What can I do with code?

Question

Now, this might sound a little strange, but read on!

I've been coding for 3 years. I started with Python, and since then I've gone on to learn:

Python
Java
C
C++
Objective C
Ruby
Lua
HTML(5)
CSS(3)
JavaScript
PHP
SQL
Bash
AJAX -- Not really a language, but count it if you want
jQuery(UI) -- A library, but count it if you want
XHTML
XML
JSON

Now, why did I learn how to program in the first place? Well, I wanted to make games. Why am I not making games? GameMaker! Scratch! GameSalad! Any other program that offers *any* D&D facility to "aid" (more like ruin) game development.

So, because that didn't work, I thought "Well, why not make GUI programs?"... Nope. QT Designer, GTK Designer, etc. It has a D&D facility in order to "make programming easier", which is wrong in the first place.

Mobile apps? Apple has a D&D facility. Google has an XML designer, and I have no interest in Windows Phone, BlackBerry, etc.

I thought I might take up Web Development again, since I know HTML/CSS/JavaScript/AJAX/PHP/XML/SQL/JSON. And guess what? Webs! Weebly! Squarespace! Jamola! I was told to my face there was no point in coding a website from scratch!

I thought, as a last resort, I might take up some hacking. NOPE! Kali/BackTrack has GUI programs for that.

So, what *is* there to do in the programming world, that has no GUI alternative? Is there *anything*?? From the sounds of things, I should just give up, because there's nothing left for me to do with programming because of these stupid programs.

Yes, they are optional, but they save time, and that's why I don't like them. They save time. You should have to write the code by hand in order to position the buttons, set the size of the buttons, etc. It really depresses me, knowing that these programs exist.

Thanks!!

Answer 1

Despite all of the GUI builders with a drag-and-drop interface, there are still jobs for programmers that do hand-coding.



I know that about a year ago that overstock.com hired a hundred Java developers in addition to the developers that they already had to develop their website.



I think that maybe what you need are some projects to work on to have something in your portfolio.



The biggest problem that I see with games is that video games are now sooo complicated that it takes teams of people to develop them.



I'm working on a Java project for a desktop app (as opposed to a web app) that is written in Java's GUI library called Swing. There are GUIs to create GUIs in Java Swing, though there is still a place for programmers who know how to code in Java to make them really work.



Likewise, for web-development, when I went back to school to learn web-development, my instructor advised me to take a course in Dreamweaver, even though I had some HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP and MySQL coursework done.



I think that tools like Dreamweaver have their place to make web designers more productive, but that there is still a place for programmers who understand the code.



Think of the drag-and-drop GUI designers as just another tool in your toolkit.

Answer 2

So you are saying that you learned an unreasonable number of programming languages in 3 years, and now you are complaining because you don't understand how to use the standard design applications?



First of all, you don't know all of those languages. You know a little bit of each one, but you don't know any of them well enough to make a game.

Second of all, focus on a single language that supports game and GUI development and learn that. I would recommend either C++ or Java, you can learn to make games without a game design interface.



EDIT: I should add, it takes 2 years of university courses to learn C++ alone, so what you did is impossible unless it enveloped every second of your time.

And there are lots of command line programs that are used frequently, have you ever used the cmd in windows, or terminal in linux? Every command on those is programmed somehow, same with the interface itself. You can make those kinds of things and fix productivity, especially with computer speed, windows doesn't copy or compress files very fast.

Answer 3

I am kind of having the same feelings but i have not gone through such a list of programming languages like you did.

I wanted to make a game in C + OpenGL and this OpenGL gave me nothing but trouble. Anyway the documentation on the OpenGL that i used sucked completely.

I also feel fooled like you do.

Answer 4

I disagree with you view on using authoring tools - first rule of a good developer is to not write anything he can import from existing code, or create with a template generator or a UI layout tool

the fun is in the engine, not in the paint

Answer 5

If you can't find something productive to do with knowledge of all those programming languages, the problem is with you, not with programming.