While it might sound ridiculous I wish someone encouraged me to learn a single programming language when first learning to code. When I first started learning I thought I needed to learn as many programming languages as possible. As a result, I constantly jumped between languages “learning” some Python, some Java, and some C# (emphasis on some) before finally coming to my senses.
What I thought was learning, was really spinning my wheels. The reality was that I was only learning enough of a language to use in a very basic capacity. Because of this, what I really did was continuously relearn the basics of programming like procedural programming, conditionals, loops, and functions in three separate programming languages. It was like I had learned extremely basic French, Spanish, and Mandarin only to realize I wasn’t even as proficient as a five-year-old (Oh là là).
Making this mistake taught me an important lesson: expertise is found in depth, not breadth. Countless software engineers can write conditionals in Java but orders of magnitude fewer understand intricate details like the JVM, garbage collection, multithreading, and serialization.
The way to provide value is by possessing knowledge or skills that very few others do. And the only way to do that is to go deep into a topic and become an expert. Whether it’s a programming language, a frontend framework, or the design of a system, become the go-to person for something. Over time, it will make a massive difference in your career.
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Love this! Better to be a mile deep and an inch wide than the reverse 🤓
This is a great reminder! I started with Turing, a very not known language, and stuck with it for almost 3 years before I tried anything else. I think I always felt a little embarrassed that I didn't know a "real" language, but it gave me a fantastic amount of depth to build on! When I did eventually move on, I found learning new languages easy.