Today is almost 2 years and around a month since I wrote my first program in Visual Basic. It was a simple form that took in a name through a text-box and displayed the message "Hello " + {name}. When it worked, I could not be any happier.
Fast forward to today, I'm here writing my first post on DEV.to. Over the course of these two years, I learnt Visual Basic, JavaScript, Python, Dart, C++ HTML and CSS.
I played around with frameworks such as Angular, React, Svelte and Flutter. I covered the basics of Machine Learning using Python. I spent hours watching YouTube Videos and reading books about programming.
I have to say, when I look at what I achieved in those two years, I'm impressed. I learnt those languages while juggling with other high school subjects (12 subjects).
How did I learn so much in so little time? Well the first language I did outside of Computer Science class was JavaScript. That alone took me more than a year.
When I tried C++, I noticed its similarities with JavaScript. Then I did Python, followed by Dart and I made the big discovery, all programming languages are the same!
All programming languages have core concepts - variables, functions, objects e.t.c. These work the same regardless of which language you use. Once you learn your first language, its easier to pick a second, third or fourth language.
So if you ask me, "Can anyone learn to code?". My immediate response is a resounding "Yes!"
Not too long ago, I sat down to make my first website coded from scratch. A simple website that allowed people to chat by sending messages.
Simple enough I thought, I would use Firebase with JavaScript. The interface would be simple HTML with a CSS framework such as Bootstrap.
Even this simple task was overwhelming for me. I suffered from "Coder's Block" an infamous cousin of "Writer's Block". I didn't know where to get started.
That's when I made the second big discovery, developing software is more than coding. It's a beautiful art of designing, engineering and problem-solving. For the past two years, I had learnt to code not make software!
I decided to learn this art and share my discoveries through weekly posts.
Anyway, let me end it here. My rule of thumb is to keep my posts short, less than 400 words. So with that said, goodbye.
Written with ♥ by Anesu.
Photo by Morgan Richardson on Unsplash.
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