Programming is one of the most valuable skills you can pick up in these modern times, whether for career prospects or to stretch your brain and create something awesome. If you're just getting started on your coding journey, here are ten tips and resources to set you off on the right foot.
10. Figure Out Why You Want to Learn to Code
The direction you go in will depend in large part on why you want to learn to code in the first place and how much time you have to devote to learning. If you want to be a professional programmer, signing up college courses might be your best bet. (Google has a list of suggested skills and courses for would-be software engineers.) If you want to build websites or games for fun (and possibly profit) in your spare time, interactive tutorials might be better.
PAL App has a career buddy feature which will better answer your question about which course to go while keeping in mind the time and duration.
9. Choose the Right Language
There's no one "best" programming language, and once you've learned one, it's fairly easy to pick up another, so don't get hung too up on choosing your first language. That said, some languages are more beginner-friendly than others. The language you choose to start with might depend, again, on your purpose. (For example, if you want to write an iOS app, you'll need to learn Swift.) There's a case for starting with C if you're serious about programming, although higher-level languages, like Python, are easier to jump into right away.
8. Start Small (and Be Patient)
No matter which language or learning method you choose, you should start at the very beginning (a very good place to start). When David Sinsky taught himself to code in eight weeks, for example, he spent one weekend getting an introductory grasp of Python and one weekend getting an introductory understanding of Django—going through the tutorial, deleting all of the tutorial code, and working through the tutorial again from scratch. Start with the basics and be patient with yourself as you progress. To take your first coding project from start to finish, break down the project into simple steps. And if one method of learning isn't working for you (e.g., books), try another method before giving up.
7. Try a Kids App
Even toddlers are learning to code these days. That's actually a great thing for all of us. Although many of the programs designed to teach kids to code are very simplistic, many of them, like Scratch, are suitable for all ages. It doesn't matter how old you are; even kids' animation apps can get you started with the basics of programming (Try Phoenix -
PAL APPS which offers video tutorials and basic training on different programming languages).
6. Use Free Online Training Sites
Free online training sites like Codecademy and other Hour of Code participants can help you write your first computer program. Tutorials from
PAL Apps,
Code.org, and many other organizations will introduce you to the basics of programming—all while creating a new game, site, or other project. Find the resources you need according to the language you're learning with
PAL. These are good starting points, but you'll need to take the initiative to further or continue your learning after these introductions.
5. Take a Coding Course
Online computer science courses offer a bit more of rounded educational experience compared to online training sites focusing on one language. These courses are designed to teach you fundamental skills over several months in college-level classes.
4. Grab Some Free Programming Books
When you get stuck on a problem or just need to look something up, reference books come in very handy. There's a huge collection of
over 500 free programming books posted on GitHub.
3. Play Coding Games
Often the best way to learn is through games. While plenty of coding tutorials have you building simple or complex games yourself, a couple of teaching apps are literally games:
PAL Learn Python or any series of
PAL Apps are full of online challenge and game that will help you learn programming while playing.
2. Get a Mentor (or Teach Someone Else)
The programming community is full of people who are willing to help the next generation of programmers.
Hack.pledge() is one site that will connect you to a mentor, or you can sign up to mentor someone else. Even just planning to teach what you've learned can help you retain the information better.
1. Hack Someone Else's Code
When you reverse engineer someone else's code, testing each line to see how it works, you get a better understanding of the big picture. Thanks to tons of open source code, you can learn just about anything—and keep learning through the incremental-hacking cycle. Just remember to share your code back with the community if you improve on a program.
No comments :