As I said in one of my previous post, my goal is to learn how to create websites for the steem blockchain. I think that there is a sleeping giant on steemit...the thousands of people who might be thinking to join me in this journey.
If you know you would like to learn how to code but don't know quite how to get started yet, this article is for you.
Money is not an excuse
If you are dirt poor, having no money is not an excuse. That's one thing that is amazing with the internet. Everything can be learned for absolutely free.
What language should I learn first?
In 2018, there is a huge amount of choice in front of us and just like when we face the toothpaste section at the grocery store, the amount of choice can be overwhelming.
There is no "Correct" answer to that one. Usually, people would say:
"Whatever language allows you to get started fast and see the result as soon as possible."
This is why I would say that the easiest languages to learn are by far HTML/CSS. Everything that happens in a web browser is a combination of HTML/CSS/Javascript. I'm no expert but it seems obvious to me that this is a good path to get started on, especially if you have a similar goal than mine.
From there, I believe you'll have learned enough to know what other languages you should learn moving forward.
Softwares
The beautiful thing with learning HTML/CSS/Javascript is that all you need is a text editor and a browser. That's it! For browser Chrome is good and for text editor you can choose Sublime Text or Brackets
So basically, the cost of entry on the software side is $0. No excuse there!
Learning Ressources
Courses
There are hundreds of free places where you can learn how to code. FreeCodeCamp as been suggested to me by many great programmers so far. It's free and it will get you started right.
I personally, like to pay for classes as I feel like I have skin in the game. The best Udemy class I ever got is The Web Developer Bootcamp. The guy is a professional instructor and his classes are amazingly well thought out.
References & Guides
You always need to check stuff up when you code. MDN Web Docs is extremely well built and a very good place to get specific knowledge about the technologies that powers web development.
W3Schools is another one of those place that has very comprehensive list of ressources to learn from.
Ongoing Support
StackOverflow is a question and answer site for professional and enthusiast programmers. If you are facing an unsurmountable problem that you can't figure out, just type your question and other programmers will answer you. It is a great place to build a presence and get recruited if you become reputable for your answers.
Conclusion
Please let me know in the comments if you want to embark on this journey with me to learn how to develop websites for the steem blockchain.
Photo by Fabian Irsara on Unsplash
I’d love to be a part of this with you and we can learn from one another through this journey and it would be pretty cool if you post videos of what you learn so everyone can learn with you . I know nothing should be an excuse because you can learn from anywhere . Go to the public library and you can rent out books for free !
Same here. Would love it if you could share videos.
Well if you're posting easy to follow blogs, as you always do, I'm pretty sure a lot of us will have learnt a bit of HTML/CSS?Java in a few months hahaha xD xD
But once time allows, I'll definitely be checking out the FreeCodeCamp.
I guess I might settle for the freecodecamp .
Good choice haha!!
@cryptoctopus,
NodeJS, this is what I need to learn! If you get a good sources to learn about it, please share with us! If I get I will do the same! I know JavaScript, HTML, CSS (lack with Php, anyway it can be solved) I will support you! I know Java, C#, ASP.NET, Oracle, MySQL, SQL yep I know all of them, so after reading your article I am thinking about giving a try to NodeJS and then I will give my maximum support to build our future apps! (Volunteer support, I am not charging anything, I just want to help your great works)
Cheers~
@cryptoctopus - Sir it's no only coding, the inspiration you give to the community to build our own apps on STEEM blockchain is pretty awesome... No other person is willing to do such thing... You are following basics to complex theory Sir... After HTML/CSS you are going to scripting languages... You are learning & studying them very well Sir... Good luck...
+W+
So if I understand correctly, we'll all follow your course in HTML/CSS/Javascript by simply following your blog? Count me in! Let's develop some cool web applications for Steem!
Same question I was gonna ask. I'd like to know also how much the Udemy course cost?
When first learning I usually suggest an IDE like eclipse, you can set it up for any language you want pretty much, if you are more confident in your coding a lot of people really enjoy notepad++ both are also free options.
I’m glad to come on this ride with you! Are you using your blog to reinforce your studies like you were saying you do in yesterday’s blog?
Ok, time to put y coding learning on the schedule too.
Excellent resources, there is another wonderful course on udemy that I bought for HTML and CSS Build Responsive Real World Websites with HTML5 and CSS3. This instructor is awesome, delivers lectures and give examples from our real life. I bought his Javascript course as well which looked good but didn't start it due to PHP.
I think the coding world is endless and this is the best time to dive into it.
I agree with your languages of choice. I'm lagging behind on Javascript skills, so I think mastering Javascript will be my goal for 2018. For new users who are not necessarily going to limit themselves to web development, I still think Python is king, especially now that so many frameworks allow for easy web development.
Yes we are with you in this journey, you are the person who really think about the future of steemit. Thanks for providing this information and mentioning the sources for the beginners.
your road-map of learning all those languages & scripts are pretty awesome. impressive plan & nice tips you are providing to toe community. html to nodejs to java to databases, i hope will do your maximum & update us every step of yours. impressive post & valuable content to gives pulses to do the same for us. @cryptoctopus
@resteemia
reteemed & upvoted & commented & followed
YES! The Web Developer Bootcamp from Udemy. :)
And it's still on sale, what an awesome deal! Have you started the course @cryptoctopus? I bought when the new year sale came, but unfortunately i haven't started it yet, a bit busy a work that's why.
Maybe i'd have to grind some sleepless nights to get it started. ;)
JavaScript is best language to learn i think in 2018..I'm also learning code from colt steele in udemy.
Best of luck..you will be a good full stack developer soon.
awesome man! I'm super happy! See you in gitter chat! :-)
I love both Sublime & Brackets. Excellent choises for editors. The colorcoding is great and both have a great set of features.
I myself am trying to learn Python on the side (though Javascript would be useful for me as well as other languages). I'm using Codecademy to follow 'courses' in learning new programming languages.
I'll follow along with your progress. Being the 'art' guy for @blockbrothers witness, I feel being able to pitch in with development might be really useful, if not now at least in the future :)
I heard a lot of people suggesting to learn Python as the first language...it also seems that it is what Universities are starting to do too. I chose HTML/CSS/Javascript because I want to focus on the front-end of websites.
Yeah no doubt. html/css/javascript is a killer combo. They are quite easy to learn compared to other languages (though I don’t know about JS). And obviously a must-know when wanting to develop web-based front-ends. Python as I understand it is more of a general purpose language with a very wide usecase.
ohh you have the chance to learn it!!Considering how many services are going online, clearly JavaScript will continue to grow quickly and stay very relevant in the years to come.
In general, it's difficult to predict where JavaScript's direction would be as the technology is always evolving, but needless to say, JavaScript will only continue to grow in terms of adoption rate
Yes @cryptoctopus. Everything on the internet can be learnt for free only your time and dedication matter. Putting enough time and zeal to learn it will help you succeed. Like me the zeal is not there because I have a lot of programming materials to read but I've been caught up with so many other things.
In your other posh about programming, I told you how I learnt programming alone but fell out on the way because things began to look complicated and difficult to understand.
At that time, most persons recommended Java as the programming language to learn first and I kinda believed them.
But now that I'm starting afresh to learn programming, I think I should stick to your advice:
I've seen this recommendation countless of times and I think I'll stick with this.
Thanks for spending time to share this with us. I'm grateful.
Happy Steeming
Python is more powerful than java
OK. Thanks for informing me. I'll check that out
Great post @cryptoctopus.
I like what you said
"If you are dirt poor, having no money is not an excuse. That's one thing that is amazing with the internet. Everything can be learned for absolutely free."
I did learn HTML5 and CSS3 from scratch (i just finish my website portfolio), i did't had 5000 euro for learn it in Private university ( knowledge should be free for everbobdy...).
Now im thinking between learning Python,rubi or java, im trying to read some posts about it .
That's awesome man. Keep at it.
Choose python,It best
With the ever growing population of the internet, learning has never been these easy.
You can literally find everything online these days, from cooking to home decoration and even health care
this was introduce into the steemit some month back that's @airclinicthey write about health related issues and also have a discord server for it.The idea of one saying money is quite the issue why I cant be learned, to me I take that as pure laziness as the ability to learn as already been given to you and all you have to do is pay attention and read.
This just take me back to when I was trying to understanding blogging, I had to go through some videos on html and it really helped me on the long run
For coding, whatever is the programming language, VIM is the most practical one. Especially if you are involved in huge projects. It is just not user friendly at all (but who dares when one tries to be efficient).
By the way, I don't know whether anyone has already mentioned this to you (sorry not to check the gazillions of comments you receive generally :p), but the only and real way to learn is to spend an afternoon to get the basis, and then starts some real applications and use the web to complete your training. This is how I learned all the programming languages I know today.
Have fun with your coding project! :)
I went to school in Irving, Tx during my early elementary years and was lucky enough to be taught LOGO in second grade. Instruction didn't continue in third grade but I did get a CoCo 2. It had a version of LOGO which I quickly lost interest in because it had something else, BASIC.
Soon all my free time was spent pouring over computer magazine my mom bought me and hand entering BASIC code. I'm sure I hacked together a hundred games the first year I had that thing and it was my best friend until I discovered girls. When my luck with girls didn't go so well I went back to BASICs. I also had a Zx Spectrum clone with another variety of BASIC. I still tinker with a Version of BASIC to this day. See also: BASINC.
Later I got involved with a community on a file sharing platform known as DC++ and ran a few different hubs. I needed lua scripts to make certain actions easier for my ops and users but I just couldn't find ones I liked, so back to hacking at code I went. I ran another version later that used perl scripts. That was a nightmare, but I hacked away.
I ran a few websites powered by WordPress and constantly tweaked at the php, html, and css.
The point of all this is that I have never formally learned anything related to programming. I waded in with a machete and duct tape and just made things happen.
I really think it is long past time for me to correct this. So why not start with js?
I won' be paying for anything, I'm an old pirate and some things are hard to change. I'll begin by using the resources at MDN and from there I'll go to Free Code Camp and Project Euler. After that I'll figure out next steps.
The ultimate goal of course is to build tools for myself and possibly others to use with Steem.
Thanks for the post.
Keep Steeming!
I wished to be part of the project but unfortunately i dont know anything about programming. But with your writing is something important, looking toward to that if i can get assistant either from you!
wow!!! i am glad to see this post so early.
i have always tried to lean web designing but i am always giving up at a particular point.
i'd know it wont happen this time just because we're all learning it together.
thanks for this update
I have a tip for those of us who are already parents:
Let your kids mess with coding right from the beginning, there is Scratch by MIT and Blockly by Google who are specially designed for kids and are designed in a way they will also enjoy it.
Starting to code at an early age will help your kids develop a critical and logical way of thinking and it may advance them in life when they grow older, regardless of the whether they will be a programmers or not - programming can be useful in every day activity as well!
I helped my brother to start learning at the age of 13 and today he is working for money, enjoys hackathons etc. - I really believe programming helped him a lot and that's when he began not so early!
For the adults of us - I don't need to add another word, @cryptoctupus gave us all we need!
I agree with most everything you have written here. I also agree that at times, the formal instruction sites are pretty useful and will give you a more structured learning process. In my world, I believe that I learn best by doing projects, having to problem solve inside those projects, and then doing more projects. These have been my best teachers in almost all I have done. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for the links to the training resources. I've been working off a lot of YouTube videos with little success. Will keep you posted if I find any additional resources.
Do you have an idea or goal for your first project? I've made a few attempts at learning different languages and always found that a lack of excitement for the test projects was a limiting factor when learning.
It's much easier to battle through a tough question/hurdle if you are going trial by fire directly on a project you care about.
For website i will recomend you learn PHP
omg!!!! i just stumbled on the most helpful post of the year!!!
i am so glad you are welcoming steemians into this project of yours. not just steemians but newbies ones. i am so ready to learn with you. thank you @cryptoctopus
How about if we setup a discord channel ?
Everyone shoud know how to code, at least the basics!
Generation nowadays can easily get almost all information within seconds, unlike older generation where information are very limited and not every people get the chance to learn and study because learning is expensive (especially true in underdeveloped countries). Hence, the world now is more competitive. If you don't want to learn and improve yourself, you will be replace soon.
@cryptoctopus I love w3schools and stackeroverflow. I know frontend languages like html and css as well as back end languages and databases. By far the most useful online is html but in creating backend work it takes a bit more. Some good IDE tools Brackets.io , visual studios, Dreamweaver, Atom by Github. Really hope you love learning it
i would like to to embark on to learn how to develop.Please share with video material or books if you have
tried some coding before, on codeacademy, didn't learn much but FreeCodeCamp looks interesting, thank you for this useful post man
I want to say something in JavaScript. Some think that JavaScript works only in the form of web page form validation and some dome manipulation. And it is a client side language that can run only in the browser.But the ideas are 100 percent wrong. From server side and network programming, mobile and desktop app development, game development to Internet of Things, machine learning, this JavaScript will also be seen. And it has been built on intermediate language and has been developed on some sub languages like Capsiscript, TypeScript etc.
It's very tempting thing to program and I honestly do not know much about it, so it will be very interesting for me to study your messages and see how and what happens! I completely trust you and wish to get involved in this process! Thank you @cryptoctopus
Wow! I’m almost speechless.
I have just learned so much information from your post. Normally I would have to pay someone to help me get all this knolage together. It’s realy so easy to understand what to do and which browser, text editor.... to chose.
Great informative post!
Resteemed!
so informative post my friend .i am also started learning c & c++ but i face many difficulties in using class in c++ .After June i start java if you have goog link of tortial of c++ programing kindly give me the link of chanels who better explain coding .
I learnt C++ on hackerrank.com They have some really useful exercises which start out really easy. At the time I did already know Java quite well, though.
Yes, I would like to learn, especially since I have computer knowledge only on the basis of the school level. But trusting you I will try.
This is amazing, I can't believe that I can learn coding for free, thought it would be expensive though I have passion for these kinda stuffs but now made easy, am in. Thank you so much.
I started this by coding C code with DEV-C ++. I guess I started off the road a bit hard, but I can say it's fun and exciting. Encoding is good. When you get success, you can not tell the happiness that the code works.
It is also very nice that you share this space. Thank you.
@cryptoctopus
Thank you so much for sharing with us, I always follow you and see your post. Thank you so much for sharing good posts with us
I am a web developer. Although haven't ventured into developing for the blockchain at all...however, this should be fun.
Not expert at website development but to the few that i am operating, i have to ask programmer to modify the content and designs , he uses php for development and i dont know whether he is super expert in php or php really is easy to learn. He always use to say, its easy to implement, it won't take time, so i think you should give a try to php
thanks you! Sublime Text or Brackets is best for codeing! you got a new fan here! i am really intreasted in html php java script! i am computer science student it really beneficial to me! i m following you!thanks
Yes, @cryptoctopus, I will follow you to learn CSS/Javascript. Well said if you are committed to learning something then you can learn without spending any penny. The Internet is the game changer nowadays. Money can not be the excuse nowadays.
W3Schools is one of the best sources to learn HTML. I have read this blog.
Thank you very much for your nice and step-by-step narration. @cryptoctopus
@cryptoctopus I just started learning to code for a very similar reason. I really recommend sololearn.com. SoloLearn has a great community and courses covering most of the popular coding languages. It also has an easy to use app, so you can learn on the go too! 🤙🏿🤙🏿🤙🏿