> How many of those "learning to code" really become programmers and end up doing it for a living, or making habitual use of pointers or some other concept that

> How many of those "learning to code" really become programmers and end up doing it for a living, or making habitual use of pointers or some other concept that a programmer must/must not deal with in their first programming language? I recently talked with someone from an employment agency that deals mainly with IT companies (I live in the UK). The gentleman stated that since I don't already work in an area if IT, my chances of getting into it are very slim. He also said that many people who work in IT often start in a company in an administration context or something similar. Since I work as an arborist, I have practically no chance. I started learning C++ nearly two years ago, then switched to straight C. Most of my programs have very little practical use, but almost all the code that I write involves pointers, arrays of pointers, function pointers and void pointers. I would be stuck in the mud without having an address book.