I live in Indonesia. A country where Bali is located. A developing country where most people see programming like magic. For them, developers look like a magician or a weird people.

Yes, as a developer we are a minority here.

I have many well-educated friends who want to learn to program. When they asked me to teach them how to code, all of them were giving up. They found programming is hard to learn. As I believe, programming concepts are not that hard to learn. The only reason why they found it difficult is because I can't explain them well.

Yes, I am a bad teacher.

I don't know how to teach them so they can be more passionate. What I said to them is that learning to program is a long journey. It needs months to grasp the basics and need years to really understand what we do in programming. At that point, they give up.

Sometimes I see some people said that programming is easy. Everybody can write code. At the same time, I see my developer's friend feel stress. Have no clue what to do to solve bugs they met. I see in their face how hard their life as a programmer is.

I also meet many college graduates majoring in IT who can't write code. They have learned how to program for more than 3 years, and they still don't know how to program. That is so ironic.

Is programming is that hard to learn?

I remember when I start learning to program seriously, more than a decade ago. At that time, I have worked for a company, an electrical company. I am not an IT staff, I am an electrical engineer and have no IT background.

At the time, I have an idea to create an app to help my work. I know It is possible to create such that app. But I also realized that I have to learn a lot, It will need a lot of time.

And yes, I need years to build that app. The good part is I can finish that app, launched, and now It is still used. That was my first success story as a developer. And that was also the hardest moment of my developer journey.

As I remember, the hardest thing to face as a developer is the moment when We have no clue what to do. We found a bug and we don't know what happens. We want to create a feature but don't know how to do it. I asked Google, but It gives more confusion than answers.

How do I solve that problem?

The key is by asking a good question. I found my mistake was asking the wrong questions. By asking a correct question on Google, voila, the answers are coming. Read them, choose the best one, copy, and paste. Problem solved.

Is it that easy?

Of course not. If things happen that easily, no developers will get stress. All you can see is developer's happy faces who think that they can do everything.

My teachers said to me, peoples question is better to figure people's knowledge than their answers. Asking a good question is more difficult than answer a question.

To ask a good question, we must grasp the basic concepts. At least we know the terms. If we don't know the terms, It will be difficult to ask to google. Even when we asked our friends it will be hard too.

The first key is to grasp the basics. You will need it when asking google, or anyone. You will find the answer faster when you know how to ask. Google knows almost everything. StackOverflow has almost every question you will ask. The fun fact is, I, for almost 12 years, never post a question in StackOverflow. I found my questions have been asked by others developers, and the answers are ready to pick.

And the second key, in my opinion, is the English language.

In Indonesia, where Bali exists (in case you forget), English is not widely used. I found my self hard to find partners to practice English. Sometimes I feel jealous of Indian developers where English is widely used in their country.

You may see many Indian Youtube channels talk about programming in English. Indonesian developers don't talk programming in English, especially in their tutorials talks. Some of them are very good at English. Some of them are talking in international events, in English of course. But, their audiences, Indonesian people, don't talk English.

Why English is so important for developers?

To ask Google, you need to ask in English. Yes, you can ask in Indonesian, but the answers are limited. If you ask in Indonesian, or in your local language, the answer you get is the answer to the problem faced by local developers. But when you asked in English, you will get the answer from developers around the world. From the origin of the technology. From the people who created technology you ask.

Even when you can't found your answer in Google, or StackOverflow, the documentations are ready to read. All you need to know are there. And yes, they are written in English. IT topics, escpecially programming, are topics where resources are availably free on the internet. No secrets in this field. All you want to know can be learned. The only barrier is your will and your English skill.

Conclusion

Yes, programming is hard to learn, but It will be easier if you know how to ask, in English.

Remember, programming is a skill, like any other skill, needs a lot of hours to master a skill. Some people said it needs 10.000 hours to master a skill, some others said it needs 30.000 hours. But don't worry, even though you didn't master the programming skill, yet, in the journey to be a master you can create great things.

Happy coding!