“Whether you want to uncover the secrets of the universe, or you just want to pursue a career in the 21st century, basic computer programming is an essential skill to learn.”
– Stephen Hawking
In modern-day society, with all the technological advancements of the 21st century, programming is becoming (or already is) a key skill to learn. In this blog post, I am going to present all the information about programming for beginners; what is programming, why should you program, and how you can start.
What is Programming (or Coding)? And why is it important?
Programming is the process of using a programming language to get a computer to behave in a specific way. A line of code tells the computer to perform a certain task, and a series of lines of codes (script) are used to make the computer to perform a specific function.
Why should you learn to Program?
There are many reasons why you should learn to program.
- It’s easy to learn- Oftentimes, programming is associated as an immensely difficult skill, with a lot of natural knowledge and skill required. However, this is definitely not the case, if you put your mind to it, programming can be a really easy skill to learn and can be learned surprisingly quickly.
- Increase your ability to solve problems- Programming is always about problem-solving! When you program, you will inevitably find errors in your code, and be required to go through each part & find the mistakes. As you learn more programming, your ability to solve problems will develop.
- Makes you pay attention to smaller details- In programming, you will have to go through your code and seek out mistakes (‘debug’ your code). During this process, you will have to go through each line one by one to carefully spot the small yet significant error that is affecting your code. By this, you will develop the ability to pay attention to smaller details.
- That’s what employers look for- The title may be quite self-explanatory. Programming is a desirable skill in present society; any employer would be impressed by seeing a programming language in your resume. In addition, it can also help in university applications, especially for engineering programs, as it would be a great extracurricular activity. There is no dearth of opportunities out there when it comes to programming!
How can you start?
You have already started- by reading this article, you have taken the first step to learn to program! After this, you just need to take initiative to go and start learning programming skills. There are countless resources on the internet, that can help you to learn to program; Codecademy, Github, FreeCodeCamp, and computer science organizations or clubs (Hackergal, CanadaLearningCode, among many other organizations) that can guide you in learning coding skills. In addition, I would recommend starting out programming with beginner languages like HTML. CSS, JavaScript or Python. If you are interested, I wrote an article called “Let’s Code Into the Summer” last year, and it has some resources and more tips to get started on coding. Always remember, it’s never too late or early to learn code.
Conclusion (TL;DR)
In the end, programming is an important skill that is really important to learn. This article summarized some of the basic things that programming involves including what is programming, the importance of programming, and how can you learn to program. Even though it may sound intimidating at first, programming is a skill that can be independently learned (and trust me, you will enjoy it as you practice & learn more about it 🙂 As summer closes, and school comes to an end, maybe programming can be a skill that you learn; let’s code into the summer!