I’ve Never Coded … Where Do I Start?

Hello ☺

First, If you’ve decided to learn to code, I’d like to commend your choice. It’s a skill that is much needed in almost every single industry.

Before answering the question in the title, let’s look at a couple of big industries where the skill of programming or coding is instrumental.

• Mobile Industry
• Finance
• Marketing & Web
• Social Innovation
• And many more…

Coding literacy is no longer a skill that’s needed in a few places, but rather a must have for any modern innovator, be it an entrepreneur, a student, or a freelancer.

Aside from our careers, learning how to code will make you think differently about everything. You will automatically start figuring out how things work, without even spending time thinking about it, it will be like second nature.

I’ll tell you my prospective of the answer to the question in the title through a story, and then we’ll get to the specifics.

When I was a first year undergrad at Waterloo, during my first co-op, I worked for one of my favorite professors, Sanjeev Bedi. I was asked to disassemble an engine, design the components with 3D software, and then put the engine parts back together. Once that was done, he asked the team for a volunteer to build a website for these 3D components and explain how they work for other students, online. I said I’ll do it; mind you I had barely any clue what coding was, and knew absolutely nothing about making websites. Of course, I didn’t say that to the professor. As expected, I went and learned how to build websites, and even though the website I made at the time looks absolutely embarrassing now that I look back and remember it, I was way happier with making that website then I was building anything else before. It’s almost like getting paid for putting LEGO pieces together in the form of code.

Moral of the story is, it’s much easier to know what you would like build first, before worrying about what you should learn. I only say that because there are so many things you can learn, and it can be overwhelming, but once you start with a goal, the learning process will take place more efficiently.

Here are a couple of starting points that I highly recommend for beginners who want to learn by doing:

• Websites & Web Apps Development: whether you want to build a landing page for your product or a cloud-based finance software, you can actually start building it. Some examples of web-based applications are, Twitter.com, Facebook.com, Eventbrite.com, Meetup.com, and the list goes on. You would need to learn HTML5 & CSS3 to build awesome looking websites, and JavaScript to build interactive web experiences.
• Mobile Development: most apps on our mobile phones are called “Native”. All of the companies in the list above have a mobile app as well, mobile development is another great starting point. Programming languages to learn include Java for Android, Swift for iOS, and C# for Windows phones.

You can start in any of the areas above, however, as expected some will take longer to learn that others. In my opinion, the best place to start is with making websites and web applications. If you don’t know what to build, I recommend building a landing page for your idea, startup, or project.

I hope you continue your learning adventure, and build awesome products.