How I would learn coding if I was to start all over again?
Well in this fast paced world it is very important to learn coding as this serves as the most basic technical skill that can serve to help in order to develop in his/her career especially if it's an IT industry. But quite often people commit mistakes while learning to code. I am not talking about the errors in code or syntax but actually the way to learn coding in an effective manner. In fact I myself made the same mistakes and in this blog I am going to share exactly the same thing that I would have done if I were to start coding all over again.
So technically I am going to write about 3 steps that are required to do the same:
Mindset
Coding
Environment
Mindset:
So firstly develop a coding mindset. While solving a code you will definitely come across various challenges of different levels. So if you leave it that way unsolved, you are never going to learn it. In fact the real part of coding is solving problems and not just writing the syntax because that's the simple part and anyone can do it taking help from the online resources, chatgpt, blackbox, etc. So solving the problems is actually gonna differentiate you from others and get the upper hand at jobs or at you institutuions.
Secondly have humility towards the discipline you are investing your time into. If you think that you know everything about coding just by learning the language, then you are probably wrong. Coding is vast, more than you can ever think. Everyday some new programming language or software is coming into the market. So just learning a programming language is never enough. The most important part is to learn how to solve problems, never running away from them and definitely last but not the least always have a learning attitude.
Coding:
The most exciting part of the blog probably as I am going to discuss the technical aspect of how to learn, what to learn and when to learn in a pretty sequential way actually.
First you have to learn one programming language very deeply. In my opinion you must start with python as it is very beginner friendly and also a very easy language with wide variety of applications. Infact in today's world where automation is a very important aspect of developing operations, python can very handy as using python one can automate and make things pretty easy.
Next you have to learn scripting where automation plays a role. That's why in my first point I talked about learning python so that you can automate and learning scripting will become easier.
Then you have to start building a personal project. Below I am enlisting some project that you can start doing as a beginner and understand the ins and outs of coding.
Personal Portfolio: It's a great way to start your web development journey also where you will be making a portal about yourself enlisting your skills and work experience and all the projects. In order to create your personal portfolio, you can do the following: 1)Participate in a hackathon 2)Start doing a full stack project that has both a frontend and a backend part of the software. 3)Learn Typescript, it's very useful incase you are using javascript. 4)Learn RESTAPI model(for fetching various types of data). 5)In order to use database, you can prefer MongoDB or Postgre SQL. 6)Finally try to make CRUD (Create Read Update Delete) apps. These are very useful so as to understand proper functioning of coding.
*Finally go for practicing DSA( Data Structures & Algorithms). These are the most important part since it will help build logic and crack interviews in either FAANG or other product based companies where packages are usually quite high.
Environment: This is the most important part since it will help to build a proper experience of how to work as a SDE . In this case you have to learn 3 skills.
First learn the terminal. This is very important because more you are comfortable with terminal, the more professional you will become as a coder. Next learn VS CODE, the best code editor as it provides with numerous extensions and other features that makes your coding experience richer and provides with a more smoother platform so that you can learn coding very efficiently. *At last learn about GIT and version control as this determines your career in the long learn.
In order to learn all these stuffs all at one place you can either take up the course CS50 by Harvard online which very easily available on youtube for free or take up the courses on UDEMY by Angela Yu as she is a very experienced and proficient educator and teaches the concepts with ultimate ease, both the links are provided below. Harvard CS50: https://www.youtube.com/@cs50 Udemy : https://www.udemy.com/course/the-complete-web-development-bootcamp/( Full Stack Development) https://www.udemy.com/course/100-days-of-code/ (Python).
So this was all about how to learn coding. I hope this blog was very helpful for you. So all the very best for your coding journey do reach out to me in case you face any problem regarding the through linkedin or email. Details are on my account.
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Written by
Arittrabha Sengupta
Arittrabha Sengupta
I am a freelance full stack developer who build mainly ecommerce and business portfolio websites. I also like to guide people who are genuinely interested in learning to code and mentor them to build a career in tech industry. My prime interests lies in AI, ML ,Neural Networks, Web Development and Blockchain.