Coding and programming careers have great earning potential. Coding ability gives new perspective to problem-solving.
There are many programming languages such as C#, C++, Java. It’s worth mentioning that learning one language makes it simpler for a programmer to learn other languages. Learning the first and second programming languages becomes simpler after the programmer recognizes parallels in languages, grammar, and semantics.
Online classes are becoming increasingly common. Many of these courses are immersive, allowing you to write code while studying, speeding up your development and increasing your chances of becoming a programmer. There are a variety of approaches to learning coding. Based on your end goals and the programming language you choose to learn, I will walk you through my 4 steps process to learn programming:
Online courses
Online courses are convenient, usually cover a substantial amount of material, you can learn to code online for free, which means you can do so from the convenience from your own home and are most of the courses are designed for people who have little to no coding experience. You will begin acquiring real-world experience completely online. While each of these coding platforms takes a different approach and covers different territory, all websites provide accurate and trustworthy material from experienced coders.
Some of the Platforms to Learn to Code for Free:
1. Codecademy
2. Udemy
3. Freecodecamp
4. Khan Academy
5. W3 Schools
6. Code.org
7. Coursera
Teaching someone
Teaching and mentoring others will help you remember knowledge and learn more easily.
Spend a few months mastering the fundamentals of your preferred language before looking for a tutor. Mentoring provides many learning opportunities and increases leadership ability
1. The lessons you teach serve as a helpful example to you.
2. Mentorship forces you to take a look back and consider it from a different viewpoint.
3. You can learn something from your mentees, too.
Textbooks
A good programming book will encourage you to open your IDE and write code, as well as experiment. This type of learning is more complex and time consuming than online tutorial. However, after learning every section you can start practicing coding problems.
Some of the books it’s worth to look:
1. The Art of Computer Programming, Volumes 1–4
2. Structure and Interpretation of the program
3. The Art of Computer programming series by Donald Knuth
4. Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction
5. The Pragmatic Programmer
Explore someone’s code
Since so much coding and programming is open source, it’s very easy to find a piece of code to play with. For example you can use GitHub to get a piece of code and ask this questions: What inputs does it require? What do the outcomes look like? Reading the code developed by other developer is a very challenging task because you need to understand their logic. This three step process is simple and basic in the programming :
1. Understand the logic by running the code and see what is the result
2. Explore the code by finding the functions of the code it will give you the flow of the code
3. Run the code under debug mode, mark a breakpoint and step into the code
Everyone learns at a different pace and by a different process. Last but not least, you can address as many learning types as possible while learning to become a programmer. Increase your knowledge and understanding with tools that lead to your favorite learning patterns, and expand out into new ones while being patient with yourself. It needs time and commitment to learn to code.
