How to Start Coding? Find the right path for YOU! in the ocean of Programming Stacks.

Introduction

So, you are young and fresh out of college. You are overwhelmed with all the hype around Programming and you are unsure about how to get started.

Well, you are certainly not the only one...

I have a distant brother who's also fresh out of college and wants to Code. While training him I thought why not share the experience with the community.

If you want to pursue a career in Programming as well, you will have to do one simple thing. Keep your mind straight and not get intimidated by all the Big Programming Jargon that is going around on Social media just yet. There will be plenty of time when you'd be able to do that. The first thing that you will need to do is find a Path you are passionate about. Start simple.

The Big Question

Now the question is how do you find out what excites you. Many experienced trainers often overlook this important aspect.

It is certainly not an easy task to figure out by yourself. You should not rely on the trainers to tell you what is right for you. It is a path you make on your own. There is no easy way out when you are starting out. There is no single absolute right way either.

I've seen many trainees in my Career of over 8+ years, especially for the past several years when I became an Architect, they are a bit lost in the buzz of things. Keeping up-to-date with the buzz is really a good thing. When you are just starting out, this could really confuse you or plant doubts about your ability. That's not a good sign, that could lead to dissatisfaction and really hurt your morale.

Coming back to the topic of what path you should choose. If I try to get into your shoes, from your perspective, you simply don't know. You only know that you want to do Programming and are very curious about the apps and sites that you visit about how they are made. So you are not sure what makes you tick, "YET". Cause you've never tried them before.

Enough with the philosophy, that stuff is boring. So the question remains, how do you find out?

Here is my take on it.

Fundamentals

You are fresh out of college, so you know a little bit about how to do Logic. It's time you apply that logical analytic ability in your life. Everything that you do think of them as some collection of actions.

For example, let's assume you are about to go to bed to get some sleep. What steps do you take to complete the task?

• Make your bed.
• If it is the summertime then turn on the AC.
• Get inside the blanket.
• Finally, lie down.
• Sleep.

So what we've done here is called the Flow-Chart, in programming terms. If you start thinking of the real world like this, half of your job is done.

Now that you are in the flow you are ready to start taking on the courses.

Start Small

But there is still one glaring question, what path do I take? For that, I have only one piece of advice. Learn only one Programming Language. In my case, it was C, same for my distant brother as well.

But in your case, it might be something different. If you don't know any I would suggest you take the Basic C course at this point, you don't have to be a wizard in C. Many would say C is very hard and a horrible language to get started.

My argument, in this case, is it will help you understand the fundamental way a computer works and operates on the code that we give it to run. Later when you start on a High-Level language you would be surprised how much stuff you can do without writing pages and pages of Code. That feeling would motivate you to go even further.

I'm taking my example for the explanation of the discovery of your path.

The Trial

Many will disagree but, I will say learn basic PHP. Let me explain why.

It is a C-based language, so it has curly braces and semi-colons, etc. Coming from basic C, you will feel right at home. It is one of the only languages that allows you to work both in Frontend as well as Backend.

You can write PHP code sprinkled around your HTML. So it forces you to learn HTML which is the backbone of Frontend. In a few days, you will be familiarized with how to store data in a MySQL database and show it on a page. At this point don't go too deep into the database part.

In some time you will get frustrated by the design of the app that you are making while learning PHP. Take cues from other websites and you will see that they have this great design and colors and all that.

That feeling will motivate you to get your hands dirty in the CSS business. Maybe even Bootstrap. Once you do that, you will yarn for some interactivity on your page. Wish these images would slide or wish I could open a dialog box among other things.

At this point introduce yourself to Javascript. Only the basics at this point. There is nothing wrong with learning JQuery. Don't listen to all the noise in the Community. Go ahead play with all those cool things of JQuery and its vast ocean of plugins. Let your imagination run wild at this stage. Try making a Facebook-like social media yourself, anything you dream of.

See where I'm going with this? You killed 5 birds with one stone. Leaned a PHP, MySQL, HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, and JQuery.

That's a decent Developer Level skill-set right there. I say decent only because you haven't gone deep into any of those technologies. And you've only spent a month or two.

And at this point, you are well equipped to apply for an entry-level job if that's what you want. But I would say, don't let the fire die even if you start working. Explore other things.

The Finale

Now you are ready to ask yourself "What excites me? What I'm passionate about? What path fulfills that excitement?"

I'm sure you will get the answer, and it will be the right one for you too. The answer could be frontend or backend or perhaps both.

Now that you have figured it out, you can pick your language of choice on that Path you've chosen for yourself.

Well, if you have chosen frontend there is not much new technology to learn for you. It is only perfecting the HTML, CSS & Javascript with various Frameworks in the Market. Try SCSS, TailwindCSS, React, Vue or Angular. Eventually, you can choose to expand your horizon with Cross-platform Mobile Technologies.

If you have chosen the backend then there is actually a lot of different things you can go with. You can stick with PHP or go with Node JS, Python, Java, Ruby, etc, and their respective Frameworks like,

• Laravel for PHP
• Express / Nest for Node JS
• Django / Flask for Python
• Spring Boot for Java
• Rails for Ruby

If you're a Full-stack person, specialize in one frontend framework and one backend technology with a Framework of choice.

In both ways, it is paramount to learn Git along the way. Start learning git when you become comfortable with writing a small Portfolio Website or a Simple auth Backend Service.

Conclusion

No matter what you choose I'm sure you will be great at it. Don't be afraid to try something from the other path or even switch paths. It's never too late.

Now, where do I come in? While I'm in the process of training my brother I thought I would be able to help a lot more people like my brother. What I can do is share my knowledge and keep you excited about Programming.

I'm not gonna do traditional Tutorials, there is a lot of it already out there. What I am thinking of doing is discussing various topics and concepts of Coding at different stages. Let me know what you are interested in.

Happy Coding!