I have been a baker, an outdoor educator, and a cashier. I have been a plastics processing technician, an aircraft assembler, and a carpenter. I have studied acting, physics, and renewable energy. I have begun again and again and again, never being happier than when I am first learning a new skill. Most recently, I taught computer science in a public high school for a year. I got to have the ultimate beginner experience -- there is nothing quite like teaching while both learning to teach and learning your material at the same time. I also learned two very important lessons -- that I have an affinity for coding, and that I never want to work in a public high school again.
So here I am once more, taking a crash course in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React, Python, and Flask through Flatiron School. We have just finished our third week, with the first phase of the class culminating in a simple one-page web app designed to interact with an API. I have found that I really enjoy all the tinkering and troubleshooting -- the "wouldn't it be cool if" followed by figuring out how to get there. Any concern I had about losing interest as my rate of learning slows has completely fallen away as I have realized that coding is a literally bottomless fractal. Just as importantly, so is the community around it -- anywhere you turn, there is an expert in something, or even just an intrepid coder who figured out that thing I had been tearing my hair out over, who has already shared their knowledge. As time goes on and I learn more about whatever language(s) I wind up using most, more tools will be created, more languages will be written, and more literature will come out, forever expanding the field exponentially faster than any one person could keep up with. It is, in many ways, the ultimate expression of the role diversification and specialization that humanity has been working on for millenia -- and it affords mercurial fools like me the opportunity to be beginners for life.
PS: A question for seasoned devs
One thing I have really been wondering about as I have gotten to write more interesting projects is global variables. I have heard they are somewhere between generally frowned upon and vehemently detested -- depending on who you ask -- but at this stage I am struggling to see why. I understand that an over-reliance on them would be sloppy and certainly cause the potential for name reuse and terrible bugs, but used well, it seems like they could reduce the issue of hot potatoing objects from function to function. When passing variables through function call after function call, I have created errors that could have been avoided if I had stored more information in the global context. Perhaps I am being too zealous in my separation of concerns, and should collapse multiple functions into one? At any rate, if you happen to read this, I would appreciate your thoughts.
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