Am I cut out for programming?

[DiscoDave]

Good Afternoon all,

I'm having a bit of a career dillema at the moment. I currently work as a systems administrator, but this area of IT is proving to be quite stressful with very little recognition or appreciation.

I originally wanted to be in networking, configuring switches/routers/wireless equipment and so on, but it seems these jobs are quite rare these days for junior/graduate level, most networking jobs I've seen are for experienced individuals, mostly on a contract basis. Even still, very few pop up in job searches.

I started my university course with this ambition to work in networking, and I began a Computer Science degree course. I started off learning C and C++ which I didn't enjoy too much, which put me off programming.

I switched to Computing and Networks and got on well with networking modules.

When it came to doing my final year project, I decided to write a application. I wrote a workstation management platform with a database back end using C#, WMI and LINQ. I much more enjoyed this than I did programming in C or C++. I eventually got a first for my final year project.

So I've been thinking, has working with a specific language simply put me off programming all together? I understand that C/C++ and C# and Java are languages from two different eras, and maybe I should just give programming a shot.

What do you guys think?

Thanks,

 

[DiscoDave]

I hate to tell you but programming is stressful and has very little recognition or appreciation.

I appreciate you telling me, I should have also mentioned that working in my current area is killing my passion for IT.

Just try different languages and see which one appeals to you the most. C/C++ are 'the daddies' and can be very daunting, just give it a try, what's the worst that can happen

This is sort of what I've done at uni. Started off with C/C++, didn't like it, had brief stints at things like pascal, Oz etc, when I wrote my final year project in C# it felt a lot better. I have much more of an appreciation for OO programming than I did for C, for example.

 

[DiscoDave]

I love the problem solving aspect of programming but it can be a bloody nightmare for many reasons.

Clients and bosses are the worst thing when I am building applications.

Web sites tends to be a split between clients and IE being the biggest headaches but in general I love programming.

Give it a go and see what you think. Maybe have a look at web dev or java.

Part of my final year project involved deveoping an ASP.net front end to my database, when I was doing it I quickly knew that I'm not really a web guy. Can program obviously, but a total n00b at design.

 

[DiscoDave]

Thanks for the replies guys.

I've bought a C# book which I'm planning on working though. I'm going to see how much I enjoy doing it and will then decide if it's something I want to do full time.