Are you learning how to code? Here’s the advice I wish I knew 5 years ago.
I still remember that sinking disappointment the day I wrote my first lines of code.
I painstakingly typed out 5 lines of Java code into the Netbeans IDE. Took a deep breath. And cautiously pressed the run button.
There was no fancy window with buttons and drop-downs to click.
No Instragram or Uber clone to show off to my friends.
Not even a basic GUI window.
Just a silly “Hello World” printed into the console. It popped up and began to blink at me in this mocking way.
I sat there feeling mugged.
Is this all there is to programming? It seemed so complex and yet so simple I was frustrated.
But determination won out and I decided to press forward. I WOULD teach myself how to code and NOTHING would stop me! Not even a silly blinking “Hello World” even though it seemed to taunt me.
Fast forward a bit and I was more frustrated.
Java wasn’t as great a language as they claimed it to be, so I thought. I couldn’t figure out how to make it do what I wanted it to do.
“Say… I hear talk of other languages like C++, C#, Python and a slew of others. One of those must be the answer to my problem” I thought to myself.
“Ah! Here’s a great resource that teaches C++. Let’s try that language.”
And then a few weeks later it was JavaScript.
A few more weeks later back to Java.
I made a mistake that I want to help you to avoid — thinking that the reason I can’t learn to program is because I happened to chose to learn the wrong programming language.
It’s a common mistake. I see it all the time among wanna-be-developers. They tinker with this programming language. Then they fool with that framework. And then they’re on to the next buzz.
Now it’s JavaScript. Tomorrow it’s Typescript. Then next week it’s Blockchain. And next month it’s neural networks. And now I need to circle back around to master Python.
Err… I’m dizzy!
If you are teaching yourself how to code do yourself a favor and master ONE programming language.
Don’t get distracted trying to master a different programming language. Or thinking that a different programming language will be easier or better. It’s just not that way.
Choose a popular language. It can be any one. And then master it. Here’s a list to consider.
- JavaScript
- Typescript
- C#
- Python
- Go
- Dart
- Java
- Kotlin
More important then learning a specific programming language is learning the concepts within every programming language.
Start with basic things like variables, conditional statements and functions. Then you can master more advanced concepts like classes, inheritance and other object oriented programming principles.
If you master the principles you’ll be able to learn any programming language in just a few days. How do I know? Because I’ve done it and if I can do it, so can you!
This is the advice I wish I had 5 years ago.
