Programming is the most valuable skill of the 21st century. The ability to write code will significantly accelerate your career growth and increase your income. However, many people are afraid to start, or after the first attempts they give up this venture. Owlab has prepared for our readers the top 10 ways to learn code! Following our advice and having your own desire to change something in your life, you can definitely learn a programming language. The most important thing is to just start.
10. For what purposes do you need programming?
Your goals determine your learning plan. Do you want to learn programming languages just as a hobby, or do you want to make some serious changes in your life? How much time and effort are you willing to devote to the learning process? In any case, if you want to try yourself in IT but still don’t know which direction to choose, sign up for free online courses. Often these courses allow you to superficially walk through all aspects of the IT field and give you an understanding of what exactly you like.
9. Choose a programming language
There is no "correct" programming language, so don't get hung up on choosing a language. Once you master one of the languages, the second will be much easier for you. It is worth starting from your inclinations.
For example, Python is considered a fairly simple and convenient language to learn, so it is often recommended for beginners. You can start with it, and then master the rest of the basics of web development. If you are targeting iOS mobile app development, then you should pay attention to “Swift”, for Android mobile app development, Java is a great option.
8. Break big goals into small tasks
Start small and... Be patient, because the main thing is to start. In our company, one of the QA specialists decided to retrain as a front-end developer. For 10 weeks, he gradually mastered HTML, CSS and JavaScript and was able to lay out his first website. By breaking down his goal into smaller tasks, deleting and reproducing the same code several times, our employee achieved great success in learning.
7. Try learning games
There are a large number of games on the Internet that help in learning programming from scratch. Learning something while playing is much more enjoyable than reading books, right? Even children learn the basics of programming, so we at Owlab are confident that you can handle this task 100%. Below we leave a few examples:
- CodinGame
- CSS Diner
- Flexbox Froggy
6. Interactive Tutorials
If learning games are too “easy” for you, you can try interactive tutorials for learning programming languages. There are both paid and free tutorials, but the subscription is not very expensive, so it's a great option. Interactive tutorials are divided into 2 halves, on one side is information and a task, and on the other side is a field for entering a code. It's very convenient, just try it.
5. Online courses and trainings
Online learning is a great opportunity to acquire the skills you need. Platforms like Udemy or Coursera can give you access to the best learning materials for a small price. Some platforms offer a very high quality university level curriculum. YouTube also has a lot of free and good material from lecturers that can help you learn coding from scratch.
4. Free Programming Books
If you are stuck on some problem or need to find the answer to your question, do not forget about reference books. GitHub has a huge collection of over 500 free programming books. An e-book collection covering 24 programming languages is also available.
3. Find a mentor
The programming community is full of people who are ready to help the next generation. People can help you for money or for free, you can start searching on platforms like GitHub or CodeMentor.
2. Become a mentor
Helping beginners, having some little knowledge and experience behind you, you can also learn a lot. While teaching other people, you learn along with them, no matter how paradoxical it may sound, but mentoring is one of the most effective ways to learn coding.
1. Parse someone else's code
By rewriting someone else's code, examining each line for errors, you can better understand the big picture. Thanks to open source code, you have the opportunity to learn anything - keep learning using an incremental hacker approach. Just don't forget to share your code if you manage to improve some of the software.
0. Do not stop
Learning coding is a laborious but very interesting process. Feelings after the first site created by you personally are simply indescribable. There are many ways to learn, if something doesn't work for you the first time - choose a different approach, because this is the whole point.
Owlab wishes you success in your studies, and wishes you to become a professional in web development, or mobile app development, or whatever field you choose. We hope this article helped you! And by the way, Owlab is always looking for cool specialists like you, so after training, you can send us a job application!
Good luck :)
