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Ya for sure, that's what people don't understand. It takes years to really be up to speed and really useful (maybe you can shortcut it with bootcamps, idk, I suspect not though but maybe you would know enough to be good for some tasks).

I had a friend ask me same thing as OP. He was 50, out of work at the time (had been in a trade before) and wondered if he could get into programming. I don't want to discourage anyone from learning to program because you can do a lot of cool stuff, but to be seriously industry useful isn't a matter of months and a few online classes but rather some dedicated years.

And (this might be an unpopular opinion) it's much harder if you don't natively think a certain way. Some otherwise smart people find programming pure torture and the chance of them going through the years needed is pretty low.




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