Real Python - You Got the (Python) Power

Hey there,

So this comment I got struck a cord with me—

Subscriber George writes:

The goal of the programming is to solve real-world problems:

You must understand how to translate a real-world problem in the physical world into a program that solves that problem.

That's the #1 goal of software engineering.

You know, when I first got into programming, I was obsessed with "pure" theoretical experimentation.

Punching little toy programs written in BASIC into my grubby Commodore 64 was the best...

I'd finally convinced my parents to buy this machine from classified ad in a local newspaper.

Sure, I'd forfeited my chances to get that sweet SNES gaming console, but this ugly little duckling of a "home computer" was way better anyhow...

Hours were spent typing out simple test programs from old "introduction to home computing" books I found at the library:

10 PRINT "HELLO, WORLD"
20 GOTO 10

Seeing those few lines of code run on a real machine made me jump with glee—

It fascinated me to see this flow of execution acted out in glorious 320x200 pixels resolution on the TV screen...

"Write some text to the screen!"

"Go to line 10 and do it again...and again...and again" — 

Wow! ;-)

And this went on for a long time. For the first couple of months all I did was play with code snippets that didn't serve a real purpose.

It must've been almost a year before I did anything "useful" with my fledgling programming skills...

I think my first program that solved a "real-world problem" was just a bunch of variables and math operators to help my dad calculate the area of a floor plan.

My dad was happy that this magical beige box hooked up to our family TV saved him a few minutes of punching the same numbers over and over again into a calculator...

But, to my surprise, writing this "useful" program wasn't satisfying at all—

By then I'd understood basic looping constructs, and just adding up a bunch of numbers and printing them out was...boring!

Looking back, it's kind of funny and ironic:

I enjoyed my theoretical "cutting edge" programming exercises so much that I didn't see the value in the skills I already possessed.

And this wasn't the last time I felt that way. I think it's a common affliction for us programmers:

"Sure, I could build this app but I need to learn OOP first."

"Yeah, but I don't want to start this project until I've mastered the new features in Python 3."

And so on.

This brings me back to George's comment: The goal of the programming is to solve real-world problems.

It's so true.

Don't get me wrong—there's great value in theoretical experimentation, "scientific" pursuits, and learning new things just for the fun of it.

But sometimes it's a good idea to ask yourself: 

"What problems can I solve right now with the skills I already have?"

Happy Pythoning!

— Dan Bader