Recently, a lot of people have been asking how I learned programming. The answer is simple: Just do it.
Pick up a project, and just do it. The project doesn’t have to be big, even a simple page that prints ‘Hello World!’ in different fonts, colors, and hosted on your own .com domain name is a good start with lots of learning opportunities. My first ever page was just a HTML page filled with Starcraft images. It took me years before I started building photo galleries filled with security holes. Today, I build new features into Twitter’s advertising platform helping advertisers reach millions of users. I’ve come a long way, but with all the resources available online today, you can progress even faster.
Take the ‘Hello World!’ example I just mentioned, say you know nothing about HTML, where do you start?
Intro to HTML
Changing Color of Text in HTML
Changing Font of Text in HTML
You can see where this is going: Google is a fantastic resource for learning. It even applies to specific topics that I had to look up this past week:
git undo rebase
rails render 404
factory girl initialize with
Just imagine this like using wikipedia to finish college essays.
Not convinced? My friend Dan Tang, asked me this precise question about a year and a half ago. He then starting coding on his free time while keeping his I-Banking day job, learning multiple languages. Today, he spearheads an educational software startup, and trashtalks my choice of language. One of the most effective thing he does (and one I fail to do) is logging his work on his personal blog, which he also coded himself.
I hope this inspires you to start coding. And feel free to ask me @rickypaipie for any questions!
Also, if you prefer more structured courses, look into Codecademy and code school, where they offer interactive courses in many topics.
Happy coding!