How to learn programming in 2021
Programming Skill
Programming is the most looked for skill today. This is no surprise, looking at the huge demand for skilled programmers, so it is very important for job seekers.
Learning programming might look difficult to many people. This is mostly the case because of the wrong approach that they employ to learn to code. People want to make very complex applications, and they often don’t even know basic programming. This happened to me too. I went to an AI masterclass, even without knowing the basics of HTML. It wasn’t surprising that most of what they were saying was strange to me at that time. There are many people who might have had experiences that are similar to that, and therefore thought that programming is difficult.
Now, when I think back on that incident, I realize that this is a very common problem that is faced today. Therefore, I would like to share an approach to learning programming which is a lot less frustrating and is, in fact, fun.
How to Learn Programming?
In this article, we would see how to learn programming in a more proper manner.
1. Get familiar with a programming language: Getting comfortable with a programming language is the very first step towards learning programming. People mostly start with C, C++, Java, or Python. I personally prefer Python in the beginning as it is very simple to learn, and also vast with a nearly endless standard and 3rd party modules. The choice of the first language is highly subjective and entirely based on your interests and goals. You may be interested in front-end, back-end, mobile app, game development, data science, etc.
You can start with learning the basics of the language such as the syntax, variables, data types, loops, arrays, etc. Try to solve simple implementation-based questions so as to become familiar with these basic concepts.
2. Learn Data Structures and Algorithms: Once you are ok with the syntax of your desired language, the next thing you should do is to learn data structures and algorithms. Data structures and algorithms would help you in building the right attitude that is needed for programming. Knowledge about the data structures will help you in selecting the right one for the problem that you are solving - not all data structures can be used in every place. When you learn about the algorithms, you will then be able to understand the working mechanism of several library functions, which, otherwise, I would come across to you as something that is strange.
There are many good online courses that you can study from. Data structures and algorithms are good courses to start from. It is very important that you spend quality time thinking about the implementation of these data structures and algorithms so as to get very comfortable with them. You may think that learning their implementation might not be as important as ultimately the library functions that are used. This is one of the most common misconceptions that people have. Understanding the implementation will help you in assessing the time complexity of the product, which will help you in further optimizing your code.
3. Get your hands dirty with competitive programming: Once you have learned about data structures and algorithms, you should start solving problems on several websites like Codechef, SPOJ, Codeforces, Topcoder, Geeksforgeeks, Hackerrank, etc. The more problems you solve, the better you become. It is better, though, to solve problems in an increasing order of difficulty. You can sort the problems in descending order of the number of solutions that are submitted and start solving them. After solving around 100 variety problems, you will find out that you are getting more confident about your programming skills. You can then start participating in various online programming contests. Doing this will further enhance your programming skills a lot.
4. Make a project: Now that you have further enhanced your problem-solving and coding skills, it is time to create some useful software applications. You can pick up some popular web development framework (Django, Flask, Ruby on Rails, etc.) and make a project with it. Making an application will give you a feel for the actual software development process, which is what most of the programmers do.
5. Explore: Once you are very confident about your programming skills and have made some projects, you should now go on to look for the various areas of Computer Science and see what fascinates you the most.
Computer Science is a vast and rich field, with many interesting fields. Some of the popular domains of Computer Science are Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Cryptography, Systems Programming, Cloud Computing, Computer Vision, Blockchain, Natural Language Processing, Virtual Reality, Mobile App Development, Web Development, and many more. You should try to explore as many fields as you can so as to know which area your interest lies.
Once you study something, try to do a project that is related to it. Projects help in strengthening the concepts that have been learned. Also, they are good from the perspective of making a portfolio resume.
In this article, we saw an approach to learning programming. This is how I learnt to code :)
