How to learn to be a programmer in 20 years?

Question

I'm a CS grad.Spent 1 year out of college learning programming after college ended as well (So total 5 years of trying to learn to program). I want to write tictactoe, snake game (I know real programmers laught at this), a html css website that doesn't suck. I want to write a complete application.I can code though. I've banged my head against the wall.I'm currently a linux admin. I am working towards becoming a devops engineer. Since I know code a lot well compared to other linuxadmins, I've created a good reputation among developers :) lol. Let's see how long this lasts :)I'm wondering how can I learn to program in say 20 years along with my linuxadmin job? And later devops job?I measure my success with how much I am able to program. Because it's something I find hard to do, and I really want to do it THUS.Guide me.I've heard about learn programming in 10 years, but I'm very patient, I can wait. I want to learn programming in 20 years. Tell me how to do it.Provide me a full roadmap of things I should do?Should I re-learn CS concepts? What should I do?

h2odragon · Accepted Answer

automate bits of your jobs with scripts.
use different languages when bash, python, etc get old. perl and then lisps and whatever. exposure and experience with different tools is all to the good.
in spare time, fiddle with games and silly graphics hacks that have no purpose other than pretty and fun. "always learning" and its amazing what comes in handy in contexts you never thought it would.

AnimalMuppet · Answer

Pick a language. Write your tictactoe game. First write it in text output on a terminal. Get the gameplay working there. Fix the strategy/tactics/move evaluation stuff there.
Then make it use a GUI.
Do the same with a snake game, but do it in a different language.
Basically, you learn to code by coding. You already have things you want to do. So go do them. Start small (tictactoe) and try to write it. When you find you can't do it because you can't do console input? Learn console input, then go back to building the game. (That is, learn a little bit of console input - enough to get you unstuck on the game. Don't try to learn everything there is to learn, even about console input.)

dswilkerson · Answer

FIVE YEARS and you still cannot code? Your whole approach must be wrong. I taught myself to code when I was 10 - 12 years old. When I started I had to use the display machine at the local Sears and I did not even have anywhere to save my work, so I had to start over every time.
WRITE A PROGRAM, write tests, write some base documentation, check it in to github as you go. I recommend starting with the C programming language as it will not lie to you about how the machine actually works. Be sure to automate all standard tasks such as building and testing using, say GNU Make.
Pick a program you actually want to have, such as a program to call some public HTTP API and print the results for you. For example, try writing a C program to take a search string and send it to a search engine and then show you the results.
Show the results to a real programmer and ask them to critique it. Fix everything they complain about, no matter how "small". Repeat.