New to programming

no

Try six years instead

What do you mean by professional?

Be paid, even if really bad, and a net negative for the projects and companies you’re involved with? Then it’s certainly possible.

Study, get a bachelors degree

That’s not 6 months though

If you paid a true professional to sit down 1-on-1 with you everyday for 6 months, and you are good at learning I think yes, for most but not all software positions. But unless you’re forking over $200k I don’t think any professional dev is going to do that for you.

do anything else

What’s your educational background?

It depends on a few things. What kind of things do you want to program? Websites? Hardware? Games? Each of these examples will have a language which is more suitable for that category.

Do you have any programming skills or a computer science background at all? If not, you should really start with the basics. Very few people with zero experience can jump into this and be a rockstar in 6 months. Programming is not something you should rush into, a foundational understanding of the concepts is very important.

There are tons of great videos on YouTube, Free Code Camp comes to mind. However, an actual training course from Udemy or similar will likely prove to be more beneficial.

Lastly, and this is important: Don’t give up. Programming is fun and fulfilling and frustrating. When something gets difficult, take a break for a while and come back to it. Don’t set a deadline for yourself to be an expert in 6 months. Programming is a lifelong learning experience.

As with most professions, nothing can replace experience. Senior engineers, laborers, scientists, doctors, etc. all become seniors through years of learning, and arguably more importantly, failing.

Rookies will try “method A” until it fails, then learn “method B”, then try A and B until a C is needed. Rinse and repeat. Being self-critical and observant will help.

In the short term, “in 6 months”: Practice. Every. Single. Day. If you need to break for day, make sure you come back the next. There are thousands of educational tools out there: Online lectures, free tests, public forums, problem sets (i.e. leetcode) etc. Don’t skip the fundamentals, even if it seems boring. It will mean less memorization, and you’ll understand more complex topics easier.

If you plan and commit to it, you still won’t be a “pro”, but you’ll likely have a chance in an interview, where you might land a job. There, over years, you can hone your skills.

Build a project. Learn how to do each step by searching the internet. It’s quite literally that easy.

To be a professional, you need like 2-3 years of hard training minimum, then a life-long learning of new technologies.

I recommend looking up some tutorials on YouTube, and once you get to a point, work on dumb projects of yours, maybe even build the open source projects you’re using yourself and run them in a debugger, especially if they’re in an early stage. Depending on what you want, you might also need a strong math background (likely more than what your high school taught - programming makes math a lot more fun though), knowledge of hardware, etc.

There are plenty of “Learn to code” courses online. Khan Academy has a course though it is focused on web development, and many users here will turn up there nose, but it’s as good a starting point as anything else

If you are dedicated I’m sure you could learn how to write code in a language, learn how different parts of programming languages work and build a little project in 6 months.

“Like literally a pro” depends on where you are looking to be hired by. With no experience or formal training, it will be rather difficult to land a FAANG job. But of you can demonstrate aptitude, and willingness to learn, a smaller operation meet give you a shot.

Good luck, I hope you stick with it :D

You’re asking something that humans can’t do well. Imagine for a moment that you decide to learn a new spoken language. Even with the utmost dedication and mentors, after six months, your knowledge will be very biased towards the fragments of communication and aspects of the language your mentors focused on during your initial learning phase.

Even if you already knew some words, and naturally also considering you already know a different language, and that these whole reading, writing, and talking things aren’t new to you, it would still take you more than six months of exposure and practice to be considered the equivalent of a “professional” on that spoken language.

Natives would still hear some accent, and grammar wise, you’d still need to learn beyond textbook examples to scratch at the surface of how the actual humans communicate and use the language you’re learning.

Now back to “professional programmers”. The term is used differently depending who/where/when you ask, but if your intention is to be paid for it, my professional experience suggests that your just need to pick an area that interests you, find which technologies are often used in that area, and using online resources, communities, and above all, your free time, to get the basics. From there, what is going to help you is honesty. Don’t try to be a senior in five years. First it’s not worth skipping the fun parts. And second, people who have been “speaking” that language (or technology) for 20 years, can and will be able to tell the difference sooner or later.

If it’s (mostly) about money, then pick any web tech (like react or similar) and you’re going to find that the market is always looking for those with varying degrees of seniority.

If it’s more about I really want to be a senior developer, then I’m afraid there’s no shortcut for most people. The best your can find is motivated seniors willing to mentor you; and while that will still take time, it will definitely get you pointing in the right direction faster than a person who doesn’t have access to such pool of people.

Good luck!