A Beginner’s Guide to Coding
Recently the coding industry has been growing like crazy, there are people out there who want to learn to code and develop types of apps/ websites for the community.
Table of Contents:
- What does coding mean?
- Choosing the right path
- Where to learn from?
- Practice
- Editing/ Reading someone else’s code
- Not getting distracted
- Golden rule
What does coding mean?
In simple terms, coding is the process of using a programming language to develop apps, programs, websites, and a lot of cool things. The code tells the computer what actions to take and writing code is like creating a set of instructions.
Choosing the right path
There are operating systems for computers like Windows, Linux, and Macintosh and you can choose which Operating system you want to install and run it on your computer.
Similarly, there are two branches of coding (There are more but for a beginner these two are enough). These are:
- App Development
- Web Development
App Development
It is pretty transparent, in app development you develop apps that can be published to the app store and the play store.
Languages used for app development:
- Java — A most recommended programming language for any beginner developer interested in app development. It is easy to learn. It will give you an overall view of how programming languages work. Learning Java will make it easy for you to learn other languages as well.
- Kotlin — It allows writing less code. Adopting Kotlin is easy. It will be partially easy for you to learn Kotlin after learning java as both languages are different from each other, as I said Java gives you an overall view of how programming languages work.
- Dart — Dart is supported by Google. It is much like Java. It is faster and smoother than any app development programming language. Stable. It is used with a UI toolkit called Flutter (by Google) which is easy to learn but requires a lot of practice.
- Swift — Swift is supported by Apple. It is powerful and is used mostly used for IOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, and watchOS. It is also fast in terms of development like dart. It has simple syntax. As stated by Apple: Swift is 2.6x faster than Objective-C and 8.4x faster than Python. I can’t really tell how Swift works and if it is useful or not but will update this article after trying it out.
Web Development
In web development, you develop apps that can be hosted on the internet.
Languages used for web development:
- HTML (Hypertext markup language) — It is used for building websites. It is assisted by languages such as CSS and JavaScript. It is pretty easy to learn and recommended for a beginner developer. It is a markup language, not a programming language.
- CSS (Cascading style sheet) — It is used for styling the website. It can style the elements of a HTML document. It is partially easy to learn for a beginner. This is also not a programming language, it is a style sheet language.
- JavaScript — It is one of the most popular programming languages and it is in high demand right now. It is used for adding behavior to the website. It is mainly used for validation purposes and helps us to execute complex actions. It is not beginner-friendly and it takes time to completely learn it.
Where to learn from?
App Development
- Learn Java from here.
- Learn Kotlin from here.
- Learn Dart from here (it is old but still the best).
- Learn Swift from here.
Web Development
Practice
Practice and Consistency are the two things that make a good programmer. One should practice every day for at least 30 minutes.
Keep creating small projects., Once you are familiar with the concept of the language and know how everything works start cloning apps, for example, Amazon app, Uber app, Spotify app clone, etc.
Whenever you face a coding problem, Google it. Don’t resist googling your queries, it improves your problem-solving skill.
Editing/ Reading someone else’s code
Editing and reading someone else’s code is where you modify someone’s code and understand how each line of code works. Most people do not learn how to edit and read code, they both are pretty underrated skills. Starting early with this may give you a head start.
Start from reading/ editing someone else’s code from GitHub, download it, modify it, read it, understand how every line of code works.
Not getting distracted
New technologies/ frameworks/ languages are getting introduced to the world of development almost every year, and the most common mistake that people make is that they start learning the new technology instead of focusing on one technology at once.
Never ever move on to another language before mastering any other one.