Update: 11/17/13
After publishing “Can I Learn to Code?,” I started wondering more about the why of my struggles with learning any aspect of programming/coding. On one of the posts in Medium, I’d read some advice that mentioned the importance of having something to do, using your skills to build something that was important to you. Then it struck me. When I tried to learn Python, having been told that it’s a great beginner’s language (or rather, a great language for a beginner), I simply couldn’t envision what it really did.
That minor epiphany lead me to couple places. First, some articles and tutorials about learning to program on Lifehacker, which started with the suggestion to begin to learn HTML and then move on to CSS and Javascript. A small, perhaps dim light went on. I knew a little HTML, at least enough to realize this in a text editor produced this in a browser.
I hadn’t pursued my goal of learning at least the basics of programming by trying to become proficient with HTML et al because I didn’t believe it was real programming. And I’m sure to many this is the case. But what it is is a opening for me to start with.
I’ve started working my way through the HTML tutorial on Codeacademy. I’m enjoying it, feel like I’m learning (and revisiting some things I knew before, which sort of makes me feel a little smarter) and I can see and know what I can make with it. Perhaps that’s what I failed to understand. It really is all about making.
And then on to CSS…
