The Problem

How do I become a programmer?

In the previous post, we saw that this question deserves a better answer than:

• pick a programming language
• do some courses covering that language
• write some small apps
• apply for a job

And here is why…​

To become a programmer, you need to know a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff. So you are going to have to eat an elephant. Now I assume that you know that I mean this figuratively.

And you have probably also heard that the best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. And small bites that is.

When becoming a programmer, we similarly have to learn things in small chunks at a time. So we are going to eat the proverbial elephant one byte at a time. Pun intended!

Apart from learning things in small chunks, we also need a proper order in which to learn these things. So, in order for that, we need answers to the following questions:

1. Where do I start?
2. How much do I learn?
3. What next?
4. How much do I learn?
5. What next?
6. How much do I learn?
7. What next?
8. and so on…​

Unfortunately, at this point of your programming career, you do not have answers to these questions.

The good news is that there is a solution to this problem/dilemma, and we will look at the solution in the next post.