5 Reasons Why Great Writing Skills Helps When Learning To Code
Many people entering the world of coding and programming become excited about learning Python and becoming part of an elite group of techies and coders. It’s something worth getting excited about.
However, what many people do not know until they enter the field is that coding is a talent, not just a skill you pick up in school. Coding and programming languages like Python require several merged skillsets to create a great programmer.
For that reason, being a great writer helps when learning to code. Freelance writing and writing programming language are very similar fields because they both have similar objectives. In both, a specific language is used to create a stream of consciousness that is easily understood by the outside world.
If you consider yourself a great writer and wonder if coding would be a natural step, your instincts are on point. It could be the most natural change towards an exciting and rewarding career.
Learn more about why being a great writer will help you when thinking about learning to code.
Develops Logic and Reason
In both writing and coding, you are developing language to tell a story. You might even be telling the same story. In English, you could write a sonnet about a love affair from the Medieval Era. In code, you might be tasked with the same thing.
To get to The End, you need to have some logic and reason on how to create the beginning and the middle first. To accomplish that, you need both logic and reason on your side to plot it out, before you can bring in the creativity and make your sonnet interesting to the layperson.
This is true no matter what you are writing or coding. In both fields, you need to have a logical skillset that indicates how to write your idea in a way that can be translated by multiple parties after you write it.
Both freelance writing and coding are fields where communication skills are enhanced to serve the greater good, and not everybody can do that.
If you are a writer that wants to be a programmer, you already understand the need for this logical flow of beginning, middle, and end. You will just use different tools to get there. You’ll be ahead of some competition.
Both Fields are Research Intensive
Many beginner programmers do not know that coding is a field where writing is involved. Many beginner writers do not know that writing is a field where research is involved. In both fields, writing is the end game. Research is the bulk of your work.
A coder will spend hours analyzing flow charts and reason and inputs and output combinations. They will study what the people need all day, and spend half an hour to two hours actually writing it for them.
Writers do the same thing. You’ll see any Pulitzer Prize winner with stacks of books of notes and a 500-word article that got them the prize. If you are a writer going into the field of tech, your gift of research skills and how you practice them daily will go a long way.
Freely Express Yourself
In both the fields of writing and coding, you have a desired outcome that you are working towards. Both fields require some creativity to weave into the nuances of logical syntax in order to develop that expression. The best coders are talented thinkers that search outside the box for that syntax that will develop a beautiful expression. The best writers are too.
In both fields, the way that you think to reach this end game of free expression is similar. Where the fields differ is the language used that is written.
So, for example, in writing, you are using words and adjectives to make fancy sentences. In coding, you are using data, numbers, and variables. If you can write as a career, you’ve written on a number of topics, and understand that from one project to another your data and variables are just going to change. In other words, good writers enjoy the freedom of expression and thought that enables them to write about anything. Great writers can use that to write code.
Both Fields Have Very Similar Goals
Again, both the field of writing and coding are after an outcome. You’re not going to find that in every career. They are both fields of production and development. They both have very similar objectives in mind.
The steps and objectives of both jobs are very similar:
Learn the context of the task
Learning the priority of the task
Test development patterns until you find the workflow you need
Understand your end-user, and what they need to see on the page
Take notes
Produce
Edit and revise as needed
If you are a great writer that wants to become a coder, you can use this list as a skeleton to begin your task at hand as well. Knowing how to write gives you a lead in becoming an excellent programmer in any language.
Style and Readability is the Win for Both
In both fields, the job is to create something the world can enjoy, in a way that they can understand. As a writer, you know that style and readability are important. As a student programmer, you will learn that on the first day.
The win for each field is translating complex bits of something and transforming that pile of bits into something almost anyone in the world can take a bite out of.
In this day and age, we are all digital. If you understand how to communicate with the layperson in your native tongue, you can easily learn how to do it with a programming language. You just have to want to try.
Launch Your Programming Career
Your programming career can be just a few clicks away. If you like to write and are familiar with serving audiences, you are already ahead of your competition. Enroll in programming classes today to see how to use your gifts a different way. You might be surprised at how familiar the task before you seems.