Learning Coding/Programing for starters/beginners can be challenging especially in a case where you don’t have a mentor to guide you through a structure curriculum to help you tract your progress and know what’s next to be done. As a beginner, it’s easy to feel confused with everything you need to know and feel overwhelm at the same time. When you see programmers that are professional in your language of interest online, you tend to doubt if your learning routine can get you where they are. The right question to ask now is; how can you make the journey as smooth, cool, and swift as possible?
In this post, I’m going to walk you through 5 cardinals of learning programing as a starter/beginner. These are stuffs I wish I’d know before learning Coding. These are basic knowledge and tools you need in your tool box to make learning less confusing and frustrating in the long run. By the time you finished reading this post, you will have a better idea about what to expect and how to prepare for learning Coding/Programing as a beginner and pilot your way fro Zero to Hero.
The 5 Cardinals Includes;
- Determination and Patience
- Cramming does not work here
- Mistakes are okay and expected
- Learn with a goal in mind
- Celebrate your wins
1. Determination and Patience
If there is anything like the duos needed to become a professional in programing; it will be determination and patience. Whatever your reason is for learning coding it’s not going to be easy, the journey ain’t smooth, but with determination and patience, you will enjoy the adventure. Exactly like every new thing you want to learn, you’re going to start at the very bottom. With patience, learning programing is incredibly rewarding and empowering. Let go of your emotions because your ego doesn’t have a place while you are learning programming. You will see a lot and lots of error on your journey to programming. Know this errors are expected and might be the motivation you need sometime. I didn’t realize this on time, and so times without number I was frustrated with my errors while learning programming. At a point I was thinking…. Nah, I was not made for this stuff. You have to be okay with errors and mistakes. If you started with self-learning like myself, note that self-learning is time consuming and tough sometimes. That explain why you spent more time in resolving your error sometimes. However Google and coders community can be of help. (You can also check out my post on asking for help the right way as a programmer).
2. Cramming does not work here
The act of working intensively to absorb large volumes of informational material in short amounts of time doesn’t work with programming as a beginner. You learn by doing and that is why the only way to get better at programming is to actually code. In academic settings, you study by memorizing things to get a better grade, even though you find it difficult remembering what you cram after the exam is done. This doesn’t apply with programming. With programming cheating is completely acceptable, gosh, it’s even encouraged. So, don’t be afraid of forgetting the if/else if statement or list and files command. As long as you know what it does, how to make it do that, you’re golden. Top programmers use Google on a regular basis. This way you can save tremendously much time on trying to fix something yourself. When you’re stuck Google is your neighbor.
3. Mistakes are okay and expected
Mistakes and errors leaves you with two invaluable lesson; knowing what not to do; and knowing ways that could never work out or get you the desired result. Mistake and errors helps you to further identify what you don’t know. Nobody expects you to know everything about your programming language of interest right away. Be truthful to identify your mistakes, it helps you to know what you’re not good at and what you need to be good at. In my young days, I used to think that every piece of code I wrote has to be perfect. Sometimes when my code fail to run upon three to four attempt, I’m discouraged. But making improvement where need be in your code is normal. It not a novel or technical writing that can’t be modified once published.
4. Learn with a goal in mind
You need to answer without second though; what is your goal of learning programing? This will help you to appropriately determine which programming language is right for you. Also, it is the first step in figuring out how you can feel comfortable and finding out a learning approach that helps you reach your goals. I got to discover that learning comes easy with others, a work group near you and team up of likeminded people. After setting your overall goal right, it will guide you in setting sectional and day to day goals which will help you track your goal effectively. However, you must make learning the fundamentals first. Because you can get so confused and overwhelmed with all the new words you will keep seeing if you just dabble into programming with perquisite basic knowledge. Have a realistic expectation. Although we all want to be Mark Zuckerberg or Jack Patrick Dorsey, but that is not just going to happen. It’s not impossible though - you should dream big! Whatever learning pattern that motivate you to explore more relevance to your goal, focus on that and improve your focus. Trying to understand everything is a lost cause.
5. Celebrate your wins
Automating stuffs with coding is really super cool. Anytime I achieved a feet, solve a code problem or successfully complete a client’s job, I felt a sense of accomplishment and celebrate myself. This give me the boldness to attempt more daring issues and jobs with the believe and confidence that ‘if I did that, I can do this’. You can't underestimate the satisfaction gotten from patting yourself in the back when no one is doing it for you.
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Best regards!
