I have realized that over the past two to three years, I've been hopping from one programming language to another, one technology to another. More recently, I've been doing Python development and web development at the same time. This year, I plan to focus 😐. I chose product development, as Lee put it. Without focus, progress is spread across many different areas of interest.

Becoming a Master of One

Think about how pianists focus on learning the piano. It takes tons of practice to become a master. Check this out. It always fascinates me how they know where to place their fingers for which key.

Learning to type on a keyboard without looking required a lot of focused practice. I practiced. A lot. For a long time, it was the only thing I was doing on the laptop. It really looked—and sounded—super cool when you were dancing across the keys. It took a lot of focus to get my accuracy up and then my speed after a while. Because I've spent time focusing on learning to type, I do it really well and without much effort.

Problems I've Overcome

One big problem I've had is not feeling good enough. Truly, I wasn't . In 2023, I got the chance to interview with Bloomberg for a software engineering intern role. I was not ready—neither good enough.

The curious exploration of the programming world that most programming newbies have is totally valid. It's quite like our education system. Up till junior high, we take a lot of random courses. From senior high, we start to focus on a career path and narrow it down further in university. The master's and PhD levels are both higher levels of focus.

The Problem with Spreading Too Thin

The thing with learning how to code in my corner of the world is that we like to take every opportunity we get. That often means becoming a jack of all trades and master of none. That quote does go on to say that jack is often better off—but is he, really?

Think employability. Are you well-versed in any one of these trades, Jack? I've learned that companies don't hire you on the basis of how many programming languages you're fluent in—something I subconsciously held as true. Now, of course, I am not basing my argument on whether or not a company would find you employable. You should be fluent enough in a language to actually produce business value to a company or client or build something.

It will be good to remember that programming languages were created to facilitate the building of products. Product was always the center of programming (just as the user is at the center of the product). It will be beneficial to focus on that.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Prince and Samuel for reading early drafts, providing insights, and feedback.

No artificial intelligence was used to generate content for this essay.