Why I don’t like hard work.

“Programming is hard work… and takes dedication – you can’t possibly learn a programming language in 21 days apart from it’s superficial features – learning a language well takes years, not days – learning a language is the same as learning a way of thinking. Such books are just a sign of today’s lazy, get-it-right-away society with it’s complete lack of commitment”

blah…blah…blah blah… bllaaahhh.

All of this may well be true, but somehow I don’t really think that it’s worth saying – other than perhaps as a warning in for people who might otherwise be disparaged.

Learning to do anything requires you to learn to do it – this takes time – this is why you do work. So to say learning to program takes work strikes me as rather like saying “learning to program requires one to learn to program”. Therefore giving the advice “work hard” to people who are trying to learn things is no use whatsoever because PEOPLE ALREADY KNOW HOW TO WORK HARD.

The whole activity seems like an exercise in people bragging about their effort and achievement, and trying to feel a sense of achievement and superiority for what they have done – not that there’s that much wrong with this of course, only it doesn’t help anyone learn anything.

Hard work does not do things – doing the actions necessary to do things lets you do things. Doing any activity is about technique – not about effort. Telling people who are already working very hard that they need to work harder is really quite a damaging thing to do because:

• Hours spent working does not equate to progress.
• Unhappiness has very damaging effects of productivity.
• Working too hard tends to distract one from the undertaking.
• Life is about having fun.
• Having fun makes learning things a great deal easier.
• Working too hard makes one focus on the wrong things.
• There are some things that you simply aren’t meant to learn the first time round – because you can only understand them after you have learn something else.

So yes. Learning to program probably entails hard work… but telling people to work hard isn’t the same as telling them how to program (unless perhaps you are telling them how to work hard).