Coding vs Blogging, Spend Time on Programming

Many times in life you arrive at a point where you need to decide one of the two:

  • Move on to a chase different goals
  • Learn a new skill

I previously explained the purposes of my blog (or blogs):

Hours in Coding

I have been picking up a bit of coding during my spare time in 2011 mainly due to self-interest, while I have been updating my blog (Gordon Choi’s Blog) and posting to Clickz Asia.

So I estimated the number of hours I have spent on coding per year from 1998 to 2011 – A total of 6211 hours (excluding all hours I did spent before 1998):

    Hours Spent on Coding

Then I looked at the number of blog posts which I have published on Gordon Choi’s Blog, my Chinese blog and Clickz Asia from 2006 to 2011:

    Number of Blog Posts 2006-2011

Finally, the correlation between coding and blogging is when I spent large amount of time on blogging, then I did not spend much or almost any time at all on coding. Year 2011 was an exception which was when I re-picked up coding while I have still published 146 blog posts in total.

  • In the very early years (1998-2001), my career objective was to become a full-time programmer.
  • A shift in career path happened started in 2002. For about 9 years and a bit more (2002-2010) I have been in the career of the search marketer, web analyst roles.
  • In 2011, I tried to re-gain the ability in programming which I believe would make a large part of my life much easier and give me a longer stretch into the unknown future.
    Coding vs Blogging

Programming Languages

Programming languages that I have ever used including Pascal, C, C++, Cobol, and Python. My criteria for inclusion are:

  • I didn’t include HTML as many programmers believe HTML isn’t a programming language at all.
  • I did at least successful code several algorithms in all these programming languages, and for some programming languages I did even code countless number of lines and completed some applications that other people could use to make their lives easier.

Of all the programming languages that I have done coding for, they are in one of the stages:

  • I have very unlimited experience/knowledge due to lack of practice.
  • I am comfortable to a certain level but never have another opportunity to practice and improve.
  • I am comfortable to a certain level and have given up.
  • I am comfortable to a certain level and am still pretty much using it in coding.

Definition of Coding (or Computer Programming)

Wikipedia defines “coding” or “computer programming” as below:

Computer programming (or coding) is the process of designing, writing, testing, debugging, and maintaining the source code of computer programs. This source code is written in one or more programming languages. The purpose of programming is to create a set of instructions that computers use to perform specific operations or to exhibit desired behaviors. The process of writing source code often requires expertise in many different subjects, including knowledge of the application domain, specialized algorithms and formal logic. Within software engineering, programming (the implementation) is regarded as one phase in a software development process.

Multiple Skills: Search + Analytics + Coding

I was once programming in full-time (which was many years ago), but I have stopped being one. Even I have restarted the habits of writing some codes that probably have made my life a bit easier since last year, it still doesn’t mean that I’m good at coding at all. In fact, I still have a lot to learn.

It’s great to have skills and years of experiences in PPC, SEO, blogging/wordpress, online marketing in general, web analytics, social media and more. Life can even be better when you can write codes in one or several programming languages. You’ll never know what you can do with it until you try hard!

Comments

One Response to “Coding vs Blogging, Spend Time on Programming”

  1. Paul on July 25th, 2012 9:58 am

    The problem is that most website owners are not coders which makes it more difficult to modify a site for SEO purposes.

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