[2] Hello World
why i was convinced to do what i am doing and some of the resources i used early on.
“coding is the new literacy”
this was the sentiment i kept on encountering. well, i don’t code. am i illiterate? so the underlying thought was to be relevant in the the future. #futureproof
this lengthy article on mojo left me with a lot to think about. I suggest anyone considering learning to code — or even learning what it means to code- to read it.
Ever since i started getting into this stuff. similar headlines seemed to pop up in my feeds all over.
To further solidify the idea. a man by the name of Douglas Rushkoff convinced me further.
then i got a “you have no excuse not to do this” moment. I was introduced to an abundance of free, extremely valuable online resources.
my first hello world was written in python. why did i choose python? no idea. I had to start somewhere and it was something i heard here and there. I simultaneously went through the codecademy python track and an intro to computer programming course on coursera. Programming for Everybody was also taught using python. Gotta give it up to Dr Chuck; he brought humor to the subject and drilled down compsci concepts in my mind. I liked him. and enjoyed his lectures. and I can safely say, that doing his lectures, i focused more than i did in any lecture in my 5 years of education. this stuff is really engaging. side note, i also think moocs are infinitely more efficient.
I also dabbled with Java. As part of Stanford’s Engineering Everywhere online platform, I followed a lecture on programming methodology. I followed through, but it was taught in Java … meh. But the underlying concepts were taught very well. That this whole thing by Stanford exists is incredible. Props to Stanford.
Then i went on to try learning java with the newer technologies in the hopes of being more engaged. I took Intro to Java Programming by udacity. well structured. but java didn't do it for me.
beats
any day.
finally, when i realised this is something i enjoyed and can potentially be good at, i took the real leap. that being the leap that involved moniez. i moved on to brick and mortar lecturing at Bitmaker Labs. and early on we were introduced to the power of Ruby on Rails
“Allow rails to do for you what a java developer does all day.”
is what we were told by one lead instructor. yes. i can get on board with that.
the ease and access to resources is encouraging. however, it comes with caveats. you really do need to be interested in this stuff. and it requires commitment. depending on how immersed you get, you will lose a certain degree of your social interactions. consider yourself warned.
