Corner of Sun*: “As a developer, knowing just one language means you are discharging yourself from the game”

When I was in university, like many other students, I studied hard, never missed any roll call, got scholarship this scholarship that. I felt relatively proud of what I achieved at university. However, during my first 2 years, I never thought seriously of my major - IT, of what job an IT graduate could take. It could be related to either software or hardware. I even trusted the rumor that “IT graduates would only be able to open play station, set up internet system, or work freelance as win installers.".

It was not until that summer that my first serious thought about my career and my future popped into my mind.

After looking here and there on the forum pages, Facebook groups, asking seniors in the same industry, I decided to follow the field of "Web Programming". After that, I carried out research on what language was suitable yet there are so many languages. Up to this point, I was recommended that "As a newbie to web programming, you should learn PHP".

When searching about PHP, I was extremely happy: "Oh, perhaps I have found my direction already, it's PHP". In November 2018, I registered for a six-month PHP course in a center along with an internship at a small IT company. After a while, I was offered to be on probation. However, because the environment was unsuitable to me and did not help me much with my development, I only probated for more than a month and then resigned.

It was not until the middle of May 2020, when the Covid-19 epidemic had temporarily stabilized, I went to Hanoi and applied for the position of "PHP Programmer" in many companies, including Sun*. And also since then, with Sun*, my direction turned into a new page!

When in the interview, I was oriented to Ruby on Rails. My brain started to get muddled with thousands of questions: "Now I haven’t been good enough at PHP, will it be too early to move to Ruby?", "Does Ruby offer as many opportunities as PHP because I have heard many people say that only Japanese customers prefer Ruby? ”, “Is Ruby on Rails difficult ???” and so forth.

Also, being aware that Sun* is an extremely good environment, having a reputation for training interns and Freshers, after a few days of inquiring, I decided to try a new language at Sun*.

I was trained by Edu Ruby team. During my first time, I was really overwhelmed and fallen behind as compared to others.  Right at the GIT test, I had to sit for it 3rd time to reach the minimum passing score. Then it was even harder with Ruby and Rails, I often wondered "why the syntax is so weird, it's incredibly hard to understand, and the syntax is unusually short".

As time goes by, by doing Tutorials, Project, I feel "Wow, the Rails code is amazing, the code speed can be said to be faster than some other popular frameworks". From the perspective of a person who is new to Ruby like me, learning and coding, Ruby has a relatively more concise way of writing code than PHP with a lot of functions that support me in the coding process. Besides, everything in Ruby is object so the code is relatively familiar to me.

Until now, I have felt really satisfied with my ability of Ruby and Rails. But, I have to admit that, Ruby on Rails is not a piece of cake. To me, this language is a bit more difficult to access than other languages and frameworks.

Currently, though no longer coding with PHP, I still like PHP laravel. If given the chance, I will definitely be willing to dive into coding with it!

Now, if I were to choose again, I would definitely choose Ruby to learn from scratch. Perhaps people have heard more than once the saying "Language is just a tool" and  I do not deny that. However, learning a language is not that easy. It takes a certain amount of time to get used to, to understand, and get imbued. It does not take just one day or two to master like something else I have learned or did before!

In the future, if the conditions and time allow, I will definitely get Get Risky to learn some other interesting languages, typically Node.js. It would be bloody!!

You know, when we encounter a new job, a new challenge, a new language, we will inevitably face a lot of difficulties as well as experience a lot of bitterness ... However, do not give up just because of temporary difficulties or you may lose the wonderful things that you can not expect. Be persistent instead, try to pursue until the end, then we will definitely succeed and be proud of ourselves.

As a developer, knowing just one language means you are discharging yourself from the game!

Corner of Sun * - We talk about ourselves

If you have read the articles of Humans of Hanoi, Humans of Saigon, you will probably appreciate the simple storytelling style, the simple writing style and the good values behind those stories. Inspired by those stories, subsection Corner of Sun* (under the category Sun* Face) was created to explore, share and preserve small yet inspirational stories in Sunners' daily life and work, to make each of us love one another more and be proud of ourselves as a piece in a wonderful community.

Submit the story you like (it could be a saying, an action or a moment that you feel emotional) with photos (if any) and send it HERE.

Or more simply, you can contact the "smiling girl" of Sun* News (Bui Dieu Linh: bui.dieu.linh@sun-asterisk.com) to share and spread your story! ^^