What do you know about programming?

No matter how much experience you have, the answer is always ‘relatively’ nothing.. relatively to all the information out there, and relatively to all the new frameworks and technologies that are constantly appearing..

There’s front-end, back-end, network programming, embedded systems, OS programming, and much more, and each one has its own branches.

but the answer to how much you don’t know is useless, and it can even be depressing and frustrating if you are a bit insecure about your skills.

if you are stuck in this mindset, these are some notes you should consider:

  • It is a fact that no matter what you learn, there’s still so much more to know, but still, your reference should always be how much you learned compared to last month for example, you had no experience in NodeJS, and now you know how to build a basic website using NodeJS and ExpressJS, well that’s some good progress! I mean who cares if you have no idea what’s Django is! that’s irrelevant for now.

  • You only need to know/master a specific field to be productive and be able to earn money, everything else is a plus, after all, it is about providing value.

  • What you really need to know, is how to find what you don’t know in the fastest way possible in order to solve your programming problems, that’s a crucial skill, because you will shift your thinking from being “someone who doesn’t know” to “someone who is 5 minutes away from knowing and understanding any topic”.

That being said, I still highly encourage you to explore topics that are related to programming even if they aren’t related directly to your main job description, but do that not because you are anxious that you don’t know, but because you are curious to know more.. and there’s huge difference between the two mindsets.