[sicktactics]

This might be a stupid question but, for anyone who doesn't plan on making a career or receive full time employment out of it, what can you do with programming?  I hear lots of people just learning a computer language out of the blue but I've always wondered why they do it.  Is it just for fun or does it have any other tangible/practical use if you're not planning on getting hired?

[Dslg01]

if your job includes working with any kind of data, the ability to manipulate the data with a bit of code can be a superpower, plus 99% of your colleagues will think you're a wizard

[throwtoday]

I had a friend make a custom bot for discord so a channel could manage a spotify playlist.

[accountsreceivable]

Outside of work I've used my programming knowledge to build mini web-servers out of raspberry pi's and I've also taught my friend how to create scripts to make her work easier. I think once you programmers are established they start seeing all the ways that programming can make their lives easier, even if the issues are trivial and the solutions are over the top haha.

[amyfowler22]

a lot of automatisation and stuff like that. give it a try bro. its worth it

[mrcrdn]

The best way to earn money if you are casual programmer, is to also learn something like SEO and learn how to run a website and monetize it. Then you can program your site, rank on google and make money

[Andre Monsoon]

If you can make a program that automates what you do and makes your life easier, why not!

[Boombox88]

Its good to use Google and youtube to assist programming

[NestleWater101]

Automation is fun. If that interests you, take a look at Selenium.

[pepsican]

Depends what you want to do, how far you want to go really.

[szofovol]

Automate the small things, like managing a calendar by parsing any timetables you get emailed, or just make your life easier on your PC with extra shortcuts

[Rorrim04]

Computers are very good at doing boring, repetitive things nearly flawlessly over and over again. If you have something like that you might want to do, a basic program borne out of basic programming knowledge might help.

I've used casual programming to organize a spreadsheet and help me manage my finances, for example. While I could do all the tracking and computation by hand, why bother when I can write a simple little function to add them all up for me? Casual programming knowledge can also be tremendously helpful when searching for digital things or working with lots of data.