the most important skill that you need to have

to become a programmer and it's probably

not what you think it is.

Let's discuss.

(lively music)

Hello, welcome back.

My name is Tim Buchalka, well yes,

this is the programming tip of the day

and today's video is all about

what is the most important skill

that you need to get to obtain to become a programmer?

Now, you might be thinking that okay,

I need to learn Java, I need to learn Kotlin or C++.

No, it's not the programming language.

It's not the computer, if you need to have the latest,

i7 CPU processor with 64 gigs of RAM,

no, it's nothing to do with the hardware.

And it's not to do with working for particular places,

it's not even to do with technology,

it's all about a very important concept, persistence.

Yes, believe it or not, persistence

is gonna be your number one most important skill

that not only you need to master

but you need to show persistence to succeed as a programme.

Now, what do I say then?

Well, the reality is, when you're starting up

learning programming, well, you're learning any skill

but particularly programming, you are gonna get frustrated

and you're going to hit the wall on many occasions

and get (mumbles) whether you don't wanna go on

or you can't figure out a solution, you're frustrated,

you wanna give up, and your brain's probably screaming

that your team give up, I've had enough,

let me do something else.

You need to persist through that.

The reality is when you're learning a new skill

and again, as I mentioned, programming,

it's even more doubly so, perhaps triply so,

it's going to get hard at times

and you need to be able to persevere and push through that.

Now, I've got a blog post talking more about this

and there's a link to that blog post

in the resources section below this video

so check that out if you wanna know more about that.

But basically, in that blog post, I outlined an example

of a video game that I played.

So I'm a bit of a computer gamer

but at my age, I haven't exactly got the world's

fastest reflexes so I get sort of shot to pieces

by the younger people out there.

But when I first started this particular game,

I found that I sucked at it, for want of a better word.

I couldn't figure out what the controls were,

what to shoot or to block attack or whatever it was,

I found that I couldn't find the key,

I couldn't remember what the key was

and was dying all the time.

But what happened, I persisted at the game.

So I got better at it, and that's the reality.

When you persist at something, you can get better at it.

So I started to understand the key (mumbles),

this was the next (mumbles) one that has playing.

So understood the various buttons and what they did,

I understood how to dodge attacks,

I could start playing better.

And I was getting further and further into the game

because of persistence.

And the same is going to be hold true to you,

definitely hold true to you as a programmer.

I can absolutely almost guarantee this,

that if you stick to it, things will become easier.

So if you're programming now,

and perhaps you've done a bit of programming

and you've hit a wall or you've got to the stage

where you could see, if you're watching a tutorial,

it might be one of my videos or any other video out there

and you understand the concepts but you can't apply that

into writing your own programmes,

realise that that is of natural part of programming.

Persist that, keep it coming, immersing yourself

into programming code and over time,

you'll get better at this and things will make more sense

and that you'll understand the process more.

So I can't stress this enough, persist at it,

don't give up.

Just refuse to give up.

Just go, put it out there and say,

"I am not going to give up until I master

this particular thing."

Whatever it is that you're trying to master.

Programming language, particular technique

or whatever it is.

So if you do that and you're going to that mindset

and you keep at it, you will ultimately succeed

and be able to become a programmer.

Alrighty, so I hope that helped,

if you've got any questions, feel free to leave a comment

and I'll get back to you.

If you're ready to look at the next tip,

click on up here and you can check that out.

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Hit the subscribe button on the link up here

and I'll see you soon.