Don’t start with classes. Start with something that actually does something you understand. Like updating text files. Or pulling data about something you find interesting
https://automatetheboringstuff.com/
Is a good book every newbie should read. It teaches you how to use programming like a tool
This is the book that started it all for me 5 years ago. Now I’m a software engineer!
Lots of good technical starting points here. I don’t want to prematurely discourage you, but before you get into any code, evaluate your problem solving abilities. If that is an area you struggle in, work on that first, or at least in conjunction with programming basics.
I’ve worked with engineers who have all the code skills, but when faced with a complex issue, struggled to break it down into it’s simplest components and wound up with a messy, over-engineered solution.
particularly nasty situation, for real. in my experience, they know the bits of a framework, but they’ll never get to write a modest regex: they’ll have opinions on that too.
That’s why I don’t get tired recommending How to solve it to engineers of every level
Just ordered a copy!
Should have added a disclaimer: it was written by a mathematician in 1948, so it’s a bit of a dry read 😅
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It depends what you want to do.
Do you want to make cool desktop apps? Probably something like Rust or C#.
Do you want to do machine learning or scientific research applications? Definitely Python.
Do you want to make websites and web apps? Definitely HTML, CSS, and JavaScript (look up both Node.js and DOM API). You could also learn other server side languages like Ruby, Java, or PHP, but knowing browser side JS gets you half way to knowing server side JS, so Node would be easiest. If you want strict typing, you can learn TypeScript, which adds a strong typing system to JavaScript.
Do you want to make mobile apps? Probably Dart and Flutter. Also could learn Kotlin or Java for Android, or Swift or Objective-C for iOS.
Do you want to get into the nitty gritty of kernel level programming or embedded programming? Probably C and Rust.
Do you want to work on old software that runs mostly banking/enterprise/medical applications, but can land you a pretty lucrative job? Maybe COBOL, Fortran, or Ada.
Do you want to accomplish nothing of value? Visual Basic. (Just kidding.)
The most important thing you can do is to just jump into things and try them out. In my career, I’ve switched languages several times. If you’ve got the fundamentals down, learning a new language isn’t that hard, so just pick any language you want and learn the fundamentals with it. I’d recommend a strictly typed language at first, because it’s easier to wrap your head around what’s going on, but if that doesn’t feel right, don’t hesitate to switch to something else. Have fun with whatever you’re learning. :)
C# is also very nice for server side and mobile apps as well as desktop. And game development too. To be honest, I would suggest learning C# to new programmers.
Learning Java for android is still useful as a lot of legacy stuff is Java, but given Google has gone Kotlin first, and Kotlin is IMO easier and less error prone, dipping their toes in that first would probably be the better move.
You can always circle back to Java, you will need to understand it if you get serious about Android development.
Thanks for the correction, I added it to my post.
Kotlin is IMO easier and less error prone
I’m no Kotlin expert, but I think Kotlin has a far more extensive core language and requires a heavier cognitive load to get up and running than Java.
It might have better developer experience and be less error-prone, but that comes at a price of admission that newbies have to pay.
I would disadvise Rust for (most) desktop apps. There aren’t any GUI libraries yet, and the Qt bindings aren’t beginner-friendly yet.
Unless you just meant headless desktop apps, in which case Rust is my goto
There’s Tauri. Basically Electron with Rust instead of Node.
You can make an app with Tauri without writing a single line of Rust though. Tauri lets you trigger most native functionality you might need from the JavaScript side. If that’s enough for what you are building then you don’t need to write any Rust. You could use a Rust web framework that compiles to WebAssembly, but you could also just use React or Svelte or whatever else.
There’s Tauri.
…and now your newbie has to onboard onto not only Rust (?!) but also HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to render “Hello World”.
There are GUI libraries. I personally use iced a lot. Even if it’s not v1.0 yet, it has many features. There are also bindings for other more common libraries such as GTK, QT and imgui. There’s also egui as a native rust alternative to imgui.
First time I see “cool” and “c#” on the same sentence. I’ve always thought stereotype of c# is that it is the language for corporate, extremely uncool projects.
Just a comment. Cobol nowadays is heavily outsourced. There are jobs but not so lucrative as in the past. Fortran is still strong in scientific computing, but nowadays it is wrapped in python. All people I know who were strong in fortran (me included) are nowadays mostly working with python or scala, most of us on ML/AI related stuff.
I believe Fortran is still heavily used in weather forecasting.
All scientific computing is built on top of fortran. Even cutting edge AI runs on top of high performance libraries written in fortran and c. Simply there is less need for fortran developers because high performance subroutines are wrapped to be called by higher level languages, such as python
The question is a bit too vague to answer, there’s not really any right answer.
Just - find what you like to do with it, and go for it. Want to make a game? Maybe play around with Godot or unreal engine or something.
Do you have any repetitive task that you’re doing a lot that you could maybe automate? - try doing that.
You can read some books or watch some tutorials or something, but the best way to actually learn is to actually program.
What’s your age? Ideally, you’ll want at least some knowledge about logic and logical operations: TRUE, FALSE, AND, OR, etc.
Following that, “which language” might be a rather tricky question. Python and Javascript are “good starters”, but they might also “teach” you some bad habits. They’re also highly sought after if you’re looking into possible future jobs.
Personally, I’d recommend starting with either Java or Go. Both have lots of learning material and plenty of jobs, but they should also put you in the “proper” mindset of programming.
I don’t think boolean logic is a necessary prerequisite for coding, if you don’t know it yet it makes more sense to learn about it when you come across a programing problem where you’ll want to use it imo
I second Java. It’s easy to get into, has a lot of materials online, and is statically typed which is great for teaching. Most people who start with Python or JS didn’t have a good grasp of variable types and often make more mistakes.
Follow a guide to make a todolist in a language that’s popular for things you’re interested in.
- Games - C# (medium), C++ (hard)
- Webpages/Webapps - JS/TS (medium)
- Microcontroller - Python (easy), C (medium), Rust (hard)
- Datascience and machine learning - Python
- Automate shell - Bash
- Automate w scripts - Python / JS
- Game mods - Look up for each game
- Android - Java
- iOS - Swift
For each make a UI and connect to any database that’s convenient.
If you want to setup a server you’ll need to figure out how to communicate via http.
Making a Todo list app covers most of the “mundane” programmer problems in each language and is a byte sized problem (hehe). After that choose something bigger or post again. Good luck!
Pick Rust, learn Bevy, and make a Flappy Bird clone. Is it the best way? Who cares just get started.
You could mull over and discuss a million different ways to get started. The most important thing is to be decisive and just do
Pick Rust
Rust is renowned for being hard and frustrating to onboard onto. I don’t think this is a wise suggestion.
https://users.rust-lang.org/t/is-rust-lang-hard-for-a-beginner/93395/2
Rust is renowned for being hard and frustrating to onboard onto. I don’t think this is a wise suggestion.
You missed the point
You missed the point
What point do you think I missed?
What I said:
You could mull over and discuss a million different ways to get started. The most important thing is to be decisive and just do
We could go on for hours debating what the best beginner language, environment, project, etc is, but the important thing is that they pick something and do it.
I gave them a specific thing to get started on. That’s the important thing.
Learning programming is gonna be hard. They’re gonna face issues no matter what, so like I said:
Is it the best way? Who cares just get started
That’s why I said you missed the point. I don’t think you read my reply at all and just stopped at the first word lol
I get what you’re saying, and jumping in and getting started is exactly what OP needs to do. However, if they read your comment and take your advise, they might be inclined to take ALL your advice and starting them with a difficult language when they know nothing is probably a bad idea. It’s like you have embedded bad advise inside your good advise, and someone who knows nothing won’t be able to see that. If OP’s still reading these comments, just replace rust with C# or HTML/CSS depending on what you’re into and then reread KindaABigDyl’s first comment.
If you’re coming in from zero, a good place to start is https://www.hedycode.com/
Hedy is a language specifically designed for learning. The things it does to ease the learning curve:
- Comes with an online lesson program, so no setup (try it now!)
- Has “levels” built-in to the language itself, to slowly introduce concepts and avoid accidentally running into harder/advanced things and getting stuck
- As levels advance, it slowly becomes Python, a very popular and ubiquitous programming language, so no “switching to the real thing later”.
- Is textual, so also no “switching to the real thing later” – it’s “real” from the start
Really depends on your age and interests
I started learning programming concepts as a teen by using RPG Maker. It introduced me to concepts such as variables, conditions, loops in a “low code” environment.
Thing is, I had a reachable goal which made it easier for me to learn and feel good as I had a tangible result. Things such as “I want to add a point everytime I touch X item” where very good for this.
IMO, I wouldn’t worry too much about the language at first and focus on small reachable goals you want to achieve. But to each his own way of learning.
Like games? You should probably check out GDevelop.
Want to automate some of your online tasks? Maybe n8n.io.
Also, it’s better if the tool you use starts with a high level of abstraction (it’s very esay to use) and allows you to add in some scripts.
If you want to go further, pick a language and go through the basics. And if you’re feeling even more adventurous, head to roadmap.sh to find a learning path towards your goal.
Edit: Also, ChatGPT is really good to teach you IF you always ask it to explain whatever you don’t fully understand in the code it writes
Thing is, I had a reachable goal which made it easier for me to learn and feel good as I had a tangible result.
IMO, this exact thing is what separates the people who succeed and those who give up. If you are only approaching the code as some abstract concept then it will never work. Anyone learning this stuff needs to understand that the code is more like a hammer to a carpenter than anything else… It’s a very physical tool used for doing a real job. If you don’t have any nails to hit, you’re not going to get anything done.
Python.
My recommendation would be to go down the web dev route to start because it’s very easy to create things that you can share easily (everyone has a browser, but not everyone has python installed on their machine, or wants to open an executable). That can be a great motivator.
I still think App Academy’s free bootcamp is one of the most comprehensive resources to go from zero to making small web apps. It’s very hands-on and they have over 200hrs of material, discord community, and it was updated about a year ago. However, it can be quite daunting and you need to have good discipline to keep going.
https://www.appacademy.io/course/app-academy-open
Otherwise, as someone else mentioned, freecodeacademy is a good beginner resource.
I’m going to offer something a bit different. I’ll start by saying that I’ve never actually used it beyond a bit of tinkering and watching the presentation at the Strange Loop conference.a
The basic idea is that it’s actually pretty hard to do things wrong at the start, mostly because you just can’t do much. What you don’t get right has very clear descriptions of what you’ve done wrong, where, and even suggestions for corrections.
As you progress, you can do more and you have a very gradual transition to the more restrictive environment that most programming languages have.
By the time you are done, you are basically programming in Python, so further learning can take place using the myriad of courses, tutorials, and documentation available for that language.
I have no real experience with it beyond some basic tinkering. It is designed for classroom use, or at least on the assumption that there is a teacher or instructor available. That may not translate well to someone learning on their own.
If you want a good understanding of the fundamentals etc, I cannot recommend CS50 enough. The original is more difficult and starts with basic stuff (you’ll be asking the computer for individual pieces of memory etc)
https://cs50.harvard.edu/x/2023/
There’s also a python focused version, which is much easier. But this will make learning other languages in the future a bit more tricky. So, depends what you’d prefer.
https://cs50.harvard.edu/python/2022/
Both are taught by David Malan, a Harvard professor who is easily one of the best lecturers I’ve seen.
Good luck!
Edit: Should’ve mentioned, they are all free or you can pay for a cert with edx.
+1 for CS50. This is where I started and I’ve since transitioned to python. I think the basics will make you a better programmer overall (instead of python first), but it really depends on what you’re looking for.
Python, JavaScript, or (if you have a Mac) maybe Swift.
(Probably not Java or C++. They’re too big.)
But really it doesn’t matter much. CS snobs used to say that “BASIC causes brain damage” but a whole generation of programmers proved that to be wrong. The important part is to keep going and not stop. After you learn one language, learn another. There’s no such thing as a good programmer who only knows one language.
Beyond any of the basics (logic, loops, data types, functions, classes etc), my biggest tip is to come up with a project, and figure out how you want to do it.
Like, you could make a “local weather display”.
This could be purely JavaScript, CSS and HTML, and it runs on a raspberry pi.
Or you could go down an embedded route, use an Arduino, program in c/c++ (even python, node, or rust).Or perhaps you want to make a game, and use c#.
Or some mobile apps, using swift for iOS… Or kotlin for android. Or a language that can compile for both.
Maybe you just want to automate some things on Linux, and some bash scripts are just the ticket.I would suggest learning the basics of programming using JavaScript/node, python or c#.
Then figure out a project, and make it happen.
