How To Learn Programming.

Computers are an integrated part of our lives and Programming is the tool that gives power to create computer applications as per our needs, not only that there are many jobs in the market for the programmers. As a result, programming has become a hot topic among students as well as professionals. Nearly every second person is interested in learning programming. Here I am going to talk about how one should start learning to programme, how to switch between different programming languages and what are the common mistakes that one should avoid. I am not going to teach programming or going to refer a book or website; I am only going to tell about basic guidelines about programming and clear some the misconceptions
The first misconception about programming is, it is only about writing codes. Coding is a part of programming; coding means converting one language to another whereas programming is a much broader term. It involves coding, debugging and many other things. Another misconception is learning different programming languages means to learn to programme whereas programming is about developing problem-solving skills and debugging skills. Learning programming languages is not a difficult task, most of the programming languages differ only in the tools available and the basic syntax, that we can quickly learn in a week or so.

There are many programming languages available, like C, C++, Java, Python, Pearl and many other; but as I suggested earlier programming language is not important, it is an individual choice, when you start learning programming stick to one language only, don’t try to learn two to four languages at a time. I will suggest starting with C as it is very close to the computer systems and helps to understand computers better and makes other programming languages looks easy; but if you find it difficult start with Python as it is very near to English language and is very easy, programming in it makes feel like giving instruction to someone, it is an high level language and away from complexity, it helps to focus better on developing problem solving skills.
“Practice makes a man perfect” this proverb apply here as well, try to do as much practice as you can do, there are many online platforms that provide the same, I am not gonna name any particular platform you can google them. Start doing competitive programming as it helps very much in developing problem-solving skills and better understanding of libraries of the programming language. Never copy or see the solution online as it kills whole process of learning, try a problem again and again till it solves and take help from your peers instead of taking help from an expert of the feild; before writing code of a problem first write pseudo codes, pseudo codes are the solution of a problem in normal language, after writing pseudo codes replace them with the language codes.

When working on a bigger problem or a project try to follow modular approach; modular approach is breaking a program into many different sub programs, this helps into rectifying logical errors fast. try to make proper indented program and provide proper documentation this increases readability of the program, give proper variables names for the same reason. Start using Linux instead of Windows as it is open source and helps in many ways, there are many projects exclusively for Linux platform, also it provides much flexibility over any other platform. Laptop is an integral part of a programmer’s life, but you don’t need a fancy gaming laptop, buy any laptop with good keyboard and modern processor and it will do the work.
When switching from one language to another learn the syntax and libraries of the language and it is only that is needed, as you already have problem solving skills, here pseudo codes plays the most important role,because the thinking process remains the same and you only have to convert one language code to another with proper syntax.
Summarising everything , focus on developing problem-solving skills and debugging skills, don’t try to grasp too many things at a time, proceed step by step, programming language is not important ,it is only that a particular problem can be performed faster in one programming language than another, stick to one programming language, Linux is way better than other operating systems, fancy laptop is not needed, learning first language is difficult after that learning other languages are quite simple . Try googling more and more to read about libraries and read manuals of libraries to understand them better. Practice as much as you can do.