You've got this, it's never too late. Pick any language you can get installed, and then learn how to do these things:
lvl 0
- Make a program that prompts you for your name, and greets you.
- Now make your program write that name to a file.
- Now make your program read from that file.
lvl 1
- Put the file with your word or name on a server somewhere, like Github, it's free.
- Make your program read that file with an "HTTP Request"
- Just about any language can store to a SQlite database, write a program to create a table called 'stuff', with a column for strings, and store your name as an entry in a row.
- Combine the HTTP Request program and the DB program
lvl 2
- Learn another language, repeat this process, reflect on the differences between the process in both languages.
After this, you'll have an intuitive knowledge of where to go next, and how to find solutions and basic structures to accomplish the things you want to do.
But this is after you have already grasped the basic concepts of variables, assignments, conditionals, loops, functions, etc?
Your suggested path is great to learn a lot of stuff about web development. It's actually very very good, the more I think about it the more I see you basically covered most of the things one actually does in the job. Especially the googling part right at level 0 ;)
But I'm afraid I wouldn't recommend this path to someone that knows absolutely nothing about programming, isn't it better to start with little puzzles like fizzbuzz and the like to get to know the syntax of the language first?
Nope, find a problem you have, then solve it. Next, find a problem someone else has, and tell them to pay you to solve it. Being a programmer means you choose to have a boss or not.
This was a theme in the original article as well. This sense of not getting going because you might pick the wrong language.
This hesitation is likely because human languages are such a huge learning environment. Learning Spanish or Chinese is such a lot of work, and I don't know which would be more useful.
Good news though is that in programming, the language you learn doesn't matter. Because in programming moving between languages is trivial - the concepts underneath are 90% of the work, and are transferable. An expert in say c# could be proficient in say Rust in a matter of days.
So I get the "which language should I learn" question, but the truthful answer is that it doesn't matter.
For a reference, when at university, to prove the point, we implemented the same small program in 10 different languages in 10 days. Language is just syntax, which is trivial to assimilate. Programming happens first in the head, those techniques are the important things.
I am fond of Rust, but I suspect it would be a difficult one to start with. If you want to get some wins to help boost your confidence, it may not be a good place to start.
On the flip side, if you have an existing motivation to learn Rust, that could help you to stay engaged :)
Just about any language will do fine for this, Rust is a great language with an enthusiastic community. D
ownload Rust, install it to your system and get started with "How do I print in Rust". This will allow you to tell Rust to make words appear on your screen (no toner required!)
Bon voyage my friend, I hope you end up loving it as much as I do :)
I’ll offer a different approach than current sibling response, as a self taught programmer. This is how I learned. Take any endeavor you’d like to share with the world, and think of how you’d want to present it. Learn enough HTML (or whatever platform you’d prefer where you’re writing some amount of code) to present it. Get annoyed at how tedious routine things are distracting from your project and its presentation, and find some ways to start automating those tedious bits. Congratulations, you wrote a software! You’re probably already finding inspiration at this point to hone what you’ve learned so far. And you have a wealth of starting points to learn how to write better software. Follow whichever feels interesting. Before you know it, you might find others taking your programming efforts seriously. You might feel like you haven’t earned that. Don’t give into impostor syndrome here, you’ve come this far! Every experience is a chance to learn where you had gaps, and everyone who filled those gaps with useful knowledge before you walked the same path or walked the path of someone who did.
Many people who care already have moved away from social media anthem likes.
It always makes me laugh to see people talk about privacy security from their MacBooks with their apple, Facebook, Google, reddit, Instagram and YouTube accounts. Meanwhile they really happy to handout your info when LE asks.
In Europe, and many other countries they are not a privacy issue; it's technically impossible to use them for surveillance as the QR codes do not contain any identifiable information.
There's a saying going around that the difference between a conspiracy theory and truth is 6-9 months. In other words, look at what the conspiracy theories are today for an idea of what could be understood as truth in the future. Caveat: obviously this is not 100%.
The term "conspiracy theory" is a slur intended to blur two distinct concepts into one.
On the one hand, it means "insane school of thought". i.e. the Earth is flat. Something which is either totally off the wall, or at least unfalsifiable.
On the other hand, it means "non-mainstream school of thought" i.e. phones are being used to track people. It might be true, might not (well, now we know it is), but it's totally plausible.
Once you realise that you basically come to the conclusion that people who waffle on about "conspiracy theories" aren't using sound reasoning, because they're not interested in being understood.
I agree with you mostly, with the exception that I think it used to mean "insane school of thought", but more recently people have been mislabeling those who have a non-mainstream school of thought the same in an attempt to slander. The effect seems to have weakened the term, and given power to some ideas which may have rightfully been conspiracy theories in the traditional sense.
More specifically, both schools of thought that you mention involve powerful people taking intentional action, while the point of the slur is to convince you that a phenomenon is coincidence.
Problem is that people are buying them cheap when they can find them and flipping them for higher, then everyone follows including the manufacturer that wants a cut of the 1000% markup.
Part of it is idiotic "green" policies, part of it is massive inflation, whether we acknowledge it politically or not.
Money is worth less and less, you'd better start charging more.
All the assets are up, the market is up despite the terrible economy, salaries of jobs which are needed are up.
Startups are also incredibly overvalued, I think that's because nobody want to hold cash, which drives evaluations up. (Hence why all the recent unicorns)
