Introduction - About Myself
Hello Guys, I'm Aamir Zaidi and this is my journey explaining how I became who I am today. I've been working in this development industry for almost 4 years now. I've worked with pretty much all kinds of people and businesses. I even had a startup of my own with a couple of my friends.
Starting Up
After completing my 9th grade in school, I had to make a choice about my career path ahead in the future. I chose commerce at that point as my career path since science seemed kinda tough to me, not gonna lie. But with that said, I also wanted to learn accounts and economics because of some personal reasons which I don't want to talk about here. I got commerce with IP (Information Practices), which is basically related to tech and programming and all. After a couple of weeks and months, I was really intrigued by what I had learned so far in computer programming and tech in general. I wanted to keep going and never stop after that point.
Self Learning & Interest
After some time, since as we all know, everything in school only teaches us the basics and core of it. For me, I wanted to explore outside of what a school teacher can ever teach me. I went on looking for new things on YouTube and other places. Sure enough, I was skilled enough in internet searching capability back then that I was able to find some really good resources for learning new programming languages. I was really into Java, Python, and Ruby back in the day when I initially started learning, since Java was the first language I ever learned in school.
Mistakes
I was so much into programming and learning new languages to make new projects that I forgot the importance of having a social life outside of programming and computer-related things in general. I forgot that I would never be able to master one thing good enough to call myself a developer. One day this thought came to mind: I know so many languages, but is it any good? Maybe not as much as I thought it'd be, but certainly, it wasn't completely useless. The problem with knowing so many languages was, first of all, it was close to impossible for me to keep my knowledge up-to-date with all the languages, and second, I knew so many languages but didn't know any of them well enough to call myself a developer. I was a jack of all trades but master of none. I knew a lot of things but didn't do any of them well enough.
Ironic Moments
Back when I was learning programming, I was really struggling to figure out things like WordPress, JS frameworks like React, Angular, and all. I was one of those people who always used to think, when everything can be done with JS, why do we need React, Angular, Vue, and all that? I hated CMSs too, only for that reason, because I just couldn't wrap my head around these things. I used to stay really frustrated and keep trying.
Now here's the funny thing: I actually built my first-ever portfolio in WordPress itself, lol. Even though I hated it, I still built it in WordPress. Then my 2nd or 3rd portfolio was actually built using Angular, and now this portfolio is built using Next.js (React). Basically, I ended up using all the things I hated for my own needs and wants. It goes to show, it doesn't matter how much we run from things, we will encounter them later on at some point in our lives.
Till Now
After all that happened, I just kept on going with my journey, and still, whenever I see something that piques my interest, I make sure I give it a try. If it frustrates me enough, I end up learning that thing always.
My Advice For New Learners
- Don't try to learn everything.
- Don't try to memorize programming languages and try to understand the concepts and basics.
- Don't run from hard work, and just keep going until you eventually make it.
- Don't be shy about asking questions, even when it feels like it's very basic.
- Don't be scared of judgments from people who aren't feeding you or your family.
- Do what feels right to you, and not to others.
