The document provides strategies for learning to code effectively in Japan, emphasizing the importance of practicality and skill order rather than perfectionism. It discusses the common challenges in software development and encourages a mindset of urgency and creativity in coding. Ultimately, it advises readers to start coding without fear and highlights the importance of enjoying the process.

1. All text and image ideas by OpenAI / GPT-3, operated and read by @bemmu
Strategies for Learning to Code
in Japan
Fairly easily and rather effortlessly achieve practical software
development skills.

2. A metaphor for how useful programming ability can be for starters.
a man
playing
a violin
in front
of a
wall of
violins
Violin skills are of almost no value

3. How to achieve productivity quickly:
1. Nobody figures out how to code perfectly their first time.
2. It's mostly luck.
3. Learn just the right skills, in the right order.
4. Avoid perfectionism.
5. Not doing something is sometimes the best way to learn something.

4. All problems are pretty much the
same.
Not only are all software development
problems more or less the same, but
the best way to solve them is usually
so simple, that a monkey could do it.
a monkey drawn in crayon

5. a monkey, a sand hourglass, and a spoon
Let's get started then!

6. Let's get started then!
Just like a monkey makes sand castles with
an hourglass, all our time is of limited
duration, so let's get started to code a
product for clients.

7. Let's get started then!
Software development is actually a bunch of
often complicated problems. But that's not a
big deal, is it!?

8. Looking smart is the social norm
picture of a happy architect with a blueprint in one hand and
blue pencil in the other hand, standing in front of a huge complex

9. Almost all developers feel
the pressure (for whatever
reason) to have the look of
the competent coder, most
likely due to peer pressure.
So it might be counter-
productive to cut corners
during the development
phase.
Looking smart is the social norm

10. If you don't need your
code to run during
actual product
development, stuff it
in a module in a
separate directory.
a sign: "DANGER do not enter"

11. Richard Feynman was reported to have said:
"What I cannot create, I do not understand.”
Paraphrased in the programming world as
"If you don't regularly turn code into poetry,
you probably aren't a good programmer."

12. If you've written 500
lines of code and
have an actual
working program that
doesn't crash, sprint
to the finish line.
happy runner

13. A happy ending to all of our code
swordsman catching a bullet

14. So you built a program and it worked
in like 10 minutes. All your code was
beautiful.

15. Why you should always code like it's
your last day on Earth
a picture of a person with their whole life ahead of them staring into a terminal, a ball and chain attached to each leg, and a long nose and a beard

16. If you always think like it's the last day on
Earth (your last day coding), it'll
push you just enough to get you to finish
whatever you might need to finish.

17. So now that you know it's impossible to not
learn to code, go write something, anything.
So stop writing nuclear missile designs, or the best
ad blocker ever, and just get started on whatever.

18. And then when you finally do finish this nice feature,
you should always make sure you drink the required
amount of alcohol.
whiskey bottles

19. So basically just go ahead before you wake up in a
cold sweat from a scary dream about the future,
coding-less, uh, eating those annoying squares of
tofu.
a plate of tofu next to a glass of beer