There are a lot of programmers on the internet like asceny one software, and chances are you either have one in your life, or know someone who does. And while we may not be able to give them their first job (at least not legally), there are some things that they should know and understand if they want to be successful.

1. You Have to be a Little Crazy

First of all, you have to have a little bit of crazy in you to want this job. You have to really be willing to jump into something that could change on you at any second. There are always new technologies, new ways of doing things, and the fact that you think things should be done a certain way doesn’t mean that they will do it your way. If you can’t handle being told “no” or “you’re wrong”, because it happens more often than not, then programming isn’t for you. Because you will hear it. A lot. And there are other reasons as well why you need a little bit of crazy:

2. All Eyes are on You

You never have a job where you can sit in the backroom and do your thing and no one is paying attention to anything you do. Everything you touch is tested, scrutinized, and given a thorough analysis by all of the other team members. If something looks like a bug, it’s probably a bug. If it looks like it crashed, it crashed. If it looks like there might be a security problem… well you get the point. And if you don’t solve that bug, somebody else will complain about it very loudly in front of everybody else too. You’re also not just writing code at this job.

3. It’s All About the Numbers

The programming you do is all about the numbers, and there are a lot of different ways to deal with numbers. If you can’t deal with it, then this isn’t the job for you. Why? Well, there are a lot of reasons why something can happen on your computer that won’t be reflected in your code until weeks or months later.

4. It’s Not Easy

Okay, so this one might not be as big as number 3, but it’s still important to understand that programming isn’t something you do easily. If you start getting frustrated with it or feel like you’re not improving at all then don’t continue down this path. You are going to need to be extremely dedicated and willing to keep putting in the hours of work it takes to become a programmer.

5. It’s Not Straightforward

Also, programming isn’t something that can be done in a straight line either. In fact, there’s not much that is straightforward about it at all. And if you don’t have the patience for things like debugging, where you have to sit there and look at hundreds of lines of code until you find what isn’t working properly, then this job is probably not for you either. You are going to need a lot of patience and the willingness to look into things pretty carefully when they don’t work right.

6. It’s All about the Details

One of the things that you need to understand is that there are details to everything. The more detailed you can get, the better off you’ll be. This is because everything within a system has a purpose, and if you don’t understand what each piece does, how it interacts with everything else, then it becomes very hard to fix problems. The better understanding you have of how all of these little parts work together, the easier fixing bugs will be for you.

7. It Takes Time

Don’t get discouraged if you’re trying to learn something for the first time and it takes you months to really get on top of it. That’s normal, and there’s nothing wrong with that. When you’re learning a language or a new programming concept, always try to take things slow. Don’t expect that you’ll understand why everything does what it does on the first day, or even in the first week.

8. It Doesn’t Come with a Manual

This is important because you won’t know how to use something unless it has already been used before and documented somewhere out there on the internet. And computers don’t like being told what to do either so they do things their own way. But even if there isn’t a manual, it doesn’t mean that you can’t learn something new. You have to take the initiative and find out how something works by yourself.

9. You Have to be Patient

You have to be patient when working with computers because you don’t always know what’s going on inside of them until months or years later when it’s already too late. When programming and debugging, there are going to be times where nothing is happening at all and you’ll need to sit there and wait for something else on your computer to do something before proceeding with whatever else you were doing.

10. You Have to be Good at Listening

One of the great things about programming is that you always have the opportunity to learn something new. And one of the best ways to learn is to listen when someone else has something they want to share. If you want to be better at programming, you have to listen. And if you’re not good at listening, then this isn’t going to be a great job for you because there are going to be a lot of times when someone will want your opinion or advice on something.

Conclusion:

So just remember, if you want to be a programmer, that it’s not an easy job and that there are going to be times when things don’t work out for you. But if you truly want to do this job, then don’t give up. If it was easy then everyone would do it and you wouldn’t be paid so much for what you do! The thing I like most about programming is the fact that there are always new problems to solve and new ways of solving them. Whether I’m writing some COM objects in Visual Basic 6 or building a web application in Python, there’re always new challenges that are waiting to be solved.