I can't code.
I can't code.
Across this vast Fediverse, I have encountered a trend of people answering questions with esoteric programming language speaking in tongues that I don't understand, including under my own posts. I am a Boomer when it comes to coding and I am only 27. I don't even know where I would start to learn it because programming is so diverse. I want to feel like I know what's going on but I don't. Coding is the future and the future is now and I am lagging severely behind. I guess I'm asking where a bumbling novice like me can learn more about where to start when it comes to programming.
I got you fam
Free course, C# is a genuine pleasure to work in/learn. Runs in all OS environments, and is probably the most modern “general” language
Only way to learn is to start learning
Okay, C# is a music note which links with my fondness of music theory. Kewl.
Is C# really that nice to work in? I'm looking to expand my horizons past JS now that I feel fairly comfortable with one language.
It’s a genuinely nice language with tons of syntactic sugar. It’s fast, flexible and runs everywhere. Honestly my favorite language.
Other nice things about it is you can write object oriented code as well as functional style with it, so it even handles the style of code you prefer which is a lot harder to do with other languages. Finally it’s open source but also has deep pockets behind it so the language is constantly being pushed forward.
I always prescribe learning Python over basically any other language (unless you're gonna start doing some real low-level computing). It's a much more relevant and popular language. C# isn't irrelevant, you'll just see Python used way more often. Python will also compliment JS much more.
I'd go with Kotlin. It's a really nice language, easy to learn if you already know JS (or even better, TS), and with KMM and Compose Multiplatform you can write apps which run natively on smartphones, browsers and PC/Mac.
It's basically a cleaner, more concise version of java. It's a good choice to study if you want to learn something very different from JS but with some familiar syntax. These days you can also run C# anywhere, so it's very useful for app development.
If you learn C# you'll be able to learn java very quickly as well.
C# is my primary language, so I'd certainly recommend it. It can be a little daunting to get into because it is a large ecosystem of tools, so you might want to watch some videos and keep things simple for a while.
For work I mostly use it for APIs for web sites, that might be a good place to start if you're familiar with JS/TS front-end work. From there you might want to try Razor or Blazor for handling web UI work in C#. I'm not very experienced with that aspect of it, but it's mostly been a positive experience (TBH I kind of prefer React, but I'd need to spend more time on the Razor/Blazor side to have a strong opinion).
The desktop development side in C# is kind of a mess at the moment. Maybe stick with web until you're feeling pretty comfortable with the language.
I absolutely loved learning C# a few years ago. I haven't touched programming since my last C# class and I'm probably going to relearn it later this week.
The first language I learned is C# and it sparked that interest that got me the job I'm in now!
I see other people recommending Python for beginners because of the simpler syntax (the way you write the code) but I'd still recommend C# because although the learning curve is a little steeper you'll find it MUCH easier to learn pretty much any other language you choose. And even if you don't choose to learn another language, you'll still know a good (and fast) general-purpose language!
This. I love me some python, but it’s so unstructured (and by that I mean more how the structure is based off spacing), I actually think it makes it harder to learn vs. easier.
“Bracket” languages let the learner get a feel for when a piece of logic ends, which I think is important to learn at first. Also, C type languages, ESPECIALLY C#) are everywhere, depending on the field you end up specializing in you probably have a 90+% chance of needing to know one of these languages.
Seriously, there is nothing wrong with python, but I think the easiness of it actually works against learning to code (imho)
What are these answers...
Wrong place to ask, but whatever.
It depends on what you want to build. If you're not sure, start with Python. It's likely easiest to pick up and get running. There's a book called "Automate the Boring Stuff." I think there's an online version. (Edit: link - https://automatetheboringstuff.com/)
If you don't want to set up Python (or any language, really) on your computer, there's a tool called a REPL that you can find online. So you can just search "Python online REPL," and you'll get a functional online environment to code. Now, you won't be able to do stuff interacting with your local computer this way, like reading files, but it's good for learning the basics of the language.
In terms of software for writing code in on your local computer, Visual Studio Code (NOT to be confused with Visual Studio) is a free, lightweight code editor. It supports every language via plugins.
If you do go the Python route, make sure to learn about virtual environments before you do 'pip' or 'conda' anything. Also, unless you're doing data science things, stick to pip. (Maybe some personal bias there, but I hate anaconda.) If you're starting from nothing, it'll be awhile until you get there anyway, so don't worry too much about it.
Most importantly, find a community that welcomes new learners. Learning to code is absolutely fucking brutal, so having supportive people available makes a world of difference. Bonus points if you can find an offline meetup in your local area.
Python is the way to go for any newbie imo. Js has too many weird pitfalls that don’t make sense when first starting out
Also if you're looking to make a job out of it, Python will lead you to job opportunities that are imo much more satisfying than JS.
No one has mentioned it from what I can see but I highly recommend the courses provided by https://www.mooc.fi/en/. It's the university of Helsinki and it's completely free. They offer both Java and Python courses. I believe they have an introduction to programming course that is done in Python.
You should start here directly in the future:
You may not have seen this before because it is so new.
Actually, if you are a Boomer this should be your starting point.
Try "the Odin project", which has an amazingly active community.
But before you try too much, once you've learned to set up any programming tools, just use them to have fun. Find a way in which you can use programming in relation to your hobbies.
With JavaScript you can manipulate any webpage you see or create your own interactive webapp. Even if it's just a few ugly buttons and text fields, you could make an app that calculates good builds for a videogame you like, for example.
If you want to interact with a windows operating system you can't go wrong with C# using visual studio. This will literally allow you to manipulate files, folders or automate anything you want from the operating system.
Try to find something that is fun and just enjoy yourself with small apps before you try to go too fast.
I agree. I can only learn languages by having an idea of something that'll excite me. Making a to-do app rarely teaches me anything since I don't have fun doing it.
What about music?
Sorry for the late reply. If you're interested in music, you could give both javascript or C# a try. C# works integrated with the operating system and is not sandboxed by the browser, which means that you could do nifty things like actual sound processing and interact with sound devices etc.
In general you will want to start with a console application that receives user input, does something and even prints the output. Let me give you an example of playing an audio file in C#
LINE 1:
System.Media.SoundPlayer myAudioPlayer = new System.Media.SoundPlayer(@"c:\mywavfile.wav");LINE 2:
myAudioPlayer.Play();In the first line we are calling a pre-existing blueprint (library) that knows how to create an audio player. This blueprint can be located in System > Media > SoundPlayer within the collections of libraries. We are giving this virtual audio player a name and called it "myAudioPlayer". Then, after the "=" sign we are giving it the instruction to be created with a preloaded file that would be found in "C:\mywavfile.wav".
In the second file we are commanding our newly created virtual audio player and telling it to play the file. Please note that this audio player would not have a visual interface yet. You would hear audio coming from the speakers but no way to pause. Fortunately C# / .NET (.NET are the pre-existing libraries that you can use), has a drag-and-drop way to create windows application interfaces with buttons via the "Visual Studio" editor, so you could potentially create a drag-and-drop interface and bind a button with a Stop symbol to the instruction "myAudioPlayer.Stop();"
This is just a very very basic example, but object oriented programming often boils down to this: create virtual representations of something and then command them to do something.
If this has peaked your interest check out this playlist of a full complete programming course in C# which is what I used to learn programming years ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umAcMO3d9_E&list=PLFqasLx4-AErVMCWiIyJe9uA3yQMPBukG
In the end it's all about creating a series of instructions that the computer will follow. The trick is to learn what these instructions mean and to not be scared by their syntax, because behind every scary looking syntax there's just an instruction that can be explain in human language.
I am a Boomer when it comes to coding
Hey, OP, I think it's cool that you'd like to learn to code. I made my living as a coder for many years and it's a good career path. But I would not say it's an essential life skill and the vast majority of people of all ages get by fine without coding skills.
With that out of the way, I'm going to defend the honor of Boomers here. Boomers (and the Silent Gen before them) built the technology industry as we know it today. For example, here's a list of popular programming languages and their inventors:
- Java: James Gosling (1955) - Boomer
- C: Dennis Ritchie (1941) - Almost a Boomer
- C++: Bjarne Stroustrup (1950) - Boomer
- C#: Anders Hejlsberg (1960) - Boomer
- Python: Guido van Rossum (1956) - Boomer
- PHP: Rasmus Lerdorf (1968) - X Gen
- Perl: Larry Wall (1954) - Boomer
- JavaScript: Brendan Eich (1961) - Boomer
- Ruby: Yukihiro Matsumoto (1965) - Cusp of Boomer/X Gen
- SQL: Raymond Boyce (1946) and Donald Chamberlin (1944) - Boomers
- Go: Robert Griesemer (1964), Rob Pike (1956) and Ken Thompson (1943) - 2 Boomers and an almost-Boomer
<Adjusts onion>. Thank you for your indulgence.
Software engineering nowadays is really complex. There is no way you're going to know what's going on, nobody is.
It's just the more experience you have, the easier it is to figure out what's going on. If you want to learn coding, just start coding.
I will start from something no one mentioned - start with Linux. Windows has its own very "special" ways of compiling stuff, while Linux is very simple. If you start on Windows, you'll probably use IDE which will set up everything for you (cause setting up thing in Windows is messed up), and it will still be a black magic for you how the code transforms into binary.
Many people recommend python, but I would start with C (not C++, C++ sucks). It will give you the understanding of basic concepts like memory management.
Then start using something like javascript, which will get you wide range of libraries, which you can use to build anything.
Then at the end learn how infrastructure works, how are services communicating with each other, how to put your server to the public, learn Docker, set up reverse proxy, run stuff in cloud.
Good news for you, I'm 33 years old and I canxt code yet. I just finisged a book about shell scripting (in Linux) so I can understands the scripts I see in github and made some simple ones to automate some of my needs. Now I want to up it up a bit with python and I'm starting a new book with Havard cx50 course. You are never too old to learn. My regret is that i did not start sooner, like when I was your age.
Holy shit, is 33 really “never to old to learn” territory?
If it helps, I knew someone who went back to school at 60 for their master's and got their graduate degree at 64. That's never too old to learn territory!
Good luck.
To you as well.
Then the grizzled old curmudgeon bellied up to the bar and said "ONE WORD. BASIC."
And everyone else in the room pointed and laughed. But I still like it. shut up.
I’m part of the cohort of programmers that learned to code in pre-dotnet VB. VB6 (my precious) was the most popular programming language for years.
cumdungeon
Has anyone mentioned the free Harvard CS50 course? Start there and learn the very basics of computer science and programming. By the time you finish you'll have a solid idea of where to go next.
X2! David Malan is an excellent teacher, OP! I hate academia and prefer learning through YouTube, but CS50 is an EXCELLENT way to get started with learning about computers and programming!
This is a good place to start if you’re already using the computer for several tasks.
My biggest problem is figuring out what I want to do with any coding skills. I have none, by the way, and I don't even know where to start.
Some of the usual responses when I state this:
"Automate your work" - I work in Salesforce. Have you seen Salesforce? I'm not a multi faceted systems administrator constantly updating DNS records or working in Active Directory.
"Write a cool app" - What cool app? What is "cool"?
"Open dev tools and look around" - Why? Specifically, why?
Also, learning programming is BORING. Most of the courses I've tried are so so stale and they aaallll end up explaining concepts in the same way.
"This is a fleeble and it holds the sping, the sping tells the plus plus that it must do what the herbug says".
k.
learning programming is BORING
Then it's not for you. No shame in that. I don't understand the notion that everyone is supposed to be a coder now.
If anything, the low-level coding part is something AI models may well make obsolete relatively soon. Unlike any craftsmanship - why not learn masonry or carpentry instead?
My biggest problem is figuring out what I want to do with any coding skills.
Honestly, why learn programming then?
I’m asking this as a programmer myself. I’m not trying to discourage you from learning it by any means, if that’s what you want to do. I’m just asking because it doesn’t sound as if you actually want to do it.
You’ve already tried learning it, and it’s a slog (whereas for me, I was immediately fascinated by it when I was introduced to it as a teenager, even though I was horrible at it). You don’t have any burning desires to create apps (whereas for me, there are so many ideas I want to explore, so many things I want to create that don’t exist yet, but alas I don’t have enough time or energy to work on it all). You don’t even have the desire to do it for purely career-related purposes, which is what I’d imagine drives most of the rest of people learning programming without enjoying it at all.
So why bother with learning something you neither enjoy nor have strong motivations to do?
I'm somewhat of a programmer, but there's ideas everywhere in life. My bank came out with an API so I built an app that pulls it all down, stores it in a database, and makes some pretty graphs. Had no experience in fullstack or backend development before (I'm a sysadmin/cloud engineer), so it took me a really long time and I was following a course but adapting it to my project for a lot of it.
The other day I picked up an old game (Mu online) that is soooo grindy it even gives you an in-game bot to play for you, but if you die you just respawn in a safe zone. So I've started writing a script that reads the screen (character position is shown in x, y coordinates on screen), and those coordinates are within a given area (the safe zone) it will alert me. Again, had no experience with any of the window controls or image to text conversion (tesseract), but got chatgpt to help me a bit. Will it save me time? Maybe a little. Will I stop playing this game in a month? More than likely. Did I learn something? Absolutely.
I'm self taught but working in tech there's obviously more work related use cases to actually start learning, but there's every-day stuff you can do too.
Damn, a bank with an accessible API? I would be so happy if mine did this, they don't even have a way to export transactions into a sane format like CSV...
When I was learning from the courses or videos, it was boring too. I prefer just reading docs and "fucking around" with the technology I'm interested in than listening to Indian guy on YouTube. Each person has their own preferences, I'm just telling ya what worked for me. Don't give up, instead try a different approach.
Also, there is no shame in admitting that programming just isn't for you.
Speaking of cool projects; build a lemmy app. It can be console app for simplicity.
Speaking of cool projects; build a lemmy app. It can be console app for simplicity.
Not a bad shout. I see wefwef is a webapp. That could be worth exploring.
Thanks.
I learned more by just taking the Doom source code and messing with it than I did from reading books. The main thing every language shares is the logic. Once you figure out how to translate your problem and solution into logical terms, using any language is rather easy; only the function names and syntax changes.
I've never written anything in Python, for example, but I am pretty confident that if I spent a day or so reading up on the syntax and functions and looking at some example snippets, I could port anything I've written in C, Java or Basic to Python.
I agree that books are dry as fuck and hard to keep up with as they tend to make a person fall asleep. But so much more learning can be done by examining others' code that does the things you're trying to do.
I did laugh at the Salesforce quip. I have seen it. It's a fucking mess lol
My biggest problem is figuring out what I want to do with any coding skills
Maybe some dumb little games? If you aren't interested in 3D gaming you can do 2D platformers, top-down Rogue-likes, or Zork-style interactive fiction (text) games (from scratch instead of with a Z-Machine).
As a self-taught developer, when I was learning I found it a lot more useful to just go code stuff, and then when I found something that seemed hard or ugly, I could go look for solutions to that kind of problem, which was much more interesting than just reading about various techniques. (Well, I was learning well before normal people had internet, so mostly I invented some shit to fix my own problem, but it got easier/faster after the internet became available).
Write a stupid little app if you have no cool ideas! The journey is the goal here. like, write a fart button app, make a clone of flappy bird, or whatever
So, don't learn to code? If you don't have any reason to and can't find any motivation, maybe it's just not for you.
What are your hobbies? Most people struggle to learn programming until they find a project that they are interested in. You mentioned an interest in music. Perhaps you could try Sonic Pi, which is a live coding environment where you can create music from code. It comes with a built-in tutorial, and a bunch of pre-written example code-music. It's built with the ruby language.
Honestly, I would start with learning JavaScript.
Anything in the browser runs on JavaScript, and it's a very forgiving language to learn for beginners.
I've been coding for 40 years, it's both my job and my hobby, and I still feel old and out of touch when reading or taking part in coding conversations outside of my sphere :)
This is not meant to be discouraging - even the smallest amount of coding you could learn will be immensely rewarding - more to say that coding is vast arena with a breadth of complexity that can often feel overwhelming. So don't be put off when you teach yourself some JavaScript and then still feel adrift in a conversation about C#.
I don't have any specifics to recommend, but I would say that you should start small. Don't aim to write the next Flappy Bird as your first project, or the next Mastodon. Just concentrate on making a web page say "Hello world!" or changing the colour of some text. Back in the 80s, most kids got their first taste of programming by having a computer shop C64 print "Dave is rad!" on an infinite loop! :)
Good luck!
There's lots of good advice here!
Don't learn C/C++/Rust. They're great languages but you'll get stuck learning things most experienced programmers don't understand and you'll get discouraged.
Python/C# are both great options!
If you want to do mobile development, you might try Kotlin (for Android) or Swift (for iOS).
The trick is just to learn one language, to learn general programming concepts, then learning another in the future will be a lot easier.
You can learn a lot from following online tutorials, YouTube, etc., and you can find communities for each language too.
Also you don't need to learn to program, there's a lot of other good skills you could learn. (I keep trying to learn to draw or 3d model, and I just can't do it lol).
But what about the future? Won't everything be Chrome in the future?
Maybe, hopefully not, but even if it is: with WebAssembly, you'll be able to (you already can actually but it's not very widely used) compile and run many languages in the browser, other than JavaScript.
I wouldn't really recommend learning JavaScript as your first language, it's pretty weird. Unless you really want to learn web development, then go for it! maybe check out TypeScript though - there's a lot of learning material for both online.
I’d actually start by playing around with the automation and customization functionality you already have. Learn to set email sorting filters, get some cool browser extensions and configure them, maybe even start by customizing your windows preferences or making some red stone stuff in Minecraft.
Computers are just tools. Programs are just stuff you tell a computer to do over and over again. All the fancy programming languages give you really good control over how you talk to a computer but I’d start with the computer equivalent of “Me Tarzan, you Jane.”
What language would that be?
I'm not talking about any particular language.
Modern programming languages are as complex as natural languages. They have sophisticated and flexible grammars. They have huge vocabularies. They're rich enough that individual projects will have a particular "style". Programming languages tend to emphasize the imperative and the interrogative over the indicative but they're all there.
Most programming languages have a few common elements:
Some way to remember things
Some way to repeat sets of instructions
Some way to tell the user what it's done
Some way to make decisions (ie if X then do Y)Programmers mix and match those and, depending on the skill of the people involved, end up with Shakespear, Bulwer-Lytton, or something in between.
The essence of programming is to arrange those elements into a configuration that does something useful for you. It's going to be hard to know what kinds of useful things you can do if you're completely fresh to the field.
Python and Javascript are great. The main reasons I wouldn't recommend them for an absolute beginner is that it takes some time to set up and, even after that, there's a bit of a curve before you can do something interesting.
If they go and change configuration settings in an app, they're learning to manipulate variables.
If they click a "do this N times" they've learned to create a loop.
etc.
I think the modern paradigm of frameworks and libraries really makes things confusing, because you can learn every single bit of vanilla JS and then Angular is still like a different language, just like all the rest. I started teaching myself in 2005 so I did have the advantage of a bit of the old world of programming, but I also wasn't allowed to own a computer and I spent years and years on graphing calculators and notepads learning the basic principles of what is now second nature to me. There's lots of great options people have already mentioned, C# or Python both are pretty good, but pick one and stick to it. A few months of daily work on it will get you far enough to get a grasp, and a few years of it will get you started on a career. But just get started with it and keep at it, I promise you will get it!
Honestly , why do you want to code? Simple question not offensive or sarcastic. I code because I'm in the security industry and a big geek. You are never to old to code , if you have the discipline to sit down and read and then practice over and over again then you will be fine to learn. its fun to code and learn new things. It also keeps your brain in better shape. I can help you find resources to get you started if you want. Everyone and I mean everyone starts in the beginning.
Coding is the future
Yeah according to coders lol
Fediverse just skews tech heavy. The average person doesn't even know what a file is.
The jaypeg, the ping, the dock, the... er... the thing for nails?
I will tell you there is no need to be worried about coding. You don't have to be worried about not knowing how to code. The coding part of coding is the simplest and the easiest part, the much much more important part is the thinking part, basically what you want to achieve and how you should go about it.
A lot of so called professional "coders" don't know what it is that they are doing. A few days ago i looked at my sister's very impressive code. That was truly a hard day, the ways in which I controlled myself by not beating the shit out of her for being a piece of garbage who is incapable of thinking. She would not understand even when explained in simple words why her code was incredibly shit and what to do to fix it, finally she didn't fix it and left ruining more than just my day, she sent me into a trance worrying about the future of mankind as a whole, which I have still not been able to come out of.
Also as far as coding is concerned I would suggest you get started with python. It is easy and simple. Learn the basics in python, for majority of the things you will have achieved your desire.
I suggest that you use the book
automate the boring stuffas a starting point, it will not only help you with your desire for coding, but may also come out to help you in your day-to-day things as well. You can easily find the pdf for free.You sound like a lovely sibling...
Seriously, what the fuck?
You don't understand, if she wasn't my sibling, it may as well have resulted in a fight.
This code was for a company, not a I'm learning and am just a beginner kind of thing. Let me share a few details about the code:
The program involved reading a csv file and doing some operations from the data it provided. It was a python program in a jupyter notebook (this is very relevant).
- She had to create an array of the column names of the table. Her "solution" was to first print the table, then copy paste the column names into an array. When I told her to fix i pointing out the incredibly basic reasons for why not to do that, she refused. Also the table had like 10-15 columns.
- She was using pandas dataframes, even having a variable called
dfin her code, also using the functions it provided. Now it will come as a surprise to you, as it came to me she doesn't know what a dataframe is. - The reason she showed me her code was because she was getting an error which she didn't know how to solve. The issue was that the array of column names she created and the column names in the table didn't match. This was because when she printed the table the column names were missing
_which were present in the CSV file. One of the reasons for not not doing the first point. When told of the issue she added the_manually. She will die on that hill. - So in jupyter notebooks you have cells in which you add a small slice of code and you run the cell. This is really amazing. Small issue though if you close the notebook and open it again you need to rerun the cells in the correct sequence again, barely an inconvenience . To overcome this great issue, my sister just didn't do something stupid like having all her code in one cell, she was one step ahead, she had all the things she needed per cell copy-pasted. That God forsaken array of column names? You guessed it there were atleast 10 of them.
Now if she was just starting out, these could probably be forgiven, but she has been "coding" for atleast a few years now. Also she refuses to learn her mistakes.
Another interesting thing I noticed was, if she didn't know something she would not search Google but rather YouTube. I originally thought she pasted some of the code from stackoverflow which has error, but no she looked at a YouTube video copied the code by hand and that code still resulted in an error because
charandintare different, she doesn't understand why it works in the video (same type), and why it doesn't work for her.I am clearly still in a shock about the whole situation and to think someone would hire her only if it is for an internship still, I pray for the world.
So I recommend Python if you just want general coding, dual booting Ubuntu or some other beginner friendly linux if that’s more interesting to you, or starting with html if website design sounds more fun.
Alternatively you could try R, it’s weird but I like it.
Think of something simple you want to make, pick a language, and start reading/watching tutorials and doing smaller coding exercises until you feel like you can start making it. This is the easiest period in human history to learn new languages, easily and for free.
So you were born in 1996, but the part of your brain that handles coding was born in 1966? How is that possible? Do you even know what a boomer is?
Is this the right place to ask?
Maybe less that it isn't the right place to ask, it's probably not the best place to ask. Maybe try somewhere like [email protected]
For a link to that community: [email protected]
Or simply: https://programming.dev/c/learn_programming