A good read: Curiosity And Stubbornness: One Digital Nomad's Advice On Learning To Code
“Don’t be afraid to fail. On the contrary, fail often, fail fast; that’s the only way to learn.”
“Assess, Decide, Do.” This is the core of what blogger and self-taught programmer Dragos Roua calls his life management framework. A self-proclaimed citizen of the world, Roua is also a serial online entrepreneur, personal development fanatic, dreamer, and risk taker who says that “Happiness is a process, not a goal.” He is the author of 6 books, including 100 Ways To Live A Better Life & 100 Ways to Screw Up Your Life, leads product development and strategy at WPSumo, and blogs about self-improvement and productivity at DragosRoua.com. He’s funding his next book about working without an office called Being a Digital Nomad through Indiegogo.
In 2010 he wrote a great article called 7 Life Lessons From A Self-Taught Programmer. Definitely recommended reading. Dragos agreed to revisit some of those lessons and talk about the parallels between coding and living, how he learned coding and English at the same time, and what work is like when you think of yourself as your own colleague.
Who are you? Tell us about yourself.
I’m a 42 year old Romanian. I have 2 kids, which I am fortunate enough to visit every once in a while. I built a few businesses– some of them died, some of them were sold, some of them are still living. I blog, I write books, I coded web and mobile apps, I travel, I run marathons, I dance tango at Milongas and I claim that my only true qualities as a human being are curiosity and stubbornness.
After building an online publishing company for 10 years, I decided to sell it and to become a digital nomad. I work in Starbuckses.
I don’t have an office and I got rid of two mainstream business concepts: the one of being a “boss” (I’m not even my own boss, I’m my own colleague) and the one called “deadline” (I replaced it with “liveline” because the first one had “death” in it).
What made you decide to learn to code?
Curiosity. And then, stubbornness made me stick to it.
I have a degree in French Literature, but I learned to code when I was around 27, compiling my first Linux kernel (I think it was a Slackware distro). I learned C, C++, PHP, SQL, tcl-tk (like, really, but I forgot it pretty fast :) ), and then I learned Objective C and lua. Of course, I know HTML and CSS (I don’t know if these are counting like programming languages).
In your 7 Life Lessons article you talked about the link between spoken languages and programming languages, saying that “a programming language can be learned and applied just like learning French or Japanese” and that “reality is created with words.” Can you say more about how that can help someone starting to learn to program?
Every language is a vocabulary (a collection of words) spread over a grammar (a collection of rules). So, if you think at it, you realize that PHP, for instance, really has a very small vocabulary (if, then, else, echo, and so on and so forth) and a very small and easy grammar (start a “paragraph” with ””, end each sentence with ”;”, and so on and so forth).
So, the moment you realize that, you will start to “talk” PHP just like you talk English, or French or Japanese.
As for the reality being created with words, that’s just a consequence of using a certain language. For instance, if you use PHP to create a “paragraph”, you will create an app, a part of the reality which can be used by others.
In many ways, coding is much like writing a novel. If I’m not wrong, the guys that developed WordPress are still using this logo: “Code is poetry”. Maybe they know something.
Your #1 lesson in that article is that “Bugs are on you.” Can you talk about how that plays out when a programmer is working on a team or for a client?
It’s about being responsible. About having a certain way to respond to criticism.
Too often, when something goes wrong, we try to find reasons outside ourselves. As a programmer, I learned that what I get it’s EXACTLY what I code. Period.
So, if a client comes to you and tells: “this part of the app doesn’t work”, the first response should be: “let’s test it together and see what’s going on”, instead of, I don’t know: “it worked when I tested it”, or, “what did you do wrong to make it crash”.
You made a great point that “Today’s Problem Is Tomorrow’s Laughter” in regard to both coding and life. What are some resources or techniques you recommend when beginner programmers hit the inevitable “impossible” situations.
Detachment. Meditation. Look at the world, don’t react to it. It may sound outrageously “zen”-ish, but it does work.
Every time you hit the wall, just take a deep breath and try to look at the so called problem from the outside.
This too, shall pass. Also, logging your activities (like in keeping a journal) will help you be more grounded. Journaling is a great way to integrate your experiences.
What were the resources that were most valuable to you when you were learning to program?
Well, in the beginning, there was obviously the Internet.
I learned to code without knowing English (I didn’t have an hour of English in school) or, to put it better, I learned English by learning to code.
10 years ago, when I was still fiddling with Linux, and learning HTML and CSS and PHP, the most important resources were the specialized websites. Online manuals and such. But recently, since I started to learn Objective C, for instance, a very useful resource was provided by communities like Stackoverflow.com. Incredibly useful.
Too often the documentation is scarce, or obfuscated for commercial reasons, so picking other people’s brains is the only way to get some answers.
Also, don’t ever underestimate the power of properly documented source code. I learned more from the comments in the code than I learned from manuals, to be honest. Which, obviously, made me write my code thoroughly commented.Â
Keep in mind, though, that I am self-taught programmer, and your mileage may vary. You may be more inclined to take a regular coding course (and there are tons of them available now, even in the online academies that are popping out recently.
Lesson #4 on your list was that “Good focus builds good things.” What tools or resources have you found that help people learning to program focus?
This goes into the realm of productivity. I’ve been a big productivity freak, and, in some respects, I still am. I was also a big fan of GTD, until, a few years ago, I created my own life management framework, called Assess - Decide - Do. I’m actively using it and I’m really satisfied with it.
In short, this framework separates your world in 3 realms.
In Assess you evaluate, get feedback, assess, project, day dream. You can even procrastinate, it’s allowed, you’re in Assess. Once a task in Assess is no longer needed there, you move it into Decide.
In Decide, you “sign the contract” with that task, you commit time and resources for it. You’re not doing it, you’re just signing the contract. Incidentally, if you don’t have the resources to do it yet, you can send it back to Assess. But if you do have the available resources, you move it into Do.
And Do is the place where you actually change the reality, where you do stuff. But you do it without the pressure of Assessing or Deciding; you already did this in the previous realms. That flow creates focus.
Lesson #7 was that “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.” Do you have any suggestions for people just learning to program for deciding what way to skin the cat? Or some strategies you’ve developed for approaching how to decide what algorithm to implement when working on a team?
First of all, you should refrain yourself to think in terms of “correct” and “incorrect” when it comes to a solution. Instead, you should think in terms of “well adapted to the context” or “unadapted to the context”.
Every app you code has its own evolution. It may start with a small MySQL db on a shared server, and the solutions you find are OK, but then it may evolve into a cluster of servers and you need to learn a new way to skin the same cat. As long as the solution is adapted to the current context, in my experience, you’re done.
As for working in a team, talking out loud really helps. Joke aside, I think you should also refrain from labeling other people solutions when working in a team, and trying to create simple and efficient mechanisms of providing feedback. I’m not talking about test-driven development, which is ok, I’m talking about people taking to each other about their solutions. It works better than test-driven development.
What’s next for you on your own coding journey?
I’m still developing WPSumo and I started to contribute a bit of time to a crowdfunding service for athletes or travelers, at Kickadventure.com. I’m also trying to keep my apps in the Apple AppStore updated and, if enough time will be saved, to add a few. In my Assess realm related to mobile apps I still have a dozen of ideas, I just need to Decide if I have the necessary resources to Do them.
Any closing thoughts for those thinking about learning to program?Â
Just do it. It may seem difficult in the beginning but it’s well worth the time invested. Don’t be afraid to fail, on the contrary, fail often, fail fast, that’s the only way to learn.
Source for the great skyline shot of Bucharest:Â Andreea Radu
Through this Pathways to Programming interview series, we talk to formerly non-technical people about how they learned to program in a non-traditional way and what they’re doing now. If you’ve taken your own unconventional path to becoming a programmer, we’d love to hear about it. Send a short email to [email protected] and let’s talk.
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