Learning programming on your own

Learning by yourself is doable

Programming can mean a lot of things. You can start by printing a "Hello World!" on your screen. You can also develop complete production applications that are used by people in real life contexts. Both of these mean programming. And when I mean learning programming I mean the latter. In fact, many programmers are self-taught. So, the first thing to know is that You can do it.

Another important point to keep in mind is that when I say "on your own" I mean without attending a bootcamp or getting a degree at a university. If you have time and resources to attend a bootcamp or university, that should be your first option. Learning on your own studying materials available on the web should be your second option. These tips are for people who don't have such an opportunity.

Not fully on your own

On your own does not mean that one should try to solve problems all by yourself. Instead one should try to learn the right way(s) of doing things as soon as possible from any resources available. In some cases, reinventing the wheel will be needed to understand what's going on with the wheel, but most of the time learn from other people's materials and code to learn the best practices.

Programming is not easy

Programming is not easy in any sense of the word. The beginning of it may seem easy but believe me it is not. If English is not your first language then it adds another layer of difficulty to your learning experience.

There are many people on the Internet thay say programming is easy but to me it was not easy. I don't mean to discourage anybody but it is important to be informed. Because the first steps of coding seem to be easy. You write a couple of lines of code and it works and voila, you are a programmer. But things get complicated very fast.

<script>
    console.log('You can write a piece of code like this');
<script/>

Things are changing fast

There are thousands of learning materials on the web. But because the technology is changing fast, they get stale very fast. You will find a lot of code that doesn't work because of version changes or the author abandoned it long time ago.

Persistence is your best friend

So be ready for a lot of work and be patient. The first obstacle to your learning will be installing the development environment. Development environment are tools and software that are used to write your code and see its output. Merely installing and writing your first line of code is also a big achievement. Like in any field of work, being persistent will make you successful.

Find a project that is interesting and useful

The most useful thing to keep oneself motivated will be developing a project for your own needs. Then one can divide the problem into smaller problems and solve them one by one. For example one can start with a simple list of questions and answers:

1. What problem in my own work can I solve by writing a program? I can create a program that keeps birthdays of my family and friends.
2. Which programming language is suitable to write such a program? I can use Javascript and HTML to write it.
3. Which site teaches HTML and Javascript to beginners? w3schools.com is really good to learn basic Javascript and HTML.

You can keep adding the questions and answers depending on your case.

Conclusion

You can do it. You need to be patient. You can take a break, but never give up. Make every step of it useful to you so that you can stay motivated.