I think that I will try to switch careers into something more software related
FYI, code can (depending on the programming language) be written as trees or converted to trees automatically as part of the process of translating what the programmer wrote to what the computer can execute. The following is actual lisp code:
(- (+ 2 3) 1)
It can be run on https://replit.com if you make an account then make a scheme repl. (Scheme is one of the programming languages in the lisp category. Using that website is an alternative to installing a programming language on your own computer.)
BTW, I’ve heard that one of the easier ways to get a software type job is to learn SQL and be a data analyst.
I will make a note to include writing some code as trees as part of my projects that aim to learn how to make idea trees. It sounds interesting and I expect making trees on a variety of concepts will be good for me.
Replit also looks interesting too. I set up an account and I may do some experimenting on there in the next few months with Scheme. I would like to eventually learn Lisp and read SICP. However, I have so far just been trying to wrap my mind around OOP in Java. I read that its better to start by just learning one language pretty well, for learning process reasons, and so that you can start building up a portfolio. At some point this year, I think I will incorporate learning SQL as I get into the Java database frameworks, like Hibernate (I think that’s the one). I hardly know much about any of this yet but I have been trying to map out a bit of a plan. Learning programming is still more of a side project where I have been doing it in bursts and just trying not to atrophy knowledge in the interims.
You might want to share and discuss your decision making and research processes regarding coding.
FYI, here is an example article on Hibernate:
Hibernate is an ORM. What does that mean. A goal of an ORM is, in the article’s words, “Elimination of SQL”. An ORM is an abstraction layer over the database so that you use the ORM’s functionality (which is in whatever language you’re coding in) instead of using SQL (and therefore having to use two languages). Learning Hibernate is a largely separate matter than learning SQL.
Also, SQL can be learned in far less time than Java and doesn’t require actually learning to code because it’s not a general purpose programming language; it’s just a way of talking with databases. Similarly, HTML and CSS are much faster to learn than full programming because they are focused on specific tasks instead of writing any software.
The article gives code samples. The hibernate code is a big improvement on the older java library they are comparing to. But it’s still really bad compared to what some other languages have had for a decade. In general, java is clunky, bloated and corporate.
For most people, a better general purpose language to learn instead of java (or any type of C) would be python, javascript, ruby or swift. swift is only appropriate for mac and ios users. javascript is not related to java, but was given a misleading name on purpose because java was popular and had a large marketing budget at the time.