Self-taught developer pro tips
I am sharing a learning path to start programming for fun.
This is Vukani Gcabashe, a software engineer / software developer living in South Africa. I am committed to Inspiration Starts Here but also practice programming by making websites or web applications on contract. I love what I do & trying to be quite good at it but getting there is a process, but we can do it together.
Getting into programming:
Disclaimer:
I honestly cannot fully claim to be self-taught, but my understanding of coding and software comes from my computer science degree I couldn't finish, but I would love to share good resources, ideas & tools for getting into programming fundamentals that I have picked up in my growth and realized you can get without going for a degree.
Facts First:
Programming as a field is fun but comes with challenges because your job is problem-solving, and it will pay if you intentionally put your effort into it.
This field needs you to learn a lot, and practice what you learned to master it - this isn't theory only but practical.
Anybody can start programming and everyone can master a field or domain in programming.
You cannot learn programming without a computer or laptop, & you cannot be a programmer if you have a computer but don't want to learn.
Where to start ??:
note: these are only topics in programming that are important for you to grasp. Watching short video's explaining each is good for you.
learning basics for begginging programming:
If you know nothing about a computer just start with learning the basics of
what is a program and programming language?
what is an operating system?:
what are the typical tools used to create a program?:
What are the different types of programs?
what you could do as a job after learning programming?
Getting Into It:
Which language to learn first?:
It's important to understand that with regard to programming it's not about just grabbing any book/video with the title "beginner programming with..." but first we practice targeted learning and then learn languages that are applied or relevant to that market or software domain.
- Example:
- We choose to get into web development.
- We look at resources that will help us to get the fundamentals, intermediate, and master level understanding of web dev.
- We hang out in web dev communities for [Dev. to](www.devto.io) or [hashnode](www.hashnode.com/profile/nqubeko), and catch the latest trends.
- start building a sub-portfolio from that which you will add to the main portfolio.
Have fun with your skills:
One other thing i realized with most learning programmers is the trend / tradition of making learning not be fun in a way
but i really think this is something that we can change as a cummunity, and most people have taken the initiative to like:
- we have sololearn, which is a learning and playing programming platform with a playground in it.
we have codesandbox which is an online editor where you can also enjoy writing and testing code remotely.
We have places like codewars where you can try to solve problems and see some competitive programming.
Follow my blogs to stay up to date with my work...
