Where to start as a Newbie Developer
When I started learning and teaching myself how to code, the biggest question I never got any help with was where to start. Today with all the videos on youtube, vimeo and tutorials and blogs about everything possible, you would think that this problem is no longer an issue but as I speak with people that want to become programmers, this question always comes up. I just want to mention a few things that in my opinion would be the right place to start depending on what your starting point is.
If you are someone who has no experience with software or computers at all and are intrested in computer programming, then you need to learn how to think like a computer programmer(There are free books and courses that would help with this. A simple google search would do). You should learn how to analyse problems and get comfortable with complexity. Enjoy puzzles and forge a liking for challenging what is the main train for thought or belief you find everywhere. The reason I say this is that no matter what syntax you master or programming language you choose to get proficient in, you will still be required to analyse a problem in a field you have no clue about and you will asked to answer their questions using computer technology. I dare say that we are paid to think first about a problem before we are paid to resolve and sort out any issues anywhere.
If you are someone who has had some exposure to computer technology and are interested in learning computer programming then here is what I think: all programming languages have very similar philosophies so loops, conditionals, data structures are alike across most languages. So get language agnostic materials that address these topics and learn from them. If you are interested in languages like C#, Typescript, Javascript, Java, C++, Python or Php then Object Oriented Programming Principles are a must.
There are 2 main programming paradigms you see out there, Object Oriented and Functional paradigms. Some languages are smack in the middle of these two, languages like Javascript, Python and Kotlin to mention a few. But then there are others that are extremely Object Oriented, think Java, C++, C# and extremely Functional, think Haskell, Scala. You should pick a paradigm to master. For most cases, I would point folks towards functional purely because it being embraced in the main stream now more than ever before. But I personally like Object Oriented being that I learnt programming learning this paradigm.
Lastly, I like making things as clear as possible so I will condense all I would like to say into a few numbered steps:
- Learn to think like a computer scientist. Computer science is basically the science of problem solving.
- Pick a programming paradigm, Functional or Object Oriented. Default to the more recently accepted Functional paradigm but you would not be lost at sea if you chose Object Oriented.
- Programming language syntax are very similar so don’t bog yourself down learning and mastering syntax in the early stages. Focus on things that transcend langauges and master those…things like data structures, algorithms and problem solving.
- Stay hungry and be willing to read, listen, observe and learn all that you can when you can.
- Most importantly, share your knowlegde with someone. You never truly own knowlegde you haven’t shared.