching and learning how to code, that in the minds of many people this fear came to be replaced with some kind of misguided overabundant optimism.
You take a walk through several of these gamified approaches to learning how to code, and they do not seem to be particularly difficult or scary. Perhaps you can do it for a living after all?
Alright, let’s take a shot at this programming major in college! After that, you suddenly find yourself face to face with a completely incomprehensible coursework assignment you cannot make head or tail of. You do not know how to proceed.
Programming does not look like a walk in the park any longer. It turns out that you have to apply actual effort to get anywhere.
It Requires You to Make Many Mistakes
One of the ways in which programming is different from most other disciplines taught in school is that to learn it, you are obliged to make mistakes. A lot of them. They are not part of the experience – they are the experience itself.
If you are used to being a straight-A student who is always right and can get through a hurdle with enough cramming, you are in for an unpleasant surprise. To master anything about programming, you will have to make mistakes.
You are no longer the best in class – you make mistakes and have to wade through them if you want to achieve any real results.
Learning the First Programming Language Is Extremely Hard
It is often said that once you have put your first programming language behind you, the going gets much, much easier.
However, until you achieve this stage, every microscopic step forward is going to feel like a gargantuan effort – simply because you are learning a whole new way of thinking, reading, and expressing yourself.
It is not even comparable with learning other languages of human communication, because they are fundamentally different from any programming language you will have to encounter.
In other words, differently from many other disciplines, programming has the most difficult obstacles lined up at the very beginning. Things will get easier after them, but you have to get over them first.
And what do you believe to be the most difficult things about learning programming?
Share your thoughts in the comments!
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