Programming fatigue. How it feels to learn to code in 2019/2022

#career #codenewbie #discuss #darq

Not so long ago, I was reading a couple of articles on JavaScript and TypeScript when I found this particular preview:

Personally, I have a similar impression of programming nowadays. I have had multiple mentees over the last years and many questions have raised from them, for example:

What should I learn?
Is it a good idea to learn Java? What about C?
Is Python the next big thing? Or what do you think about WebAssembly?
Should I study React Native or Xamarin?
What about Angular and React? Which one is the best?
Is Azure the best or Google?
Why do you like UiPath over Automation Anywhere?

And many many more. One of the reasons for their diverse questions is: I've explored multiple technologies and techniques over the last 13 years, for example, JavaScript, PHP, VB6, C#, Xamarin, HTML5/CSS3, ASP.NET, ITIL, Automation Anywhere, Azure, SQL Server, MySQL, REST, etc.

However, I see very difficult what to advise or learn since everything has changed drastically from Desktop Development to Web Development, Web Development to Cloud, Cloud to Mobile Development, Mobile Development to Augmented Reality, Augmented Reality to Robotic Process Automation, RPAs to AI, etc.

Currently, if you're honest we're living in a world of hyperspecialization putting you constantly on the fence. If you're honest most of the companies would expect that you're a "guru" of Java 11, Oracle, UiPath, EC2016+, etc. You already know React Native + AWS at the master level and "a little bit" of Blockchain just to reach the 1st interview. This situation without a doubt creates fatigue because you can rarely know where to move or what to choose. You need to jump from one branch to another and try to re-skill again in 2 weeks because the next big thing that they thought was right might fail tomorrow, but you MUST still be an expert on it!

One of the few articles that I have read recently that could give you a clue of what you should learn is this one: DARQ skills from Accenture. However, I still have some serious doubts about what you should advise someone fresh. Personally, I do a kind of job interview to go deeper and understand their interests, what they expect from the programming world, how they see their lives in IT in 5 years, what areas of IT they are interested in, etc. This helps me redirect them to the right person if I know someone or provide some clues of what they should learn based on statistics because I even saw this discussion in our webpage Developer is the next blue collar job from 2018 and I believe it's a serious topic to go farther.