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How should I teach myself to code? What should I learn first? Where should I go?

Hi! My name is Anina and I'm a high school senior interning at Career Village. I would never call myself a professional programmer, and I was wondering how I should go about completely restarting and learning to code from the ground up. #technology #programming #software-engineering #coding

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Nithin’s Answer

Hi Anina,

Step.1 Pick a programming language such as c/c++/python to name a few and star learning.
Step.2 Learn Data Structures and Algorithms
Step.3 Pick a topic such as arrays or DP(dynamic programming) etc. and start solving problems from leetcode.com.
Step.4 Do step 3 until you get a good understanding on all the topics on leetcode.
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Glenn’s Answer

It honestly depends on what you want to do. There is not a single coder that knows all languages/platforms to code in. The more you know, though, the easier it is to pick up other languages. I'd recommend aligning the platform you choose to what you want to achieve (e.g., what job you want, what technologies you can ACTUALLY practice at home, what technologies will feed into your desired jobs, etc). Like others have stated, the lower the starting point, the better grasp you will have on higher-level languages! Also take a look at HTML since many applications are now cloud-based. In fact, it seems that most applications worth anything eventually make their way into the cloud. Once a core code is tried and proven, it usually gets formalized and thus disciplines are built off of the code (think workflows, backups, projections, statistics, enterprise management, delegation of duties, legal reviews, etc). All of this is considered "overhead" to a piece of code that was originally completed in a weekend! You'll see that all of this overhead is best developed in the cloud (multi-user = key) and coding robust client applications takes a lot of time... especially when the client doesn't know what he/she wants!!

Anyway, you should start with a language you would like to pursue. Stick with it and work on projects that will teach you something valuable. If you "dabble" in other languages, make sure to always save/archive your code because potential employers will ask about them if they are included on a resume (e.g., what did you code in C when you were in college?). You will want to explain what valuable lessons you learned from those projects.

Best of luck!
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Felipe’s Answer

Hi Anina


When I started at the univerisity a long time ago, I started learning C programming with a nice book How to Program from Prentice Hall, this language although old still continues to be used in some companies, however to start learning from the basics depending on what you like, you can program in visual basic (old one but easy to learn) or if you would like to program web applications I suggest something like Perl, PHP or Phyton, I did not know much about PHP before, and a few months ago I started to self study and developed some basic web programs, is simple, there are a lot of information available in the web about it, however what you need first is to understand the logics behind an algorithm, you have to figure it out first how to solve the problem and then start programming in any language you know. So to understand basics of algorithm design you should start to learn first from a book or website that teaches you how to design algorithms (such as Essential Algorithms: A practical Approach to Computer Algorithms, or Khan Academy site or Learn Algorithms site), and you can practice what you learn in any desired language. Start with the basics, with a beginner level so you don't get disappointed and grow your knowledge as you learn more and more.
Felipe
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Sonya’s Answer

Look at https://www.freecodecamp.org/
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Gary’s Answer

Hi,
Some of this information is from a website, www dot codementor dot io.
Python is another highly recommended language for beginners, and is the most popular introductory language at Top U.S. Universities.
Also, Javascript & Ruby are good for beginners.
There is another website, codeacademy dot com that offers some free coding training.
Good luck.
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