My annual project for 2022 is to "learn to code."

Any tips on where to start? There are so many languages out there - it's hard to know where to begin.

Any tips, favorite resources, etc? Shout 'em out.

Is this for fun, for employment, etc ?? Please let us know. God Bless !!!

Learn Python and SQL. What is your end goal? Web based (sites and APIs) is big now and is still the future.

Knowing what Excel can do is also a big thing.

It's for all the pipeline welders out of work wanting to move into their next career. ; )

Don't exclude some of the older languages, the antique .Gov programs never updated from the 90's have some openings, too. IIRC Cobol, etc. which was my wife's forte programming a IBM 38.

A majority of business platforms use some version of Linux and its definitely migrating into laptops, tablets and phones as a way for the owner to step aside from dependency on the home computer suppliers like Microsoft or Google's Android. IIRC the majority of retail is on Red Hat - I know one of the top three auto parts retailers use it even for their point of sale systems. There's just a thin veneer of some windows looking stuff as the visual interface. Go to the green screen and it's Linux - which is where it started when they computerized.

Works better in my opinion, but I was sticking chips into motherboards to double memory in the day. We had to literally make small changes in the boot and registry to add something like Lotus 123 then. A flip top desk holder with floppies was the norm. The cup holder that slid out with a touch of the button on the new tower was cool.

<fidgety humming in wait for a response>

quote:

Originally posted by mark123:
Learn Python and SQL. What is your end goal? Web based (sites and APIs) is big now and is still the future.

Knowing what Excel can do is also a big thing.

As a tech recruiter I can tell you Python is in huge demand. Between data science & DevOps / Automation. It's hard to go wrong.

In the same boat as the OP, for over a year now. As in, I have I don't know how many courses I signed up for that I haven't gotten around to yet.
Mostly Python.

However, the Creation Crate electronics projects I just started are apparently using C.

In my engineering career I used many computer programming languages. Including some that few folks know of today. E.g., APL, FORTH, FORTRAN, RATFOR, SNOBOL4, VHDL.

Of all the languages that I’ve used, common and uncommon, I love SNOBOL4 the most. It’s wonderfully good for the programming projects that simplify my life. Actually, I use SPITBOL, a slightly newer and enhanced version of ancient SNOBOL4.

SPITBOL is available on GitHub, a wonderful resource for programmers.

Documentation for SPITBOL is also available on GutHub, including a reference/tutorial. The tutorial is easy to work through, with examples. SPITBOL has many wonderful facilities.

What's your goal? That's important to indentify the direction.

To motivate- Get an Arduino, Raspberry Pi or similar platform and tinker \ create something.

Do you learn best from books? Structured courses where you learn stuff and then apply it yourself?

Considering python as an example, there are a ton of free books online that may work well for you. Companies like Pluralsight have structured pre-recorded courses organized to let you progress from beginner to advanced topics. There are other providers that have instructor led courses.

quote:

Originally posted by bryan11:
Do you learn best from books? Structured courses where you learn stuff and then apply it yourself?

Considering python as an example, there are a ton of free books online that may work well for you. Companies like Pluralsight have structured pre-recorded courses organized to let you progress from beginner to advanced topics. There are other providers that have instructor led courses.

https://automatetheboringstuff.com/#toc is a decent book. I have Python Crash Course which seems to me as a beginner book but is said to be read after Automate the Boring Stuff. Maybe because the projects are more complex. If you want to read Python Crash Course contact me.

quote:

Is this for fun, for employment, etc ??

This is important.

I have been writing code for a living for over 20 years now.
(Mostly on the Microsoft stack.)

For me, it did start off as a hobby kind of thing.

I started with self-paced training from books. Back then choices were limited.

In addition to the Pluralsight courses mentioned before, you might consider looking at Udemy.com courses.

If this is for a career/job change, you would likely go in one direction and as a hobby in another.

I was self taught starting with basic, then C and then to several proprietary versions of C.

What I programmed in when I had my own company and was programming situation rooms for Homeland Security and most of the larger Silicon Valley firms was actually two programs, one a proprietary C and the other a Visual Digital Sequential program.

I learned the Visual Digital Sequential programming by going over completed programs that others had done and then starting to write my own.

I learned the C the same way with some help from books.

I'm assuming you're an American. That makes you the wrong nationality.

I'm assuming you're white. That makes you the wrong race.

Forgive me, but you will not get hired. You'll just have to trust me on this. You need to be brown and come from a place where people think nothing of shitting in the streets. I can't think of any other facet of computing where the prejudice is so very strong. It's the truth.

If/when I do finally go back to work, it won't be in I.T. I'm not going to start swimming upstream at my age.

Para speaks the truth, I too have experienced wokeism in hiring. You won't get work in the IT arena if you are not one of the appropriate classes. Being female, unless you were born male, no longer qualifies without some level of intersectionality. Nor does any amount of skill. experience, or training seem to matter any more.

But, if you want to learn to code for fun, and personal reasons, learning Python will likely be the most straightforward way to get started. It has long been said that after you learn one language, the rest are easy. I'm not sure that is so, some people seem to grok some languages better than others, Python seems to be more accessible to many. I would say, some time early in your progress, take a look at the source code for projects in various languages, you may surprise yourself with what looks "natural" to you.

quote:

Originally posted by architect:
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I would say, some time early in your progress, take a look at the source code for projects in various languages, you may surprise yourself with what looks "natural" to you.

The “rosettacode.org” site show how many reference programming tasks, e.g., the “8 queens” chess puzzle look in various programming languages.

http://www.rosettacode.org/wiki/Rosetta_Code

quote:

Originally posted by architect:
I would say, some time early in your progress, take a look at the source code for projects in various languages, you may surprise yourself with what looks "natural" to you.

You're absolutely right. Mrs. Flash, who has never programmed in her life and has never read or studied about it, can look at C code and tell me exactly what I'm doing with any module I've written.

She's a natural and doesn't know it.

I don't think this is about wokeism. I think it's more about one particular nationality more or less taking over the business, and preferring to hire it's own.

quote:

Originally posted by architect:
Para speaks the truth, I too have experienced wokeism in hiring. You won't get work in the IT arena if you are not one of the appropriate classes. Being female, unless you were born male, no longer qualifies without some level of intersectionality. Nor does any amount of skill. experience, or training seem to matter any more.

But, if you want to learn to code for fun, and personal reasons, learning Python will likely be the most straightforward way to get started. It has long been said that after you learn one language, the rest are easy. I'm not sure that is so, some people seem to grok some languages better than others, Python seems to be more accessible to many. I would say, some time early in your progress, take a look at the source code for projects in various languages, you may surprise yourself with what looks "natural" to you.

You can't learn it all at once. This is a good starting point.
https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/aspnet

Download Microsoft Visual Studio Express. They have a version that's free. There is a good chance your applications/web forms will need to access a database like SQL. SQL Express is also a free download.

The United States has a shortage of programmers and that needs to change.

If I can learn programming, anyone can.

I started my programming journey in the early 1990s. I was fed up with the job I had after a few years of Collage.
I took a job with a local printing division of the worlds largest printing company and quickly discovered it was not my cup of tea. The constant 12 hour shifts and 7 day work weeks grew old quickly. I decided to change all of that. I went to my local Collage and bought a book on GW Basic. I took it home and tried to understand the concepts. It was hard. I can't lie about it. Not only was I trying to learn GW Basic, I had to learn MS DOS. I had zero computer skills. I ended up reading that book over and over. I would even take it to work and study anytime I had a free moment. Suddenly, things began to click. My first program was a Vacation Scheduling program for our pressroom and Bindery. This got the attention of other departments. I was asked to write a overtime tracking utility for the maintenance department. I did that one in a language called Pascal. One thing led to another and I ended up in our desktop publishing area as an electronic assembly specialist. I was like a kid in a candy store. I spent much of my time automating processes.
I was offered a job as a Business Analyst where I ended up writing our Divisions Distribution system and a host of other applications, both web based (asp.net) and application based (Visual Basic, C-Sharp, Javascript, Microsoft office automation, etc.) that ended up being adopted by a number of other Divisions across the company. A number of these programs got picked up by Corporate and I had to support them. I know India has taken most of the programming jobs. In my case, I wrote the programs our Indian Billing teams used and had the pleasure to work with them for a number of years as changes were needed or new functionality added.

Good luck and stay with it.

I've utilized Code Academy pretty heavily. I currently do quite a bit of development in Python doing data science. NodeJS would be another good pick if you want to do any web-based development.

The truth is, Indian programmers could be hired for a fraction of the cost of American programmers. It comes at a cost. Projects taking much longer than it would having someone in house that could work with end users.
The communication gap between American and Indian workers can be a real problem. I've been on numerous conference calls with 40+ Indian contract workers and American employees. Usually one or two could speak understandable english and did most of the talking. They were usually managers. Trying to get a manager to truly understand a technical issue and communicate that to us could be difficult. Screen sharing was essential.

ChicagoSigMan,

Don't be discouraged by some of the comments. There is always a place for someone with exceptional computer skills in a company. Seldom does a turn key solution work for everyone and always a need for software utilities in the office. Take it upon yourself to write some of them on your own time and show your boss. It will get you noticed and in demand.