My friend started learning Python on his own, and as a developer it's always great to see someone interested in the field. Of course, I was still a bit skeptical as to whether he was going to continue learning, but so far he's doing pretty well on his own. He started off with Codecademy, but found that it didn't really go into depth for mastery. Then he tried YouTube courses, and it went okay, but for whatever reason didn't like it as much either. THEN after that, he started PyGame, which seems to be his favorite, but he also tried Pluralsight since he got a free three month trial (going alright, I think). Now he's following Odin Project, or something like that.
Anyway, it got me wondering how everyone else started learning, especially since I couldn't really offer him the best advice on what to try. My experience learning programming isn't quite the same as his, and I had access to opportunities (coding bootcamp, for ex.) that he doesn't.
What were your first steps getting into programming, and what do you know now that you wished you did?
Latest comments (33)
This is the typical situation in India for many of us, YMMW.
I started programming as a mandatory subject in my 10th std of ICSE board curriculum in India. Learnt Basic programming. Then moved to Cobol and Fortran for 11th and 12th ISCE board curriculum. In my Engineering course for Computer Science, had C as the language from 1st semester. I used to swear by a book called as "Let us C" by Yashwant Kanitkar then.
This was all 15 years back. Courses and curriculum have been revised and new students following the same path would be learning entirely different languages, and curriculum.
Professionally, I started on C++ during my first employment with a start-up, and then moved to further lower level languages C and Assembly as time progressed there. C++ wasn't easy to learn and use initially, but the code so beautifully structured that it made life easy.
I still feel that learning an easier language (Basic) as the first language made Programming fun, interesting and concepts easy for me. Wish something similar could have happened professionally as well.
When I got my MIS in 1989 there were not a lot of women in tech. I ended up dropping out and raising 2 beautiful daughters for 15 yrs and when I returned I took every online course I could take to catch up. Since then I have learned js, html5, css, node, php, ruby, a little python, aws and electrical engineering online. If you really want to code it’s there for you. I used Front End Masters, Lynda.com, pluralsite, stackoverflow, edex, tutsplus, codepen, and on and on! Now I pay it forward with my own site. I give newbies free tutorials in every language I know! Bless the day! Namaste!
It was 20 years ago, so I don't think that it would help your friend. ;-)
But, with 20+ years of programming and 15+ of building companies I would suggest this approach:
Learn and work on your reputation at the same time.
I have spent a lot of money on books, seminars, Udemy courses and a lot time on free resources.
But!!!
My time is precious to me and yours to you too.
If you invest in your knowledge and yourself $30 per month and get a world-recognized certificate that you could also place in your resume and LinkedIn profile, recognized in the business world, that would mean you're doing both things at the same time.
So, learn from online courses that give you at the end this certificate.
Work on your LinkedIn profile from day 1.
But be careful with connection requests, not to be banned. Few of them per day is ok. And definitely include a connection request message.
Fill all the sections in your LinkedIn profile.
When someone accepts your LinkedIn connection request rate him for his skills in hope that he will also rate you.
How to find potential connections on LinkedIn?
Do not waste your connection requests on everyone.
Join the LinkedIn groups from your niche. And look for those people who post and comment and who are doing it recently.
Because some open LinkedIn profiles and rarely or never come again.
Clean up your connection invitations from time to time.
I have an article on certifications and online courses, you can read it here:
The Secret to Mastering Programming Language & Obtaining Employment Benefits: A CEO & Programmer's Perspective 2018
Hope this will help your friend.
Davor
On my 14th birthday, my great grandfather got shafted at a second hand store and got me an Amstrad PC1512 with an 8086 processor when 486s were the norm. The shop refused him a refund so we were stuck with it.
I soon learnt that nothing was really upgradeable. Some due to the age of the machine, others due to Amstrad design choices (power supply in the monitor etc).
I decided to try and write programs for it each week so I could say "look grandad this machine is really cool". I appreciated that he had spent a lot of money on it and I didn't want to come across as ungrateful.
I first learnt BASIC, then Turbo Pascal, then I even dabbled in Assembler.
I started writing simple games and utility programs. Then moved to writing my own word processor and more complex games. In the end I tried to overclock it by manually soldering direct to the motherboard.
This didn't work out and it set fire. And that was the end of that.
What I considered at the time to be the worst birthday present ever actually turned out to be the best and most useful one. If I got given a 486 that I could have just played Command and Conquer on, I doubt I would have gotten that deep into programming. And if I hadn't had done that, then there's no way I'd be doing what I do now! Thanks great grandad, you were an awesome role model.
Awesome story dude!
Cheers dude!
I started with my old mobile phone. I used to find mobile web pages (Wap, not Web) source and build something myself. Initially it was just wml, then php and later databases. Everything on a black and white mobile screen. 🙂
I first tried to learn java and JavaScript back in high school to no avail. Once I got to college I tried again, this time in actual CS classes and it finally stuck. I got started making web apps using Django and have recently been picking up some modern JavaScript stuff.
I've started with about 16 years old, thourgh a PDF (translating) "The Hacker Bible", and at the end had an example of how to make a trojan (believe me, that piece of code was nothing as a trojan), in Delphi (Pascal OO for who doesn't know). I didn't did it right away, but it was enough for me to interest for real in programming (at that time I already knowd a bit of HTML and CSS, because HI5 🤣 social network, and Blogger [Blogspot] sites).
The first programs that I made, I've used AHK Autohotkey, it's more like a scripting language, developed with C++ if I remember.
And then, I started with Delphi, and I made lot of programs with it.
Nowadays, and since some time, I'm more in web technologies (last 6years)
Ha !
I first started programming having about 8 years if I recall correctly.
My father bought a computer and wanted me to play some games. Instead, I started hacking some marqueess in html.
I perhaps dissapointed him, but when he understood what I did he bought me books on visual basic, and later on I took over the book buying business on my own, spending most of kidcash on Wiley's.
Good times, good times...
i started coding after my 1st semester in EE. My sister told me that programming as a skill is really important at professional level whether you're doing Electrical/Computer Engineering or Computer Science. She recommended MIT's Introduction to Computing with Python at Edx. That course hooked me instantly. Learning curve wasn't that steep in terms of programming language. However, it the logical thinking part of the whole course was really challenging but it was worth it!!
It really helped me in learning C++ later in my college life.
P.S python is love!
I got started through university. Still going through uni didn't pave my way to being a dev.
Joined a startup had to learn a lot by existing examples -- we were both just out of college at that time.
Followed mostly YouTube videos and online tutorials.
Additionally I started attending local meetups/workshops Drupal, PHP. Which really helped me get out of my shell and ask others for help.
I'm still torn between what to tell my younger self, since right now I'm spread thin not really specializing on something specific.
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