Personally, I believe IT should be simple, yet the industry has made it seem overly complex. IT products are just tools — we only need to be able to use them. For certain products, being able to use even a small fraction of the features is already impressive, while the vast majority of features are nothing more than decoration. But most IT companies prefer IT to be as complex as possible, and they actively work to make it more so — because when IT is complex, their professional services become indispensable…

Take programming, for instance. The core of programming is problem-solving; a language is merely one way to implement a solution. Once you have a clear approach to solving a problem, even if you’re unfamiliar with a particular language, you can quickly learn to use it.

When I first started learning to program, I wanted to understand every underlying principle — but that made everything far too complicated. Think about it: how much do we really understand about operating system internals or how software actually works? Yet we use operating systems and all kinds of software just fine. Why overcomplicate things and create trouble for ourselves?

Code is merely a process. Programming is about solving problems. Project development is a systematic endeavor. For programmers, most don’t expect to write code for their entire career — they hope to move beyond coding (or at least do much less of it) after a few years, advancing to higher-level positions in the IT field. That’s why I believe we should cultivate our holistic problem-solving abilities while coding, and focus on improving our problem-solving skills during learning.

As for database principles — pile upon pile of theory that gives me a headache just looking at it. But for the vast majority of people, databases boil down to database objects and database operations. Most database applications simply involve using SQL statements to manipulate database objects. As for the rest of the theory — unless you’re doing research in the field, there’s no good reason to waste your time on it…