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Ask HN: How should a beginner learn to code?

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Re: Ask HN: How should a beginner learn to code?

#3

Post by noahc »

1. Pick a Language 2. Find a beginners guide to said language. 3. Start building stuff.

You need to start building stuff. The only time I've ever learned to code was when I was trying to build something. Reading books, taking algorithm classes, etc never did anything for me. Give me a real world problem and turn me loose. That's how I learn best, and I expect most people do too.

Re: Ask HN: How should a beginner learn to code?

#5

Post by bricestacey »

mtran wrote: post #2

Loads of articles about non-technical founders needing to learn to code. Short of pursuing a CS degree, and after Tryruby.org and Codeschool.com, what do you recommend?

Since you're interested in Ruby, try learning rails. I suggest reading through Ruby Guides' Getting Started[1] and then going through the Rails Tutorial[2], where you make a Twitter clone.

  [1] Ruby Guides - http://guides.rubyonrails.org/
  [2] Rails Tutorial - http://ruby.railstutorial.org/ruby-on-rails-tutorial-book

Re: Ask HN: How should a beginner learn to code?

#6

Post by jrsmith1279 »

mtran wrote: post #2

Loads of articles about non-technical founders needing to learn to code. Short of pursuing a CS degree, and after Tryruby.org and Codeschool.com, what do you recommend?

Lynda.com has some good training. I'm finding their Ruby on Rails 3 Essential Training to be very easy to follow. I have been programming in PHP for the last 3 years, so I do have some experience with programming, but I think this training would be just fine for beginners as well. It is $25 a month for a basic account and you might find that a little high, but I think it's worth it for the amount of training that you have access to.

Re: Ask HN: How should a beginner learn to code?

#7

Post by baberuth »

Pick a small project you want to work on, then start trying to make it real. Ask for help from people around you. People like helping other people, especially if 1. you make it easy for them, 2. you seem to be putting in a genuine effort.

Tons of "Ask HN" posts on this topic have already been posted. The first step to showing people you're serious is to actually do your own research first.

The post that got me started with writing code was http://iamelgringo.blogspot.com/2008/05/teach-yourself-you-t...

Re: Ask HN: How should a beginner learn to code?

#8

Post by geoffw8 »

I'm absolutely in this boat at the moment, and I've covered a ton of ground. Lynda is great, railstutorial.org is fantastic as it covers pretty much all you need to know - testing, git, github, heroku etc.

But I have to say, as others have said - you just have to get down and code. I've covered a lot material, but the moment you sit down to write a piece of code by yourself - the game changes. Its like a different dimension.

So my advice to you as a fellow noobie is run through the tutorials enough so that you know your M from your C and get writing.

Join StackOverflow (which never ceases to amaze me) and read read read!

Best of luck.

Re: Ask HN: How should a beginner learn to code?

#9

Post by emilepetrone »

I quit my job and learned to code over the last 8 months or so. The main thing- write code everyday. A little, a lot. Just start spinning that wheel. You'll learn a bit here and there. But the big advances come after a few weeks when you piece together the little concepts.

I started with Python & Google App Engine. I would recommend this to anyone. You don't have to worry about the server and can just pay attention to actually learning a server-side language (assuming that is what you want to focus on).

Check out http://learnpythonthehardway.org/index

O'Reilly books are excellent too. If you have any questions, my email is on my profile.

Don't stop - code every day!

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