As a beginner, the subject of programming often seems mysterious. It’s hard to get an idea of what programming methods and tools or even coding can look like when you have no experience. Learning to program is a considerable ordeal, especially if you plan to learn on your own for your own project. We’ve summarized what you’ll need to successfully learn coding, commands, and scripting. Summary
- Programming for beginners: the preparation
- What are the programming languages?
- Web programming
- Programming an application
- Learn to program online
- Learning support
Programming for beginners: the preparation
Anyone who wants to learn a programming language must do a lot of documentation. Reading forum topics and books is a good first step. Through careful reading, one can acquire the necessary basics of knowledge . Each programming language has its discussion forum. Thus, most imaginable questions have already been asked and Internet users have undoubtedly also provided an answer, or at least tried. If you do not find a satisfactory answer, you can ask your own question to the large community of programmers. Write down important information that will help you in the initiation phase. A clear personal database with interesting notes will help you later to solve your problems in a targeted way.
What are the programming languages?
A good part of your research and preparation should be learning about the different programming languages and figuring out which one is best suited for your project. The best known and used are:
- Java
- C
- C++
- C#
- Objective-C
- Python
- Visual Basic .NET
- HP
- JavaScript
The complexity of these languages varies : some are indeed more difficult than others to master. You should always keep in mind why you want to learn to program. Do you want to design websites in the future? Would you rather program a microcontroller that would serve you on a daily basis (in your car for example)?
Web programming
To design Internet pages or adapt a Web application, you have to start with the basics. HTML and CSS are not programming languages per se, but they nevertheless represent the basis of most sites and thus constitute the starting point for a beginner in programming. One can set up elements of Web pages using HTML and thus design the skeleton of a site. The next step is the discovery of HTML5 which offers more audiovisual possibilities.
With CSS, it’s all about design and organization. All the characteristics of the different elements are fixed in this way, namely their colors or their positions for example. However, HTML and CSS only allow the design of static and simple functional pages. If you manage to master these basic tools, you will be able to do programming. For first attempts with dynamic pages, the use of JavaScript is the best choice because it is quite simple. With the help of JavaScript, you can design dynamic websites that allow for example the automatic adaptation of the size of the images. PHP and SQL complete the basic package for web application programming. PHPis an open source scripting language and can be integrated with the HTML protocol. SQL is a database language with which you can define the structure of data, modify it or extract data sets. When designing complex pages (including a member identification zone, for example), the use of a content management system (CMS for Content Management System) considerably reduces the knowledge required of PHP and SQL.
The elements presented above are of course only a small selection of the many possible scripting languages for the web. HTML, CSS, JavaScript, SQL and PHP are still a solid and sufficient knowledge base for most web projects. The w3schools.com website has documentation suitable for beginners as well as tutorials for using the scripts discussed.
Programming an application
In order to program applications such as games, even photo editing programs, it is necessary to bet on other bases. These include C, C++ and Java. These three languages have a similar syntax. Anyone who masters C or C++ will thus more easily get to grips with Java. You will find a course for programming in C or C++ on developpez.com . As for Java or C# programming, there are tutorials on the following respective web pages: Openclassrooms.com Java programming , C# programming .
Apps for iOS and OS X
It is possible to program applications for iPhone and iPad using Cocoa . It is not a scripting language but a transmission interface for the Mac OS operating system. Xcode is a development interface for Mac OS, with which one can develop Mac and iOS applications related to Cocoa. The Interface Builder is a graphical design software for application interfaces. Among the languages used are Objective-C , among others .
Apps for Android
Applications for Android operating systems are programmed with Java . The Android Studio interface and Oracle’s Java development kit , combined with appropriate basic knowledge, allow you to create the most varied applications.
Learn to program online
Whether you are an employee or the creator of a start-up, for example, having programming knowledge is an undeniable asset in the digital sector, but also a big challenge. There is help on the Internet for quick and straightforward learning: online courses are indeed available to learn programming.
Code Academy
Code Academy offers an English-speaking interactive programming course, among others for HTML, JavaScript and PHP. The platform also publishes courses that do not refer to particular programming languages, but rather general topics such as programming interactive websites. So you can learn programming for free, in English language and with basic computer knowledge.
Udemy
The Udemy online platform offers more than 40,000 online courses, from photography to programming to design. Online course offers can be free or paid for the main computer science topics (software and programming) . Users can therefore find free initiations to Java, HTML5 or PHP and other paid ones on mobile applications, e-commerce, etc. A positive point for developers is the programming course for entrepreneurs available. The courses are mainly in English and do not always require you to have basic knowledge. There are free courses and those that are paid for cost around ten dollars.
Code.org
Code.org is an online portal for programming beginners. It is therefore the ideal platform for those who do not have knowledge in the matter. There is a wide selection of fun and free tutorials , with references to famous online games like Angry Birds. On Code.org, it’s all about explaining the logic of programming. The portal is international and you can select the language of your choice, including ENGLISH. Small games and tasks await the user, so as to make learning as understandable as possible.
Learning support
If you know what programming languages to use, you have a massive selection of online tutorials and other relevant forms of help . It also takes patience to find the appropriate editor for your material.
The choice of editors is great, the best known are Notepad++ for Windows users, BBEdit for those who use a Mac as well as TextMate. The SublimeText editor is suitable for both Mac and Windows. For languages like Java or C (and derivatives of the same family), we generally attach ourselves to an IDE (development environment), which brings together various complementary elements for programming (for example Eclipse, NetBeans, Visual Studio, XCode) .
Online courses are very practical and appreciated by users and it is always worth taking a look at the offers of universities or large schools. Courses are also often opened for external participants in exchange for financial participation.
