How and Why you should learn coding/programming in 2023

You are a computer science student but still don’t know how to code?

You are not a CS student but still want to learn how to code ?

You don’t know what coding is ?

Don’t worry you are about to find out. Because you came to the right place.

So in this blog I will be answering 5 simple questions.

1. What is Coding ?
2. Why do you need to learn coding ?
3. Where to learn it ?
4. How to start ?
5. Can anybody learn coding ?

What is Coding?

Coding is a set of instructions written by humans and understood by computers. Computers don’t understand human language. Engineers made computers in such a way that they only understand some specific language which we call coding languages. What computers understand and how this language came to exist. If I start talking about it then this whole article won’t be enough to explain it. So let’s keep it for some other time.

So coding is instructions that computers understand that are written by us humans.

For example :

If you want someone to do a job for you, say “Hey “X” give me that “Y”. You make a request or order them to do it via a language they understand.

So if you want computers to do a job, you make a request or order them to do it with a language they understand, which is a programming/coding language.

print(“Hello world”)

It’s a statement or instruction for the computer to show the sentence hello world on the screen.

So there are lot of programming languages out there in 2023 that computers understand like Python, Ruby, C#, JavaScript, Rust, Java etc. Every language follows the same concept, just their syntax is different.

Wait but what is syntax ? Well, you’ll understand if I give you a humanly example.

Let’s say you want your friend Jamil to bring you a pack of chips from the market.

What you can say is :

Hey Jamil, can you bring one pack of chips for me ? (1) (English)

Or you can say

Jamil Amar Jonno ek packet chips ante paarba?. (Bengali)(2)

In both sentences you are asking your friend Jamil to bring chips for you, in different languages.

The two languages used different words and characters but served the same purpose. If your friend understands English you would use sentence 1 or if he understands Bengali you would use sentence 2.

These unique words, sentences and letters used in one language are called syntax in a programming language .

Let’s say you want to show hello world on your computer screen.

You can write -

print(“Hello World”) (python)

or

cout<<”Hello World”; (C++)

Python and C++ are two different programming languages. Here you can see I have written different keywords , symbols and words but the end goal is the same.

Why do you need to learn coding ?

Now why you should learn coding . What’ll you do with it?

We are living in the age of technology and the internet. We have become so reliant on the internet that we spend almost half the day on the internet doing various things like surfing the web, browsing different social media apps, and playing multiplayer games. How do you think these games , websites , and mobile apps have been made? What do you think when you write your status on Facebook and click on the post button it goes to everybody who is connected to you. It’s definitely not magic. Someone programmed it in a way that if you write anything and hit the post button everyone on your friend list can see it. For only this specific feature someone wrote many lines of code.

To make applications (mobile/web),games you need to learn coding. Also if you are interested in Artificial Intelligence and Data Science you need to learn coding. You literally can become a software engineer without any degree and earn cash sitting from your home. Well who doesn’t want that ?

Where to learn it ?

This is an era of the internet. Everybody has access to the internet. The Internet is not just social media. Nowadays the internet has made learning easier than ever. Anybody can learn anything from rocket science to history , LITERALLY ANYTHING. So if you really want to learn coding there are thousands of free good tutorials on YouTube on different programming languages for beginners. I will be sharing some free tutorials on python at the bottom of this post. Also there are platforms like Udemy and Coursera which offer really good courses on programming instructed by professionals. You can buy these courses, stay in touch with the instructors and get real time help from them and also every course has a community which is also beneficial to learning. To be honest as a beginner you don’t need to buy a course, at first you can just follow any series on YouTube then if you like any or want to know more you can Purchase a course. Let’s say you want to learn but you are too lazy to learn from internet . Well maybe you are feeling like this at first but eventually you’ll get comfortable but for starting I would suggest you to look if you know anyone who is already working in this sector or an expert programmer. You can talk with them and ask for their assistance in your journey . You might even ask them to teach you and give you better resources. Trust me he/she will be happy to guide you or teach you if you seem interested . Because almost every programmer loves to teach coding. Not only it just helps the one we teach, it also helps us make our knowledge stronger.

How to start?

For starting you have to just pick a language first. It can be any language. As a beginner you can start with python. Python is a beginner friendly language . Catching up the language is going to be easy . I have provided some YouTubers links at the end of this article which you can follow for learning.

You have to spend at least 3–4 months learning a language for the first time. From the tutorials everyday you will be learning new coding concepts and simultaneously you have to solve many practice problems. Once you’ve started you’ll understand what kind of practice problems there are. There are many fancy programming languages out there you don’t need to learn all of them in the beginning, well to be honest you’ll never learn all of them. Just pick one and stick to it, once you grasp the core concepts of programming, learning a new language is going to be EZZY PIZZY.

Can anybody learn coding?

The answer is yes. Anybody can learn coding. It’s not rocket science. It doesn’t matter if you are from a CS background or from a Business background or a student of law you can learn coding. You just have to have an ample amount of interest and have to be a little bit persistent. Some might grasp the concepts very quickly and some might take a lil bit of time . But the problem is a large number of people give up when things start to make less sense. Those who can continue even if they are struggling in the beginning and stick to the learning process, they end up having a very solid understanding of concepts and start to enjoy it. This is where the fun begins once you start enjoying coding there is no stopping you.

Conclusion

Thanks a lot for your time, if you have read this far. I see you are someone who wants to make a change in life.

Maybe you are still thinking if you should give coding a try or not . Well can you do one thing for me please? Can you just get that thought out of your head and give coding a go. You’ll never find out if you like it or not unless you try.

Trust me it’s not rocket science , even rocket science itself is not rocket science if you know what I mean. So best of luck.

Wait you might be thinking where are the links that I promised to share. Don’t worry I didn’t forget, actually I did at first when I was writing this but never mind here are the links.

Python for beginners by Nana:

Python for beginners by Mosh Hamedani :

Also you can visit FreeCodeCamp and surprise yourself.

freeCodeCamp.org

There are tons of tutorials out there on different languages but I am not going to be give you guys so many options . Because when we have so many options it’s hard to make a decision.

Also if you are interested in watching videos related to productivity and personal development I recommend following these channels.

Thomas Frank :

https://youtube.com/c/Thomasfrank

Productivity Game :

Productivity Game

I personally follow them and have learnt so much.