How To Start Programming In 10 Steps

In most of the cases Entrepreneurs build their own things. When you start a company or have an idea, you are at the first stage of your business; so it is unlikely that you are going to pay programmers to do what you thought. A better solution is to learn how to program in order to understand how things are made and to make your own stuff. With this idea in mind, I think that there are ten steps to learn how to program.

• Find an interest

  The first step is to find an interest. A programmer is better motivated when he does what he likes doing, sometimes it can be very frustrating to write code, find bugs and spend the night at the computer; so if you find your niche in the programming world you will be in a better mood every day.
  Do you like videogames or pc games ? Do you love Apps or Web Applications ? These are important questions that you have to think about before starting something. If you know what you want the choices between the programming languages will be restricted.

• Choose a Language based on your interest

  When you arrive at this point and you have already decided your interest, the game is done. Do you like the web 2.0 ? Well, start learning Php, Javascript and Ajax. Do you love Android? Java is the right thing. Are you an Apple fan ? Objective - C is the way. There are dozens of programming languages and most of them are used for specific tasks in different environments; so it is fundamental that you know what you are gonna do.

• Get a Book or an Ebook

  The third step can be different form individual to individual. I have always preferred to learn something with a huge book in front of me for several reasons. I love books and I love to underline what I study. On the other hand most people are able to study on the internet. Luckly there are tons of references out there that are waiting for you. One of the most remarkable example is what you can find at http://php.net, if you want to improve your Php skills, that is the right place to look for.

• Study

  This is the key to success. In order to build great things you must know your field. The hard work is the base for a good program, an idea or even the next big thing. The more you study, the more you will start to understand how your programming language works at the core. This is the first critical step that you have to do. Plan your study session and do it; it would be better if you chose an hour every day in order to keep the stream of thoughts going. Your mentality must change, but to do it you need to study.

• Do Excercises

  When I first started learning some code, I made a huge mistake. I didn’t do the exercises at the end of my programming language text. You should always practice after you have learnt a new concept. Without exercises or short experiments on what you read, you wouldn’t be able to reorganize your ideas.

• Start Writing simple code

  After finishing a paragraph and the exercise, you should start writing simple code. It can be a short program or just a simple function that uses what you have understood from the book. A great example of it is the famous Hello World, which is used to introduce every programming language.

• Read Code

  Find a repository and start reading code, “the more you read the more you think”. A decent and good example can be found at http://github.com.
  This is really an important step, you can’t just write code at the beginning. You need to learn from others who are better than you. As Newton said ” If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants”. In order to be the top programmer or a good one, you have to start learning from better programmers.

• Write Complex code

  Yes, this is what you are going to do next. You must challenge yourself with other code; you can simply start by modifying the code you found in the repository. Look up for a Free Software Project under GPL or under any other Free Software license and then start working on it. The best thing of Free Software Licenses is that you can do whatever you want with that piece of software.

• You are a Programmer

  Well, this is the ninth step, now you should be a good programmer. If you worked hard, you did it.
  From now on you should be able to see things that you weren’t able to imagine. You should be able to create things, model and control them.

• Start your own project

  It is time to start your own project. Now you have a wide knowledge of your field. Think different and build the next big thing.
  This is the final step.

Take the most you can get from this list, go out and make the difference.