I had a friend in high school (let’s call him Tim). This guy could solve a Rubik’s Cube. Back then, I didn’t know there was a formula, so it seemed like some kind of arcane magic to me. When I convinced him to teach me, he wrote down stuff like F, F, U, L, Ri, F… In all, there were like fifty symbols or something. And I was like “Dude, how do you understand this stuff?”. And he told me it was easy, like coding.
OK, you probably don’t believe me. I wouldn’t too if I was you. But for those of us who have experienced it firsthand, any programmer is better than you. And not just the obvious things like math and physics. Everything.
P.S: I learned to solve the Cube after I learnt Python.
Why? you ask. Here we go.
1. Programming is a mind exercise — the more you code, the smarter you get
To illustrate this point, I’d ask you to think of your brain as an elastic sheet. The more you press on it, the wider it gets. Every developer can attest to the inherent difficulty of programming; it requires you to think in terms of abstractions, separating logic from implementation, not to mention the fact that all you’ve got to work with are the arithmetic and logical operators.
Coding effectively also involves a number of high-level cognitive functions. To develop a Web app by yourself, for example, you have to consider the back-end and the front-end. Then you have to precisely map out the models in the server-side, and the UI/UX in the client-side. Doing all this tasks the brain, and, like a Sudoku puzzle or a Rubik’s Cube (by the way, can you solve a Rubik’s Cube? It’s a great conversation starter), it makes you smarter as you go.
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