in reply to How I spend my day meditating on perl is this the same with you?
When I first started to learn programming, the Internet was ARPANET / MILNET, and the digital computer would not become “personal” for another seven years. (It would not become “wired” for another twenty years beyond that.)
My “very first program: was 7 lines long, took me 6 months to write, and had a bug in it. But ... thirty years and nearly a million source-code lines later, I haven’t stopped doing it, or sincerely enjoying it. I continue to be fascinated with the prospect of making a digital computing-machine do useful things.
The key realization that you must make is that: “there are really only two parties here ... you, and a microprocessor that is much smaller than your thumbnail which knows nothing at all.” Pick your language, pick your application, pick your poison ... the fundamental rules of this game have not changed in fifty-plus years. It’s become a whole lot more well-known, even to the point of becoming “trendy,” even “glam,” and computing-resources have moved from being precious to being abundant, from being “locked in a glass-walled room” to “sharing the bathroom with you,” but the task of the digital-computer programmer has not changed!
If I told you that “all you need to do is to ‘learn how to write code,’” then I would be lying to you: I’d be saying to you, in effect, that the only thing you need to do in order to become a Master Carpenter is to buy a hammer and a great-big bag of nails. I would be indulging in a deceit that is “technically true, yet totally false.” Perl, like any and every other programming-language, is a tool, and “mastery of a Tool” is merely the Beginning. It is not the End.
The journey that you are embarking upon is a Trade. If it captivates you enough to endlessly fascinate you, then it can become a Career that you consider yourself very privileged to have. But if not ...