Is programming for me?

6 weeks to learn the basics, no 6 months won't even be enough.

I am in the late thirties and also think about doing some training, normal studies would be 4 year, i am looking at something that takes 18 months (java, html, c++) but would cost 4000 euro not even counting exams.
And you need exams, pass them and have some papers to show, and those are usually 200 euro, then you need to practice practice practice and then a stroke of luck someone will even give you a chance.

Since I'm a Developer, I'll chip in. 6 weeks to learn the basics is doable, but you would need to spend each day of those 6 weeks coding, and at least 2-3 hours (preferably more). Software Development has a lot of branches, and in most of them you don't need any creativity, well, depending of the context.

Software Development is more like a puzzle, than anything else. To solve that puzzle, you'll have to think outside of the box. Some puzzles are easy, some are super hard and require tons of work to make them complete (and work). I always say that a developer has to love solving problems, because in the end, it's just that, but using code as your tool.

Yes, we use Google a lot, but the difference between you and me is, I know 99% of the time what I'm searching for, and that takes years of experience and knowledge about a particular subject to actually become decent at it.

I would rather recommend that you search for other roles in IT, like Project Managment, or Marketing, or even financial. Look into Salesforce, specifically the Marketing Cloud, Service Cloud or Sales Cloud. It would be easier for you to become a Salesforce.com Administrator (which you can learn for free via Trailhead, and just pay for the exam) than to learn programming from scratch.

Let me know if you have more questions.

Cheers

I don't work in programming, but I do some programming from time to time, connected with the stuff I do.
From a certain point of view, programming is "easy": once you understand how a pc and a language "reason", most of the languages are pretty similar, thus you can use the same mindset for different programming languages. So, if you have a logical way of thinking, the basic (very very basic) of programming shouldn't be out of reach, even in a short time.
On the other hand, programming is "hard": in order to be a specialist for one language, you need to know its lexicon and its specialized functions. And this requires a long time of use of that language. Of course most of them can be found on the web with explanations, but I don't think you could tell you're an expert programmer and then google every function :P

So, I would say:
3) Everyone could code!
2) Too short time to give a real boost to your CV with programming skills, I fear.
1) Not sure, but I think that usual coding doesn't require so so much creativity... And I believing you're better than you say! :P

This is coming from someone who's not in the industry but has a good deal of friends (both irl and online) who are and who have given me advice and what not when I was considering learning it.

So from what I've been told by people in the field it would take much longer to learn (after about half a year you could know enough to get some entry-level job), so definitely don't quit your job for it. If you want to get into it your best option would be to learn in your free time, which yes would require a lot of sacrifice but it could be worth it in the long run. It's not for everyone though, some people find it too complicated and stressful. I know few people who were good at it but have eventually quit because of it was too stressful and have found other jobs, two of them even picked manual labor jobs over it.

6 weeks is nothing. Programming requires a lot of practice, knowing the theory is just the beginning. You only become decent at programming by doing a lot of projects (start small, and slowly increase the complexity). I doubt you'll find any job without some proper diploma or some previous projects to show.

Ultimately if it's all about googling and forums then surely knowing the most basic of stuff to know what to google would suffice?

Google only works when you already know what you're doing, for searching specific stuff. And the more you google, the slower you're at the job.

First of all, let me quickly outline where I'm coming from. I'm a software developer and software project manager working for a small FinTech consultancy (read: software development firm making financial software) in Hamburg, DE. I've studied both business informatics and computer science and am the same age as you.
I reckon you are pretty much spot on with most of your concerns. That said, there is one misconception I'd like to correct first of all: Software development is not the same as programming.
Software development is a complex process involving quite a few fields which (depending on the type of project and firm) can involve both specialists in a specific field and generalists/interdisciplinarians capable of working in several fields at once. Think of it like the construction of a large building - there's architects, construction workers, plumbers, lorry drivers, carpenters etc. Quite a few of the people involved have nothing to do with programming at all.

Learning how to program in a specific language and getting a job with (just) that will make you a specialist, a lot like a construction worker. Your foreman will give you a very specific task, make sure that you are doing it well and that's pretty much it. So it's an option - but with a few drawbacks I reckon.
Firstly, you will be expected to be (or at the very least quickly become) very good at the one thing you are doing. As Lugum said, it is likely that your basic programming skills are not going to be sufficient to be considered for a job solely based on that skill.
Secondly, you may end up being confined to this specialization. That can interfere with your ability to get jobs elsewhere or move with the times when new technologies emerge. That said, that's largely up to your ability and willingness to keep learning new things.
Thirdly, it would mean that whatever skills you have picked up thus far may not be of much use.

Another option, one which I would personally recommend, is to try and benefit from the experience which you already have. You said that (like me) you are working in the financial sector, so you undoubtedly have experience with some of the processes there and could figure out how things work much faster than someone who has just specialized in a programming language. To firms like ours, that is a valuable combination - one problem which software developers often have to deal with is their own over-specialization. In most projects, there is a need for people with domain-specific skill sets and knowledge (in our case, the 'domain' would be financial services) which can nevertheless communicate effectively with the development team. Those intermediaries go by different job titles, but often they are officially IT consultants. Their job is to help both sides, customers and developers, to understand each other (requirements, options, efforts involved etc.).
Note, however, that programming skills are not the most important skill in this case. An understanding on how the entire architecture fits together is normally much more important. I would therefore recommend learning about software architecture at least as much as programming.

Where programming itself is concerned, I understand the feeling of being overwhelmed by it all. For most and especially the best of us, that doesn't really go away; there's always going to be things which are going to stay positively arcane to you, regardless of how much you learn. It's important not to be discouraged by that and set yourself goals which are achievable - other Devs can often help you with that.
Inspiration can be helpful, but frankly much of the work we do is by the numbers. It's more a question of picking up more and more skills like assembling a tool set - and until you have a hammer, there's typically someone who can lend you theirs.
I would say it's most important to cultivate a mindset in which you always try to learn and understand new things. Combine that with a little bit of professional pride which keeps you from cutting too many corners and you have what it takes in my book!

Since I don't really know what your past jobs entailed and where your specific strengths and weaknesses lie, that's about as much as I can say about it. If you'd like to talk about it further, give me a shout, I'd be happy to help.

P.S.: Just one more note about IT consultants: A lot of firms, especially the more predatory types, use the term for software developers (i.e. specialists) which they officially employ but hire out to other firms (for a hefty sum,of course). That's something I'd generally avoid - the pay is typically worse and the job can be more stressful and less stable than elsewhere. Nonetheless, it might be worth doing for a time if the consultancy firm pays for your training ;)

Just a small tip, look for job offers near you. Look at which programming language they use and try to start from there.

Depending on your background, learning basic programming in 6 weeks is absolutely doable. You need to like it though. Like argamore before me said, it's about solving puzzles, or fixing problems (that you create yourself). You might need creativity, or you might not, depending on what you want to do.

Also "programming" is very broad. What do you want to learn? What do you want to do with what you learn? Develop phone apps to sell in the apple store? Fix code from someone else for a boss that just sends you tickets to solve? Make and sell software for your local pharmacy? All of those things require different training and different programming languages, and might require longer time to learn the absolute basics.

Do you have a job in sight that you want to apply in your area? That might help you decide.

My advice? Do some research first, decide what your aim is and then come back with a narrower question, I think we could help you much better then.

I did a one-year postgraduate course in software development without any previous experience. I do have a Master's in an unrelated field. It started with a 4-week intensive course to learn the basics of Java before the real coursework began. (Monday - Friday 9-5 most days lol). They teach that because it's a good foundation language to learn how code is structured. After that, it wasn't that difficult to pick up and start learning other languages. Now mine was a very intense 11-month course with barely any time for anything else but coursework, even weekends were taken up by that. Some people in my class were as old as 50+, so you're never too old to pick up something new. I did mine to broaden my skillset since I'm a graphic designer, rather than move into something completely different.

If you have the get-up and go to actually do the work, you can do it. If you were to go down that route, I would recommend taking up something like Java, so that you can learn object orientated programming.

BUT... You sound a bit like my brother. He was working in a tech job where he was given several job titles, worked up to 10 hours a day, ended up hating his job and suffering from stress because he didn't have any time to himself at all. So working in tech is the same if you're in the wrong company/position. He got a job in a financial services company in their tech sector and is doing so much better. He has normal hours, great healthcare package and all the rest. Sometimes you just need a change of scenery. =) Don't underestimate yourself. The experience you have now is probably more than adequate to get a better position with better pay/hours elsewhere without the need to drop out of the workforce.

I'm a developer (full-stack) so here are some thoughts. Bear in mind that these mostly relate to what I deal with daily and might not apply to all programming jobs. I work for a small company which offers software products to other companies as services so what I do is in-house development. I communicate daily directly with our customers.

• To get hired you will most likely need a degree and/or you need to be able to demonstrade sufficient skills through projects you have done earlier, these usually can be your own hobby projects.
• You don't have to know everything, nobody does, but you need to be able to apply what you know and learn. Some of this only comes with experience, like not having to even think about the basics while working and recognizining what to look for etc.
• Expect a lot of problem solving and debugging. You need to understand how the code should work and why it does what it does. Often the code you are problem solving is not your own. Not everyone knows how to effectively hunt down the causes of problems in my experience, making this a valuable skill.
• Getting exact specs is a nice idea. 95% of the time it doesn't happen and you need to figure out what the specs really mean and how things could be done to achieve what is wanted. Specs can also be incomplete/bad/impractical/stupid/impossible and you need to be able to figure that out and suggest corrections or even different approaches for achieving the wanted end result. Doing exactly as the specs say usually results in a unsatisfactory end result in some way.
• Some creativity/out of the box thinking is required in my opinion, as can be determined from above.
• However, in a junior/starting position you will likely get better/easier specs from more experienced colleagues, things tend to escale with the years on the job.
• You need to be able to work within established parameters of the work environment. Ie. play by the agreed upon rules how certain things should be done, what the processes are etc. In the consultant field this is something one needs to be able to quckly adapt to. Sure, you can rebel against established ways of doing things, but you need to do it with reasonable suggestions on how to do things in a better way.

Personally I love problem solving and I have a hightened sense for order. These traits seem to work for me quite well, but there are all kinds of programmers so don't be discouraged if you're not the same.

If you really want to do it I would start with hobby projects on your own time to see if this something you want to pursue further,

I'd look for another job first and focus on using my spare time to learn coding. If you feel that it's the way to go, you already have a basic understanding. Training 6 weeks and expecting to find a job is very optimistic and most likely won't work out.

Are you by any chance good at statistics? If you do, then you might try studying to be a data analyst. You may use some tools or programming languages to summarize data, but those are mostly short pieces of script which doesn't require more than basic programming skills.

You would need more than just basic programming skills to work as a software developer, though. You would need to learn the software development process and how to write code which are maintainable, which are stuffs that informally trained programmers usually lacks in.

I'm a sysadmin but during college I took lots of programming courses, and I generally didn't like them. I wasn't bad at programming, I just didn't enjoy it. Now I do a lot of scripting (shell and batch scripts) which I actually do enjoy, and I think for me it may just be a case of motivation. I'm not writing scripts because someone tells me to, but rather to automate some task to make my job easier. I might actually enjoy programming if it was to solve a problem I was facing, rather than the tedious programs I had to make in school. My recommendation to you would be to try to program something that would help you, perhaps with your current job managing customer info. Once complete, try programming something that you have no interest in, and see how the experiences compare. The second type of task is what you will probably be doing every day at a programming job, so if you don't enjoy it now you probably won't later.

I started my career in programming, then moved to DevOps, then Information Security. There's lots of IT related jobs that might be of interest to you. Programming and/or Software Development are a just a small piece. Many of the different domains have highly marketable skills that can put you into a $15-25/hr job in the US with just a couple of months of study. I imagine there's a similar demand in the UK.

Can you give a better description of what you do day to day? A link to a similar job posting (or better, your resume) would also be really helpful to understand your skill set and what might be a more natural fit for you. Do you have any income requirements or goals? Understanding what level of income you're needing to make will better guide recommendations.

I used to have a link to a nifty graphic that kinda laid out the various IT & IT adjacent fields in a nice graphic & descriptions. I don't seem to have that bookmark on hand anymore. Here's something similar to it that does a decent enough job of getting some common job titles grouped together: https://imgur.com/a/Uf6Y4io

The biggest limiter is your 6 weeks of time to find a job. My recommendation is to find /any/ job that will cover your rent and food asap. In IT, I've usually heard that 3 months is the minimum time you should have for finding the right job. At the 6-week mark, you expand to somewhat less desirable jobs. At the 30days point, you start applying & taking any part time work you can get while you continue looking for a job. There are several "incubaters" or "bootcamps" in the US that provide you 4-12 weeks of intensive schooling and the better ones usually assist with job placement at the end. Some of these are really great. Some are still working out their lessons and/or business connections. Some are basically the loan sharks of the college world. I'm sure there are quality ones in the UK, I just don't know what they are off hand.

Here's a couple of UK based ones to give an idea of what to look for:

• https://www.thedataincubator.com/
• https://northcoders.com/developer-pathway

Are you a full citizen? If not, that potentially complicates issues.

Forgive me for the rambling post. >-<

Is programming for me?

yes. start now

View attached image.

Interesting post and replies. Thanks for sharing, everyone :)

I don't have any advice about programming, but just a note about your post - if your commute is by train maybe you can spend a little of that trying online courses to see if programming is for you.

I think you got very good answers but I'd also like to put my point of view with my personal experience.

Different people have different talents, regardless of how noticeable they can come. My mother always had good hand with plants, but in my case I can hardly keep anything alive. I am good with languages, and then I know many people who struggle with it. I know smart people who can't find their way with a computer (as users), while others not specially bright people have no trouble other than practice.

The thing with programming is that you can learn the basics in a relatively short time, given than you choose some good language to learn the do's and don'ts of programming. And then with that you can discover if programming is for you.

A totally different thing is if you can make a living with programming. 6 weeks is not enough to learn something enough to find a decent job. My advice is that you use that time to find a good new job, and then in your spare time (doesn't need to be a lot of time as long as it's constant, like 1-2 hours, 5-6 days a week) you train yourself in programming until you decide if you want to have it as career, hobby, or 'something you tried but left behind' (just as my guitar - but I am very proud I tried).

You can find literally thousands on advices on how to learn programming, but for me this is what makes a programmer a decent programmer:

• Flexibility - knowing one language is limiting. Good programmers can learn new languages quickly, and with some practice become quickly proficient with them. Not only languages, but libraries, methods, paradigms and arcane magic stuff. It's like being a doctor, you keep learning new medicine all the time.
• Methodic - in the 70's programming was more like an art, now it's engineering. There are methods to follow, patterns, good practices, etc. While they are not exactly programming, they are important. There are uncountable resources to learn that stuff, many free.
• Constancy - start things, end things. As simple as that.
• Think out of the box - programming things often means facing how to efficiently solve complex problems with simple solutions. This kind of stuff, some call it that way (someone in this thread already did) others lateral thinking, others inspiration (but it's more expiration, as in sweating). It's related to creativity, but you don't need to really be creative if working for others.

Finally, you can be good at one thing, but that doesn't mean you like it. They are two different things. If you're good at it but don't like it, search for any of the zillion related IT jobs that you might prefer. If you're not good at it, but like it, keep it as a hobby.

To add my personal experience - my first contact with programming was as a teen with basic (on my cousin's MSX), and Logo & Pascal (in high school). Pascal is still my favourite language, and one I recommend for learning (Lazarus with FPC is fully free); but for practical purposes, follow the trends. Nowadays I don't program much, because I fail at one thing: constancy.

One final caveat: programmers are the new IT slaves. If you have a degree and can find a good position, you might have a nice experience with not too much stress or working hours. Otherwise, you can expect lots of working hours for a small wage. I've seen too much of that.

You can easily test your adaptability skills: pick a real world task as a goal, set a realistic deadline, use any available tools at hand and see if you can make it despite knowing little to nothing about it.

There is a bunch of excellent, thorough answers here.
If you don't mind i'm gonna give you a funny one, just for laughs.

You are considering to start making horseshoes all by yourself, without having the ability to positively identify a horse among a Noah's Ark amount of animals. On top of that, you think it's a good idea to depend on other horses to get advice on how to forge a horseshoe.

Don't risk with your life, just get a job you can own, and then, start programming as a hobby. My 2 cents 😉

Is programming for you?
If you're not a coal miner, probably not.

Joking aside, there are at least 3 kind of different 'coding':

1) High level languages: learning javascript and html for making web pages, or a scripting language like python for software where performance is not important. It will require a lot of reading and time anyway but it is the easier path.

2) Graphic programming with shading language (like GLSL or HLSL) used for creating programs running on GPU for graphic and gaming. They're a C-like mid level languages, you need to study graphic programming to understand what you're doing, and loving linear algebra.

3) System level languages like C/C++: mastering this kind of programming will require a lot of effort alone (and no one has ever mastered C++ anyway, prepare for std::nonsense my boy), plus understanding modern x86-64 architecture or at least using the compilers right, will require many more reading and dedication. Not exactly easy to start with.

My advice is to start with a more high level language.

I am not a programmer myself but I work in the industry and I think that 6 weeks is definitely not enough time to learn it on any level that would allow you to capitalize on it.

On the bright side, as some other people already mentioned, IT as an industry, allows for a fairly quick movement up the ladder so I would definitely recommend you to start somewhere lower and work your way up if you are truly interested in this field. Project management or marketing is cool but if without any experience it might be tough to land those. There is nothing wrong with starting with entry level jobs like customer support or QA (though the pay usually sucks) and working your way up. If you get a position like that you can learn from people you work with (if you are not a complete butthead, there will always be someone willing to help) and focus on skills that your company actually requires.

I have personally started as customer support and in 3 years made it to a video production position in a game dev. studio, and during my 4 years here I have seen plenty of people from CS and QA make it to different positions (marketing, programming, game design, analytics, art, whatever you want if you have what it takes). Good luck!

My perspective:

Where you work matters a lot. You might be expected to work a lot of hours or do crunch time (for example game dev is notorious for that) or you might find a job with good hours and somewhat relaxed. Stability isn't great, either. Companies restructure and go under quite a bit in the tech industry.

For learning to program, I'd personally feel that 6 weeks is too tight. What I'd recommend is finding a job that could cover your expenses but is easier on the hours than the current one (or doesn't have the commute) and then use the spare time you gain to do your studies. If you can commute by public transport (one where you can sit), I've done quite a bit of personal work that way.

There are a lot of things you can do with programming, and everyone has their own things they like and dislike. I think that starting with a direction is more important than thinking what tools or language to learn. It's hard to really imagine the kinds of work you could do, but if you have anything you find interesting, from creating websites to games or apps or whatever, choose that and learn the tools for it, rather than learning generic tools and then hoping to find a job with them. (Though granted if jobs in your area focus on a specific technology, and they sound like jobs you might reasonably like to do, then that's a fine direction to go.)