Hi fellow developers, welcome back to another article. A few days ago, Hashnode announced a new writing contest called the #4articles4weeks challenge. Learn more about the writeathon in here and try to participate, it might be really useful for your writing skills. In short, in this challenge, you are prompted to write 1 article per week by choosing one of the 3 different topics given by them for the first 3 weeks and choosing your own topic for the last one.

So I too decided to take part in this writeathon not only because it has cool prizes 🤑, but also because I have a strong feeling that I'd learn something new because I'd have to write about things that I usually don't. Therefore, in the first week I have to choose a topic from the following:

1. What made you want to be a developer?
2. Lessons learned from a failed interview?
3. How did you get your first job as a developer and what advice would you give to new developers to get their first job? How can you strengthen your portfolio to showcase your skill set?

Since I have no experience in applying to a job or being in a job yet, I don't have the experience to write about the 2nd and 3rd options. So in this article, I'll be sharing with you, the reasons that made me want to become a developer. So without any further delay, let's dive in!

My Programming Backstory

Before we see why I wanted to become a developer, let me share with you a short backstory of my programming journey.

I learned Python as my first programming language when I was 13. I chose python not only because it was one of the most popular programming languages, but also because the learning curve was very easy compared to others. I learned it through free courses and youtube videos. FreeCodeCamp was also a very useful resource for me to learn python (very grateful for these resources for making these free). Since python was mostly used in the backend of applications, I had an interest in learning to build good user interfaces too. And since I already knew HTML and CSS, I slowly transitioned into learning JavaScript.

Even though learning JavaScript was a bit of a pain, I fell in love with this language once I became pretty decent at it. And now, it's my favourite programming language and the one that I use the most. After becoming somewhat comfortable with JS, I decided to move into React, cuz why not? And let me tell you again, I fell even more in love with React and JavaScript in general. And from that onwards, I built a few side projects, started learning Flutter for mobile development (I know what you're thinking, why didn't I go with React Native. Maybe that's a separate article 😉) and recently Next.js too. I love using all these technologies and currently, I'm building really cool projects mainly with React, Next.js and TailwindCSS and contributing to open source.

My Passion Towards Programming

So, why did I go through the trouble of learning all these? Well, to be honest, I did it because it was pretty fun and enjoyable. Now, I know what you're thinking, "Coding for fun is not just enough". Yes! I agree, but this fun slowly became an irresistible passion for programming. Although there are times when I face annoying bugs and I think to myself that programming is very difficult, but fixing these bugs and finding solutions to different problems, drives my craze for programming to an even higher level.

But, if you ask some people why they would want to become developers, they might give one of these two answers or sometimes both. Either they say that it is because you get a high-paying job or that it is an important job that is also to not drop in recruitment and offers a career path with endless progression. These are some solid reasons you would want to be a developer and I too consider these, but there's a majority of developers who became developers because they just love coding and enjoy the process!

I'll tell you why. As you might already know, I'm a 17-year-old and I have been into programming for about 4 years. That means that I started my journey when I was around 13 years old. At that time, I didn't know or care about getting a high-paying job. All I wanted was to enjoy the process of coding. So I did, and here I am, writing to you about why I became a developer. And in my opinion, if you want to become or achieve something, you've got to have a passion for it. Because if you don't, you'll stop halfway through the journey. Now, this is not to say that I don't want a high-paying job or and good career path, instead, my enthusiasm for programming is what motivates me to achieve great heights or build amazing software. A good example of this is the Open Source Community. Developers all over the world build and contribute to open source software just to provide some value to the developer community, expecting nothing in return. I'm speechless to describe about the open source community and I'm happy to be a part of it 🤝.

Okay then, to sum it all up, the main reason why I want to become a developer is the passion, the love and the excitement that I have towards building software and providing value through this medium.

Thanks for reading!

Well, that's it for today's article. Thank you very much for taking the time to read this article. If you enjoyed reading this article, consider liking and sharing it with others. As I said, this is part of the #4articles4weeks challenge, so you too go and check it out and try to participate. And also, this is the first time for me to write about this kind of topic, so I'd love to hear your feedback.

And as always, if you have any questions or feedback let me know in the comments down below and follow me on Twitter for more updates on my journey, tips and tricks about programming. Ta-ta 👋