Teach Yourself Coding: 7 Free Steps to Be a Self Taught Programmer
Slowly but surely, the world is being digitized. Even our cars now run on computer codes. Computer programmers are generally well paid and are much sought after.This is the reason why there are a lot of people who want to learn computer programming. However, many are intimidated on the alleged difficulty in learning computer programming. Computer programming degrees are also quite expensive.
But this doesn’t have to be as proven by many tech entrepreneurs who are college dropouts or never took computer programming degrees.
For example, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook fame coded Facebook while still attending college. He eventually dropped out of college after Facebook became famous.
I myself never had a computer programming degree then yet was able to work as a computer programmer and IT professional. I learned computer programming and IT by myself.
Here are a few facts and steps you should consider if you want to self learn computer coding and have a career as a computer programmer:
Note: These information are derived from my own experience as a self taught computer programmer and IT professional for several years.
Summary:
The benefits of learning computer programmingHow schools usually teach programming
How to learn programming by yourself for free
7 Free Steps to Be a Self Taught Computer Programmer:
1. Familiarize yourself with Wordpress
2. Learn website programming
3. Learn C programming
4. Know the concepts first
5. Learn by example
6. Start with simple codes
7. Join a community or forum sites
Final Words
The Details:
- The benefits of learning computer programming
The world is being digitized. Computer codes no longer exist only in computers. Computer codes can be found in your smartphone, appliances, electronics, cars, machines and so on.
In short, computer codes are all around us if you live in an urban environment. There is no escaping it. Even farmers are learning to program because farm machines also now use computer codes.
Word processors, spreadsheets and other productivity softwares including websites now require a certain degree of programming skills.
If you don’t learn computer programming, there is a high chance in the future that you won’t be able to properly operate the machines around you. Being able to code means you would be a person who is in demand among a world of people without coding skills.
Also, computer programmers are generally well paid and there is always a continuous demand for them, especially those with specialist skills.
Another thing to consider is prestige. The public, especially those who are not computer literate have the perception that people who know how to code are smart.
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- How schools usually teach programming
I did have one short course during my college days but it was so basic and I have to even share a computer in our computer laboratory. Also, the programming language I learned during college is already obsolete today just like many early programming languages.
I might not have learned much during this one lesson in college but it taught me the most important concept of computer programming. You see, computer programming is just like learning a new foreign language and is much easier these days.
I would go as far as stating that learning a new foreign language or dialect is much more harder than learning a computer language. This is because computers are logical. It’s either you correctly program a computer or not, whatever you program would be the result you would get.
The schools would teach you the concepts of the computer programming language, let you do computer programming exercises on the computer and then give you a computer programming project. This is how my school teach computer programming.
But computer programming cannot be learned properly without a computer. So for the better part of my computer classes, the professor just gave us a book, gave access to a computer and then left us alone to learn by ourselves.
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- How to learn programming by yourself for free
The best answer to this question nowadays is to simply watch YouTube videos about computer programming. Of course, you could go with the more expensive option with paid online courses about computer programming.
I myself had not enrolled into any paid online computer programming courses and as each day passes, the more I’m not inclined to do so. This is because of the sheer amount of quality and quantity of free online computer programming tutorials that can be found online.
There are even entire courses that can be freely found online. For example, FreeCodeCamp.org provides hours of free online computer programming lessons for free.
Though the hours of sheer length of these tutorial videos might seem daunting and can be exhausting, I suggest that you start with these exhaustive introductions to computer programming languages to give you a solid background on them.
To learn programming, all you need to do is to search YouTube and Google Search for free programming videos, courses and websites.
The only time you would probably need paid courses is if you want to be a certified computer programmer together with the accompanying diploma/learning certifications as well as the advanced knowledge, if there are.
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- 7 Free Steps to Be a Self Taught Programmer:
1. Familiarize yourself with Wordpress
Everyone is familiar with what a website is. Websites should be your gateway into learning programming, and the gateway to website programming is WordPress.
In case you are not familiar with Wordpress, it is an automated website builder. Most websites today are created using Wordpress.
It pays to learn Wordpress because if ever you become a professional computer programmer, no matter what language you specialize in, you’ll probably touch on websites with a high probability that is made in Wordpress.
The beauty of Wordpress is that it is so easy learn. You don’t even need to learn computer programming to use Wordpress.
Wordpress also comes with a lot of premade plug-ins which can be free or paid. In theory, you can create a website using only Wordpress without having to learn computer programming.
There is also a good demand for Wordpress experts. You can actually have a job creating websites even if you only know Wordpress.
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2. Learn website programming
Sooner or later, you would encounter the limitations of Wordpress. You would need to actually now learn a fair bit of computer programming to go past the limitations of Wordpress.
At this stage, you must now learn:
2.1 HTML:
Hypertext Markup Language or HTML is the computer language websites are made of. But don’t be intimidated by it. HTML is mainly a text formatting language for website texts. It is like learning a word processor program which in itself is very easy already.
2.2 CSS:
Cascading Style Sheets or CSS is also a text formatting language for website texts, only it concentrates on how text, image and other website contents are presented in a website. It is also like learning a word processor for a website.
2.3 PHP:
Personal Home Page used to be the meaning of PHP. Now it stands for the recursive initialism PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor. Although you are now formally in computer programming territory when you learn this, it is still one of the easiest computer language to learn.
I learned the basics of PHP in an hour and began programming in PHP after. This is how easy it is to learn PHP.
Why is it I’m pushing that you learn website programming first? Because you can become proficient in HTML, CSS and PHP in less than a day. In a short time only, you can program your own website and in due time apply for a website programmer job.
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3. Learn C programming
The first tip I can give to aspiring computer programmers is to learn the C Programming Language first after learning website programming. Secondly: Once you learn C, learning other programming languages won’t be that difficult and can in fact be easy.
These two tips of mine are interconnected with each other. This is because the C programming language is the most popular computer programming language being used today. There might be a lot of variants of the C programming language, but the basics had stayed the same.
There are many C Programming language tutorials you can find online. For example, simply typing the search terms: “c programming full course” on YouTube would yield plenty of videos about the C programming language and its many variants.
Also, simply typing the search terms: “c programming language” in Google would yield plenty of in-depth instructional articles about the C programming language. You can choose which ones suit your learning style.
You might be better suited to learning interactively with websites that teach computer programming or you might be better suited to learning computer programming by watching YouTube programming videos. Know your learning pattern.
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4. Know the concepts first
The first things you should learn about whatever computer language you’re learning are the concepts. This means learning the commands, syntax, operands and all the other aspects of the computer language.
Avoid programming if you haven’t learned the concepts thoroughly. The concepts are like the roadmaps of a computer language.
Just like going on a journey without a map, not learning the concepts of a computer language can leave you lost or stuck in your programming attempt.
Tip: Once you learn the concepts of a particular computer language, especially the C programming language, you would notice that it is easy to understand the concepts of other computer programming languages.
So, don’t skip on learning the concepts of your first computer programming language, it might be your clue to the other concepts of other computer programming languages, saving you time later in learning other computer programming languages.
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5. Learn by example
Learning computer programming can be boring especially in the beginning. Not many people sit through hours long programming tutorials. Many people these days want instant gratification and have very short attention spans.
If you’re this kind of person, you might be more advised to deliberately seek out YouTube videos and website tutorials that are more to the point. Let’s say that you wanted to program a Flappy Bird style videogame using the Unity videogame programming platform.
Then your search should be more in the line of: “flappy bird programming using unity. If you type this search term in YouTube, you would be shown plenty of videos which exactly contains what you expected.
The same is true if you Google Search the previously mentioned search term: You would be shown both videos and websites that would teach you what you exactly wanted to learn. To be honest, this is how I learned videogame programming.
If you must know, many videogame programmers and app developers usually find a source code (the programming software for a program) and then just modify it to fit their needs. This is because there are already many source codes available online that are free or for sale online.
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6. Start with simple codes
Even though you see complete computer codes online, it is not generally advised that you copy the entire program.
This is because even a small error in the copying process of a computer code can result in the computer code being useless or faulty.
Debugging complex computer codes is not only hard and depressing, but could even be next to impossible.
When you program, even if you’re just copying a code, write or copy only in small snippets. Make sure that the snippet you wrote or copied actually works before adding more code to it.
This also enables you to develop a map of the computer code in your mind, so that in case you have a computer bug, you can easily trace where you made the mistake.
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7. Join a community or forum sites
Even at your initial steps in learning how to program, you should already join online computer programming communities and/or forum sites.
This way, when you have any difficulties in learning how to program or have a problem in the computer software you’re developing, you’ll have online companions to assist you.
I have used such online forums as Stack Overflow whenever I have programming questions or problems.
In fact, there are software companies that specifically hire programmers who have a good presence in Stack Overflow and similar online forums.
Besides programming questions and problems, these online forums are also good for finding computer programming jobs.
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Final Words
Learning computer programming these days is easy especially with the abundance of free and paid tutorials online. You can watch short and long videos in YouTube or go to one of the many interactive websites that teach about programming.
The first thing you should learn is Wordpress followed by the website creation languages such as HTML, CSS and PHP.
Then you can learn the C programming language whose concepts and commands are similar to other programming languages. Learning other languages would be easier if you know the C programming language.
Lastly, don’t be intimated by computer programming languages. Learning them is just like learning other foreign languages in english.
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