Before You Start Coding...

Hey!! Dev Community, it's my first post here so I thought I'd go back to the basics. So, guys, let's go in.

I get approached with questions like, "Samuel, I want to start coding. What do I do?"

A lot of blog or articles online may just tell you to pick a language and start learning because..well, it's popular or trending or likely to rise in ranks as time goes by. I know because that's how I wrote my first "Hello World". I wrote my first code in Python and now I code in JavaScript.

Okay, Before you start coding.., what should you do?

KNOW YOUR AIM: Ask yourself this question, why am I coding? What do I want to build? Do I like the web or do I want to make desktop applications? Do I want to get into Cyber Security? Basically, I advise people looking to learn a programming language to research on Careers in Programming and then make a choice.

KNOW YOUR STACK: After picking your chosen field(you could decide to switch later though..), you'd do well to know the languages needed to learn to achieve your goal. Make research based on your geographical location, that way you'd avoid learning a language that's obsolete.

START LEARNING!! You could decide to get taught by registering for a Bootcamp or take an online tutorial in your chosen field. You can find online tutorials at Udemy, freeCodeCamp and a lot of other websites.

Following this outline has helped me pick a field and it gives me some sort of direction. I feel like just picking any language to code is like just learning how to use a tool without knowing what to use it for.

Although, some people learn languages just for educational purposes, if you looking to get into programming as a career, you should definitely choose a field.

Okay guys, I guess I've enlightened you a bit, you can leave a comment if you have contributions to this post or criticisms. I'll appreciate your feedback. Have wonderful evening(yea!, I'm writing this in the evening).