11 answers
Benjamin
Student
Zimmerman, Minnesota
3
Questions
Updated
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What is the easiest order for learning coding languages, and what websites are best for learning them?
I am interested in code and was wondering if someone who was experienced in using online websites to learn code could tell me which websites work best. I have also heard from a few people that certain coding languages are better to learn first than others. Thank you for your time. #programming #technology #coding #computer-software #computer-science
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11 answers
Atul Bhankharia
Sales
456
Answers
Mount Laurel, New Jersey
Updated
Atul’s Answer
Start learning Python language before any other one due to its flexibility.
Use text book, YouTube and Google search to learn more about it.
Other languages that are widely used in the Corp World are Java, C/C++, GO, and HTML.
Develop good coding habits (use functions/subroutines, avoid duplicate code and do not write “write only code” - others should be able to read and understand what you have coded ) and follow coding conventions so that if you were to debug your software it will be lot easier to find bugs.
Use text book, YouTube and Google search to learn more about it.
Other languages that are widely used in the Corp World are Java, C/C++, GO, and HTML.
Develop good coding habits (use functions/subroutines, avoid duplicate code and do not write “write only code” - others should be able to read and understand what you have coded ) and follow coding conventions so that if you were to debug your software it will be lot easier to find bugs.
Thank you for the advice, Atul.
Benjamin
Indrani Basu
Management
3
Answers
Singapore
Updated
Indrani’s Answer
There are a couple of ways
- Through free online courses ( Udemy , Coursera , edx , Harvard )
- Through simple hands-on lessons from a coach or mentor
- Peer focus groups
It really depends on what is your best learning style
Hope this helps.
- Through free online courses ( Udemy , Coursera , edx , Harvard )
- Through simple hands-on lessons from a coach or mentor
- Peer focus groups
It really depends on what is your best learning style
Hope this helps.
I am really grateful you took the time to answer this question.
Benjamin
I agree with this - following step by step writing the code in online courses like Udemy and Coursera is a great path.
It let's you learn by doing, which is exactly what you would expect to encounter in the workplace.
Nino Mecevic
Dan Wolf
Retired Electrical/Software Engineer and part-time College Professor (BSEET and MS Engineering Management)
124
Answers
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Updated
Dan’s Answer
In general, I don't believe it's a critical decision. Your first language will include many new concepts but later languages will build on what you already know (so you will learn them easier and quicker). The more you know, the easier they are to learn and you will learn more than one in college.
My first language was BASIC (which has evolved to Microsoft Visual Basic).
My second language was assembly language and then different assembly languages, C, Pascal, FORTRAN, HTML, Python, and maybe another one or two. Languages come and go over time and their use is subject to industry, company, and application.
Let's talk about your specific question as it relates to the more modern languages in use today:
Microsoft Visual Basic (VB) is a good first language.
Java is very commonly a suggested first language.
Python is another highly recommended language.
C is still very common for engineering applications although it doesn't seem to be as "fashionable" as it once was.
If you lean towards an engineering software degree then think about C or Python. If you lean towards business software then think about Java or VB. In either case you should be able to acquire free versions of each of them as well as plenty of free online classes and tutorials.
You can also do a Google search for "what are the most popular computer languages" and read about the languages that I have suggested.
My first language was BASIC (which has evolved to Microsoft Visual Basic).
My second language was assembly language and then different assembly languages, C, Pascal, FORTRAN, HTML, Python, and maybe another one or two. Languages come and go over time and their use is subject to industry, company, and application.
Let's talk about your specific question as it relates to the more modern languages in use today:
Microsoft Visual Basic (VB) is a good first language.
Java is very commonly a suggested first language.
Python is another highly recommended language.
C is still very common for engineering applications although it doesn't seem to be as "fashionable" as it once was.
If you lean towards an engineering software degree then think about C or Python. If you lean towards business software then think about Java or VB. In either case you should be able to acquire free versions of each of them as well as plenty of free online classes and tutorials.
You can also do a Google search for "what are the most popular computer languages" and read about the languages that I have suggested.
I'm excited to put your great advice to good use!
Benjamin
Joseph Neilson
Radiation Detection Physicist
193
Answers
England, England
Updated
Joseph’s Answer
My personal journey with coding started with dabbling with QBASIC on my own, and a little bit of HTML. From there, I was guided by what I studied at University, which started with C, built into C++, then did a bit of FORTRAN because that's still common in my industry. I've used a bit of C++ in the workplace, and also started playing with Python now.
Times have moved on since I started, however, and pre-VB variants of BASIC are not really suited for learning best coding techniques anymore - you're likely to pick up bad practices.
Mostly, you'll find once you've understood the basics, swapping between languages is fairly easy, so I wouldn't worry too much about your choice of first language. I'd personally probably choose something with a C-like syntax (C, C++, C#, Java etc), but there are other options.
One thing I did find confusing was that after starting in C and not thinking at all about Object-Orientated code, I found the introduction of objects and classes in C++ a bit confusing and it took me a while to understand what it's all for - so I'd say it's probably a good thing to get early exposure to OOP in one of your first languages.
In terms of resources, I was guided more by books than websites, but there's certainly a lot of good resources out there now. I think the best ones depend on what language you're learning, so it's difficult to make recommendations, but when it comes to getting really stuck and having questions answered, I can often find an answer on forums or questions-communities like StackExchange.
Times have moved on since I started, however, and pre-VB variants of BASIC are not really suited for learning best coding techniques anymore - you're likely to pick up bad practices.
Mostly, you'll find once you've understood the basics, swapping between languages is fairly easy, so I wouldn't worry too much about your choice of first language. I'd personally probably choose something with a C-like syntax (C, C++, C#, Java etc), but there are other options.
One thing I did find confusing was that after starting in C and not thinking at all about Object-Orientated code, I found the introduction of objects and classes in C++ a bit confusing and it took me a while to understand what it's all for - so I'd say it's probably a good thing to get early exposure to OOP in one of your first languages.
In terms of resources, I was guided more by books than websites, but there's certainly a lot of good resources out there now. I think the best ones depend on what language you're learning, so it's difficult to make recommendations, but when it comes to getting really stuck and having questions answered, I can often find an answer on forums or questions-communities like StackExchange.
Taylor Girard
17
Answers
Long Beach, California
Updated
Taylor’s Answer
I think python is the best to start with. Then move on to Java, then C++, and then whatever else strikes your interest. FreeCodeCamp is a great website to learn the basics on. Other than that, just make little projects and try to learn through experience.
Zohra Anwar
Developer
21
Answers
New York, New York
Updated
Zohra’s Answer
Hi Benjamin,
The best thing to learn it to simply start, make mistakes and grow. There are a lot of learning tools out there. I used Flatiron school's free online course starting with HTML, CSS, and JS. You'll have folks you can reach out to as late as 1 in the morning 7 days a week to get help with bugs in your code. It's very community oriented and I loved that.
All the documentation and instructions are on the site, as well as IDE and running your code to live online help.
Good Luck!
The best thing to learn it to simply start, make mistakes and grow. There are a lot of learning tools out there. I used Flatiron school's free online course starting with HTML, CSS, and JS. You'll have folks you can reach out to as late as 1 in the morning 7 days a week to get help with bugs in your code. It's very community oriented and I loved that.
All the documentation and instructions are on the site, as well as IDE and running your code to live online help.
Good Luck!
I appreciate your support, Zohra
Benjamin
Kapil Gupta
Director - Product Management and Engineering
2
Answers
Dallas, Texas
Updated
Kapil’s Answer
I would highly recommend looking at udacity that has some awesome coding courses coming directly from top engineers at Google and other FAANG companies. Are hands-on and good way to learn programming. Other resources like udemy, edx and coursera are also pretty neat. You may also look at MIT, Stanford, Cornell, etc remote learning websites that make full courses in computer engineering from some great professors available free of cost.
Adam Clark
5
Answers
Updated
Adam’s Answer
I would start with Python, and use text books, online tutorials and join peer groups, many groups are provided free training opportunities by companies such as Amazon and Google.
Thank you for the advice.
Benjamin
Rebecca Tang
Banking
1507
Answers
Hong Kong
Updated
Rebecca’s Answer
I am glad to hear that you are interested on coding. The best way to learn coding is to learn the fundamental syntax of the coding language and then start your own coding.
I would suggest you try the approach below :
1. Start with some simply programming language first, e.g. Python, Scratch, etc.
2. Look for some websites to learn the syntax. There are plenty of website having the material. You can identify one which suits you the best.
3. Start to do some simple programming, e.g. control a robot, robotics car, etc.
4. After you are familiar with the programming language, you can do more complex programming or learn another one using similar apporach.
Hope this helps! Good Luck!
I would suggest you try the approach below :
1. Start with some simply programming language first, e.g. Python, Scratch, etc.
2. Look for some websites to learn the syntax. There are plenty of website having the material. You can identify one which suits you the best.
3. Start to do some simple programming, e.g. control a robot, robotics car, etc.
4. After you are familiar with the programming language, you can do more complex programming or learn another one using similar apporach.
Hope this helps! Good Luck!
Thank you!
Benjamin
Jerome Levy
81
Answers
Updated
Jerome’s Answer
Although Python's very popular, versatile, and flexible, it can quickly become rather complex to understand. If you're really just starting out, you may want to investigate something like Microsoft's Visual Basic. Many of us started out with Basic before moving to more advanced languages like C / C++ or Python in order to get our feet wet; it's easy for beginners to grasp but gives you the ability to quickly produce working code.
Another thing to consider, if you have time and resources, is learning something about Assembly language and exactly how computers work before jumping into higher-level coding. You don't have to be a hardware expert or advanced assembler guru, but knowing what memory addressing means, what logical operators and bit-shifts do, and how I/O is handled will give you a strong foundation for your programming skills.
Good luck and happy coding!
Another thing to consider, if you have time and resources, is learning something about Assembly language and exactly how computers work before jumping into higher-level coding. You don't have to be a hardware expert or advanced assembler guru, but knowing what memory addressing means, what logical operators and bit-shifts do, and how I/O is handled will give you a strong foundation for your programming skills.
Good luck and happy coding!
I will use this advice as I prepare for my career.
Benjamin
Dev Vasavada
Network Engineer
1
Answer
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Updated
Dev’s Answer
Hey Benjamin,
It is awesome that you are interested in coding. There are so many resources out there (paid and free) that it can be overwhelming sometimes to pick out the best ones. I would know I was in that position once. The first thing I did was I actually took time to discover which learning methods suits me. I personally am a visual, hands-on learner (reading textbooks is not for me :P). Based on that I looked up ways where I can actually learn through hands-on projects.
Youtube has tons of (lengthy) videos that actually explains the concepts via building small demo-projects. A couple of my favourite YouTubers are TechWorld with Nana and Programming with Mosh. As I mentioned before some of these are lengthy and I would not recommend doing it all in one sitting. Do a couple of concepts at a single sitting and take breaks. Then practice is key, reinforce what you have learned by googling easy projects, code that project by yourself, and then compare it with the solution provided. A great resource for that is CodingBat (linked below) or google "easy projects in [insert programming language]".
Another great resource that I had stumbled upon when I was learning how to code was Harvard's CS50 course. It is free and the instructor's teaching style is amazing. I believe the entire course is available on Youtube or EDX.com also has it. I recently heard that there is a new course called CS50P on edx that is entirely self-paced and I think it is starting on April 1 2022. Another great resource that I reference is W3 schools there explanations are easy to understand and they follow up with examples that you can test.
With regards to what programming language start with, Python is an amazing one with roots in a lot of domains of technology. JavaScript is another one that is also popular and easy. JavaScript is pretty useful if you might go into web development. I think when it comes to programming the big thing to learn is the core concepts behind how these languages function then the syntax is just something you can learn as you go.
Links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8pPdKYpowI
https://www.w3schools.com/python/python_intro.asp
https://codingbat.com/about.html
https://codecombat.com/
https://www.edx.org/course/cs50s-introduction-to-programming-with-python
Good luck friend :)
It is awesome that you are interested in coding. There are so many resources out there (paid and free) that it can be overwhelming sometimes to pick out the best ones. I would know I was in that position once. The first thing I did was I actually took time to discover which learning methods suits me. I personally am a visual, hands-on learner (reading textbooks is not for me :P). Based on that I looked up ways where I can actually learn through hands-on projects.
Youtube has tons of (lengthy) videos that actually explains the concepts via building small demo-projects. A couple of my favourite YouTubers are TechWorld with Nana and Programming with Mosh. As I mentioned before some of these are lengthy and I would not recommend doing it all in one sitting. Do a couple of concepts at a single sitting and take breaks. Then practice is key, reinforce what you have learned by googling easy projects, code that project by yourself, and then compare it with the solution provided. A great resource for that is CodingBat (linked below) or google "easy projects in [insert programming language]".
Another great resource that I had stumbled upon when I was learning how to code was Harvard's CS50 course. It is free and the instructor's teaching style is amazing. I believe the entire course is available on Youtube or EDX.com also has it. I recently heard that there is a new course called CS50P on edx that is entirely self-paced and I think it is starting on April 1 2022. Another great resource that I reference is W3 schools there explanations are easy to understand and they follow up with examples that you can test.
With regards to what programming language start with, Python is an amazing one with roots in a lot of domains of technology. JavaScript is another one that is also popular and easy. JavaScript is pretty useful if you might go into web development. I think when it comes to programming the big thing to learn is the core concepts behind how these languages function then the syntax is just something you can learn as you go.
Links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8pPdKYpowI
https://www.w3schools.com/python/python_intro.asp
https://codingbat.com/about.html
https://codecombat.com/
https://www.edx.org/course/cs50s-introduction-to-programming-with-python
Good luck friend :)