The wrong question: “I want to learn to code, what should I do?”

I learned to program when a misconfigured web server spit out the source code to the web application I was trying to use. At first it all looked like gobbledygook (it was written in Perl), but I was ultimately intrigued. The more I observed it, the more it started to make sense. I started by making modifications and testing their results and eventually had enough knowledge to build my own, albeit simple, application. It all snowballed from there.

What I took away from the experience is to jump right in to the most advanced stage possible and work your way back to understanding. Baby steps only serve to hide the big picture and ultimately hinder your ability to understand. This is something I have applied to all of my learning since that day and I feel it has served me well. I always struggled in a formal education setting and I found out why: They teach backwards.

When you are learning to cook you don't mix flour and water together and look at the scientific properties that cause them to interact the way they do. No, you find a delicious recipe and prepare the entire dish. Each time you subsequently make it you add a twist to see how it affects the overall taste. Eventually you start to increase your understanding how the pieces fit together and can begin to come up with new combinations of your own. You will probably want to know why flour and water behave the way they do, but that comes later.

In my opinion, the way to learn how to program is to start with a recipe (i.e. source code). The rise of open source makes that easy. Make some small changes of your own. Break it down to understand why the original author did what he did. Once you are armed with the basics, you can start to apply that knowledge to meaningful Google searches.

While I get the gist of this post, it seems to exit the gate by contradicting itself. Asking Google is no different than asking "someone". After all, Google results are just a bunch of "someones" competing for your attention.

As a person who has just recently undertaken the skill of programming, I (personally) feel that Google isn't much help in the beginning. As someone mentioned below, you can't ask what you don't know. Nor can you trust every bit of advice dished out in Google search results. If you rely on Google, you'll likely get 100 competing views on everything under the sun, which often leads to analysis paralysis or just sheer overwhelm.

As much as some people might tire of hearing "I want to learn to code, what should I do?", it's a question that I'd hope people aren't ashamed to ask, because It's an honest question. Pointing them to Google and advising them to figure it out just doesn't help them in any concrete way. I'm new to programming, but I'll never get sick of helping people learn the things that I already know- in fact I LOVE doing just that.

As a beginner, it's comforting to know that a real person is helping you along and not just an anonymous page picked out of the SERPs.

I always answer this question by asking back what it is that they want to make, and also if they're willing to dig for most of the answers themselves because programming is, essentially, solving for an unknown alone.

The aptitude of a programmer is also the same that allows him to self-learn much of the art of programming by himself.

If they have an answer to the first question, I can work backwards with them to narrow it down to tools and languages that possibly make sense. Going with Python is a generic and common choice because there aren't many things you can't do in Python.

If they don't have an answer, it might not be a case lost. Some people truly need just about anything to work on, in order to impose a reason to start tinkering with programming. However, usually it's about overcoming fear for programming but in that case they probably won't make it, either.

For the rest 99% of people I just mumble something and point vaguely to teaching yourself to program in ten years.

I just looked on Craigslist and found a few Mac laptops for under $400. Most were lousy in some way, but a few were legitimately just older models that people didn't want anymore (e.g. white MacBooks). But I wouldn't recommend a laptop if you're just this side of destitute. They're generally not as good a value on the low end.

I found this advice to be useful and inspiring. It reminds me of when i first started out in my present business. We originally started as an IT support company. My IT skills were just average while my business partner was very highly skilled in IT.

Often, we would have issues with client servers, and i would spend hours trying to find the root cause of the problem, with not too much luck. When i would pass the job onto him, he'd figure out the cause of the problem in a much shorter amount of time, and therefore come to conclusion for a possible solution very quickly and with some conviction.

I always thought he was a complete genius, and wish that i was as clever and intelligent as him, and felt a little cheated by the universe that i hadnt been blessed with such great IT skills, especially since i had great passion for IT.

Its only after much frustration, that i learned that the only thing that differed between he and i was his approach. Whereas i would check the virus state, and processor usage and look for anything suspect on the desktop, he would check the event logs and then look up the error codes at the microsoft knowledgebase.

One i started taking the same approach as he, i found myself fixing problems even faster than him and coming up with even better solutions to the problem (all the while experiencing much lesser stress).

When i decided to learn programming , i observed the same thing. His approach to attacking programming problems was different to mine, and now i am learning to assess the problems in the same way as him.

I've also seen this in my cousin. He starts a project, and takes one step at a time, and breaks the larger problem done, all the while telling himself that there is an answer for each component problem he faces.

I am trying to foster the same mindset now, and this blog post is an inspiration for that. Bottom line is, the approach is more important than existing skill set.