This article is contributed by Jason Dirkham.
While some may assume AI tools are all but making programming and beginner programmers irrelevant, the truth is that they can be great teachers, and programmers that learn to become stable in their work and evergreen in their development likely have nothing to worry about.
Moreover, learning to program as a personal skill can be rewarding from the ground up, and so no matter what the large-language models propagating in the industry might tell you, there’s always a path forward.
But where should a newbie programmer even begin? What if you’re looking to reskill into this discipline, get started as a hobby, or even enjoy crafting particular projects to help with your professional development? All of that is a worthwhile use of your time, and can grant a great deal of satisfaction.
In this post, we’ll discuss how to get your foot in the door of your programmer’s journey, and where to begin. From there, you can begin learning on a path that will be lead by your own interest, dedication, and learning pace. Then you can fuse those skills into any plan most relevant and interesting to you.
So far so good, but where does this journey even start? Let’s dive in and discuss that, below:
Choosing The Right Programming Language
Of course, if you hope to learn programming, it’s best to start by learning a particular language. This way all the rules will remain consistent within that system, and you won’t overload yourself by learning many disparate lessons at once.
However, it’s also important to note that there’s no perfect place to start. Programmers come to the craft in all sorts of ways. Python is continually regarded as one of the easier languages to learn and it’s not without utility (apps like Twitter were built with Python), but it can shorthand some concepts in the nature of accessibility that are also good to know.
C++ is considered a difficult programming language that teaches you the concepts from the ground up. However, it’s also true that it has a wide array of possibilities and utilities, and many programmers suggest that if you learn this first, you can use its logic to much more quickly learn other languages as you move forward.
In other words, you get to choose where to start. You’re not a lesser programmer for making things easier for yourself, after all, a first-time swimmer doesn’t ruin their potential for spending their first five lessons in the shallow end as they learn the different strokes and how to tread water. Consistency, graded incremental lessons, and above all a love for the craft are much more important to have than online bragging rights.
Setting Up Your Development Environment & Learning Focus
So, how do you even start coding in the first place? Do you just type your instructions into a Word document? Put simply, you’ll begin by writing your first code into a development environment. You can think of this as a text editor that has a few additional features worth using.
Some popular choices include Studio Code, PyCharm, Atom, and more, but there are also interesting alternatives you could try as a newbie programmer, too. Sites like Code Academy, Learn Python, Khan Academy and more have beginner coding courses you can spend time learning, and better yet, they have their own development environment you can use for the purposes of learning those basic concepts.
This means that when you transition to a more complex development environment you’ll know what to expend, what the features mean, and which type you prefer. Think of borrowing a guitar from your high school music department as you take lessons – sooner or later you’ll be able to select the kind you most prefer.
Understanding The Basics Of Coding
Think about how you learn any other language, for example, let’s say you’re planning to learn French. To begin with, you need to learn the foundational elements of how the structure of the language works, not just what everything is named.
So for example, for French, you would learn that many words are gendered and that provides context into how you might construct a sentence. The same principle applies to coding, the basics of how the language works help you think laterally as you become more familiar with it.
Variables and data types are a good place to start. These are containers that store data and may be expressed using forms like integers, stringers, and more. You’ll also learn about control structures that define the flow of your coding approach, curating a healthier approach. Operations will manipulate some data, such as by using mathematic variables to provide calculations.
Spend time on the foundations of those concepts within your chosen language, and the structure of its rules will become more familiar to you over time. In that, you have a better chance of feeling a worthwhile step forward.
Writing Your First Program
One of the very first tasks a programmer will apply themselves to returning a “Hello World!” message in the code editor, which refers back to the very first days of coding. The specific syntax might vary depending on your chosen language, but the fundamental concept remains the same from language to language. For instance, in Python, you can achieve this with a simple print(“Hello, World!”) command.
The reason we recommended those first introductory courses beforehand is that these concepts are taught to you incrementally. Once you can print a basic message like this, you can move on to developing more complex returns. Well done, if you’ve managed to implement this code, you’ve become someone who has programmed.
It’s small, but climbing Mount Everest is useless if you don’t know how to take a step forward.
Get Involved In Beginner Dev Communities
One of the best things about programmers is that most of them are online! This means they often share their understanding, work on projects together, and host free projects online for nothing more than the love of the game.
You don’t have to get involved in these communities of course, but immersing yourself in their culture can teach you the kind of lateral knowledge that explicit programming instructions might not teach you. GitHub is one of the best developer communities for sharing projects, and Reddit programming subreddits can also be a fantastic resource to draw from and ask basic questions.
Don’t discount these assistive communities. Odds are if you’re a programmer then computers interest you to begin with, and so siloing yourself from the wider community for authenticity’s sake is only limiting yourself.
Building Simple Projects
Once you grow in confidence with certain programming concepts and details, you might begin to work on projects that don’t have to be constructed from the ground up, but those that achieve a specific task or purpose.
Perhaps you hope to work on the react PDF viewer for your own commercial purposes or even put together a browser extension for programs like Mozilla Firefox to resolve an annoyance you’ve dealt with for yourself. Many people think that programming courses eventually require a position at Google or Microsoft to be valid, but that’s not the case at all. Programming is best expressed by unlocking your autonomy in a digital environment, and building simple projects is where that begins.
Learning To Debug
Programming isn’t just about writing code, but thinking about how you construct layers of instructions over time that end up building a sense of cohesive and coherent logic. As such, flaws are sure to exist, but that’s absolutely fine. In fact, many programmers consider debugging to be one of the main skillsets to learn, because it includes everything, from learning to code cleanly, note-take where you can, and remain logical in your flow.
When your code doesn’t behave as expected, the first step is to identify the problem by carefully examining error messages or unexpected behavior, because that’s a pretty big warning sign that something has gone wrong. Dive into your code to spot syntax errors, misspelled variable names, or logical mistakes, paying attention to even the smallest details – this is a skill you become quite adept at the longer you code, and it will take a good deal of your focus to keep up with. Don’t forget, however, that it’s part of the programmer’s skillset and provides good grist for the mill in your learning journey
Sure, debugging can be frustrating, but view it as a valuable learning opportunity to become a more skilled and resilient programmer, knowing that every bug resolved brings you one step closer to the kind of mastery you’re looking for.
To conclude, programming is a very intense and precise art and craft, and it takes some time to get to grips with it. However, learning the baseline concepts, building on that knowledge, growing in your interest, and connecting with others will always be the best place to start, no matter what language you opt for.
Just like learning an instrument or building a muscle, the more you practice, the more capable you become. Embrace the mistakes you make, and try to put yourself in challenging practical scenarios. That will help you learn and connect to your potential skillset like nothing else. We hope this guide has been a good place for you to start on your journey. Good luck!
