Why Did I Study Python?
I am not a software engineer, and unless I am very bad at anticipating my future (which, honestly, I have been before), I do not expect to be one anytime soon. Despite this, I spent hours completing a beginner's course in Python (the high-level programming language, not the snake. I have studied herpetology a bit in my past, though, and could easily be compelled to study the serpent too). Why?
Here are my top three reasons:
Curiosity is the main driver behind so many of my life decisions. Don't get me wrong, I am interested in providing a stable life for myself and my loved ones, and professional success is intimately linked with that. The thing is, following my curiosity is nearly always worth it.
I spent over a decade working at a science center, blowing things up, freezing things, creating indoor lightning, and flying a planetarium to the edges of the universe. I spent all day stoking a sense of curiosity and wonder in the public, and I did so by drawing on my own innate sense of curiosity.
I was the kid who flipped over logs or took apart the stereo and always had their hand up on field trips. The more I learn about the world around me, the richer my experience within it, and the better my ability to thrive.
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Today I work in business development at a brilliant custom software development consulting firm. That means I get to interact with humans from across a wide variety of backgrounds and expertise. This alone does wonders in terms of feeding my curiosity. Once I felt solid in my immediate professional needs in the business sense, it was only a matter of time before I looked under the hood at what our engineers actually do to create all these brilliant things.
Even if I didn't work in tech, I would be glad to have completed that course in Python. As a curious person, this kind of thing is DEEPLY satisfying.
Communication is crucial to my role doing business development. I need to build relationships, listen to the needs and experiences of a wide variety of people, and act as a first-line translator between nerds and human beings. Now, I am already fluent in general nerd, with my science degree and nerdy past (and present, see pittsburgh.nerdnite.com).
It isn't like I can speak about software development on the level of the engineers that I regularly encounter. It's unlikely that I'll be able to offer brilliant programming advice to the professional software developers I interact with, either internally or externally. I do think I can speak the language a little better, though, and I also have demonstrated my interest in learning, which goes a long way.
Not only is learning Python good for sating my curiosity and broadening my communication skills, but it is also laying a foundation for future growth. There's a myriad of languages and frameworks in the software space. I didn't select Python by rolling a software development language/framework die (which would be a d50 at minimum, but perhaps as high as a d9,000). I asked around, and Python is the language most recommended by engineers as a good jumping-off point for developing software. So many of the core concepts at the heart of Python programming exist to a certain extent in other popular languages, and I feel considerably more comfortable dipping my toes in the pools of C# or React, etc.
If you are considering learning a programming language, from this total beginner's perspective, I encourage you to do it. If you need help picking where to start, please talk to somebody smarter than me about it, but I give my seal of approval to Python. Happy exploring!