Should I take up programming and what should a beginner do?

Question

IT education

Hello.
Is there any reason to enter an IT university, if before that I had almost no connections with programming?
I am an adult vegetable, 20 years old, I want to change my unloved direction for something new. I don’t have much inclination for anything, I kicked male genitals at school, but I understand that my current education will not lead me anywhere - except to the minimum wage and life in poverty.
I would like to learn such a creative and profitable business as programming, but everyone says that it’s too late, I won’t be a worthy competitor, so I ask the experts - is there really no reason to take on IT at an older age, especially if there is no experience? Does the fate of at least a tester or a web developer shine on me? And what is better: to enter a university or to engage in self-study, to attend narrowly focused courses?
Is there any literature and tasks for beginners, by which you can understand whether it is yours or not?

As far as I know, such questions cause fierce aggression among programmers, so I'm ready for tomatoes.

Answer 1

I'll be honest with you. I do not know who you are, I do not know your abilities, but I can imagine your image, because I have seen enough people like you. He's pretty typical: I can't find myself, I don't know who I am, I have no interests or talents. I choose a profession not by vocation, but by salary and I hope that without doing shit I can achieve something. It would also be great not to think so much, but to do something creative. In general, you are a typical, completely ordinary and nothing special teenager.
And since we started honestly, let's continue. Understand that you cannot become a programmer and raise money, and I guarantee you this 99% percent. After graduating from the university, you will not be hired as a programmer just because you have a crust. Stereotypes of the USSR do not work for a long time! A diploma does not guarantee anything at all! You will not be able to sit out like in school, and then somehow get somewhere. You will have to study. Learn as much as you have never had to in your life. You will have to read, think, solve problems, you don’t know how to do this. And if you learn, by the time you graduate from high school, no one will need programmers for fuck (at least not in such a volume). The competition will be colossal and you will go to work in McDuck. If you think that you will be led by the hand through life, you think that you will achieve something with little effort, and living in a high, you're wrong. Should you become a programmer? Yes, please, why not try, maybe it will drag out and last a couple of years. But let's be honest, what have you mastered over the past 10 years really new, besides a new map in cs or Persian DotA? So where did you get what you can do here? Should you go to university? Pfft, don't care. Seriously, absolutely nothing will change whether you have a degree or not. From the word at all! It doesn't matter if you have a degree or not. From the word at all! It doesn't matter if you have a degree or not. From the word at all!
And now, you probably have a question: why is he being so smart and talking so self-confidently? Yes, the thing is that you and I are of the same generation, you are not much younger than me, and my friends from childhood and adolescence faced exactly the same problems and questions. They, just like you, asked me and other people questions: What should I do? What do i do? What should I become? I don't have a calling. They just whined, looking for easy ways. They thought that you can become someone sitting on a bench near the entrance or playing counter. And even more! Some of them contacted me with questions about how to learn to program when it became popular. Some of them even entered the same educational institution with me, but at the beginning of the 2nd year of the Olympiad I won, and at the end of the 4th year they could not print "hello world" in the language being studied. The university does not guarantee knowledge. It doesn't guarantee anything at all!
Of course, there's a good chance that I didn't hit any of your beautiful features, but I highly doubt it.
Is it possible to become a programmer at 20?
Easily! Even lighter than easy!
Can you become one?
Most probably not.
This does not mean that you need to turn into a vegetable. The fact that you started thinking about your future is already something (I hope this is not after another promotional video about how cool programmers are and how much they get, if so, go straight to McDuck). Enter on YouTube the query "Which area to choose". Continue "How to become an N developer" and do everything they say in these videos. If you last more than a month, you have a chance. Not? Go to McDuck.
At one time, I believed in people like you. I believed that it was possible to teach people by helping, but of all the most promising people I helped, no one became a programmer. Hence my distrust. I've seen it all a million times...

Answer 2

Recently someone posted here Peter Norvig: Learn to code in… 10 years
Start with primer books
Choose one, as long as you like the presentation and the process. At this stage, it does not matter at all what kind of language. You need to choose a few and try it yourself.
I think you can find the answer to the question what textbooks for beginners are on the toaster, there were a million of them

Answer 3

Help people solve their problems, get paid for it, don't feel like you are cheating them and get satisfaction from your work.
My dream job.
What are your objections?

Answer 4

I am an adult vegetable, 20 years old,

If an adult, then why are you still waiting to be led by the hand?
Questions of this kind are asked every day, use the search, look for ready-made answers. If you don't like them, it's because you will probably feel that there is something to learn, a lot to learn, and before you have a clear idea of ​​​​what you need to learn to become a developer, you will need to learn a bunch of basic things. Only then will you be able to ask the right questions on the merits.

Answer 5

Try enrolling in inexpensive programming courses, but first, make sure you have a clear direction and learn the appropriate programming language.

Answer 6

Don't torture yourself and others.
You can achieve some results - learn to do something by examples, solve some problems. But that doesn't make you a programmer. As they say, you can teach a bear to dance, but it is difficult.

Answer 7

In any case, you did something better than the rest. If we are talking about programming, and you are neither in mathematics, nor in physics, nor in computer science at all, then this is definitely not for you, and it will be your unloved business number 2. If there is no artistic taste and never was, then the design is not yours. If you understand why the printer does not print, or how to set up a router, or what the command line is a problem, then you probably shouldn’t go to system administrators either.
In general, there are jobs and professions in the world other than IT, and even apart from McDuck.