Of Programming and the Realities of It

When I filed my resignation from my previous work, I made mention about a job offer which I consider to be a dream job: PROGRAMMER. Ha ha ha... From five years of working in the academe, teaching students who are mainly reluctant to learn anything new, students who just enrolled Computer Science because they thought that it is cool, to the new world of programming. Come on, what was I thinking? Maybe I only wanted to escape the routine life I had that's why I wanted to get away.

Three months after, here I am still a noob in this venture. Everything I thought I knew were just a speck compared the Programmer's World. Things are different when you are in front of the computer. I thought it would be cool but it's not. I have gone through a lot of "mess up" compilation and testing periods. I have tried committing projects in the repo which made the other classes in the repo not work as expected. There were days when I can't sleep because my unsolved projects keeps ringing through my subconscious that I even take them to my sleep.

Yeah. Those are but a few of the things that happen to a programmer. But the most important thing that I have learned is not to stop learning. During my three-month proby period, I was subject to learning... I read a C book that is 400+ pages, an 800+ pages Bash scripting guide, and a 300+ pages Subversion book plus a tutorial in VALA language. After each reading comes an assessment test where I was expected to write codes that will ultimately test what I have learned during my reading time.

It was tough, huh... It was. I learned the hard way. Programmers around me are not newbies; they were previously employed in IT companies; they code, test and implement while I was there inside a room teaching(if that's how it's called). They're young, with established background in software development whereas I, I am just nothing compared to them.

I still have "mess-ups" with my codes but being a programmer, responsibility comes. The booze from coffee is enough to muster my guts and say: "Sorry...", "I'll make it better next time..", "It won't happen again."