Coding is all the rage these days. Students of all ages and
adults already in the workforce are increasingly encouraged to learn
programming. Even President Obama said everyone should learn to
code.
There are countless resources that offer the opportunity to
learn different skills. From free online classes through services like Codecademy to multi-thousand dollar programs that
promise to turn you into a bona fide software engineer in nine weeks.
But the question remains: Does everyone really need to learn
to code?
The answer is no, at least if you’re not in an industry that
relies on technology. But that pool of workers is gradually shrinking.
Gregg Pollack, founder of learn-to-code service Code School, says anyone who
has to communicate with a developer at any point in their career should learn
the basics of programming.
“If you learn some code, you’ll have a much better appreciation
for what they do,” Pollack said. “Take the time to understand what it is and
how to effectively communicate with programmers.”
If your goal is to just understand programming concepts, you
can play around with a few coding languages and see which one you prefer to
learn. However, if you have a goal in mind—such as building an iOS application
or a responsive Web page—you need the right tool for the job.
I’m Just Getting Started
If you have no experience with coding languages or Web
development, you can start by learning basic HTML and CSS.
HTML isn’t a programming language; it’s a mark-up language
used for formatting documents. With HTML, you’re able display your words,
pictures, links and video in a format that can be understood by Web browsers.
Cascading Style Sheets, or CSS, help you can change the font, size, columns,
and other design aspects of a Webpage.
You may already have experience using HTML and not even
realize it. People who use WYSIWYG editors like Adobe Dreamweaver might
have noticed you can change your editing style by toggling from “visual” to
“HTML.”
Even minimal knowledge of HTML is helpful for people,
whether they want to pursue programming or not. Having a mild understanding of
how responsive websites operate, and learning how to fix your personal blog or
site on your own, can help in many careers down the road.
I Want To Make Web Apps That Look Good
JavaScript is the code makes websites look great, and there
are a variety of compatible frameworks like Ember, Angular
and Backbone to help you organize and structure your Web applications for multiple
browsers.
JavaScript has been around for 20 years, and it isn’t
getting any less relevant. In fact, it’s on track to become the dominant enterprise language.
You can run JavaScript on just about any browser, and it is
used to program both frontend and backend services. There are numerous
resources for students to learn JavaScript, and Pollack told me JavaScript is Code
School's most popular course offering.
“If you’re doing anything on the Web, you have to learn
JavaScript, no matter what your backend is,” Pollack said.
I Need Fast Prototyping
If you’re a designer and want to learn backend programming
to test applications, Ruby or Python are good options—both are object-oriented,
dynamic languages that are fairly easy to learn. And both were among the top
five most popular job skills of 2013.
Ruby has a large ecosystem and an active, supportive
community. Ruby was created in 1995, but rose to popularityafter the Rails software framework
launched in 2003 and made building websites and Web applications simpler thanks
to collections of pre-written code.
Python, while similar to Ruby, has a somewhat larger scientific
community, so if you want to progress into machine learning and artificial
intelligence, Python is the language you should learn.
I Want To Build An Android App
On Android, the open-source operating system, app
development is mostly done in Java.
You can build Android applications on Windows or Mac, and
purchase relatively cheap devices to test your apps on. And as Android
continues to dominate the market share, more mobile developers are choosing to get started on Android than
iOS.
The free introduction to Java programming course on Udacity is
for beginners that want to learn Java concepts. Once you’re comfortable with
Java, check out the official Android developer site for a comprehensive
breakdown of how to create your first Android project.
I Want To Build An iOS App
On your Mac, you can create iOS applications that run on the
iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch with Objective-C. Objective-C is Apple’s
abstraction of C with influences of Smalltalk used primarily for building iOS
and Mac applications.
Because there is less fragmentation on iOS compared to
Android, it’s easier to create a one-size-fits-all application for the App
Store than Google Play.
Beyond knowledge of Objective-C there are a few other
requirements for creating an iOS app—a Mac running OS X 10.7 or later; Xcode,
the free tool needed to build an app; and the iOS software development
kit.
My Child Wants To Learn To Code
Students across the U.S. were exposed to coding last year.
The push to teach kids to code rose in popularity through academic programs
like Code.org,
which brought coding concepts into the classroom.
Through gamifying the coding experience with tutorials
including Plants vs. Zombies and Angry Birds, kids learned the basics of
problem solving and introductory programming skills. Code.org features student
and teacher tutorials, but there are other game-based resources as well.
If your child or young student wants to learn programming,
or continue practicing concepts and skills she learned in the classroom, start
from—or rather with—Scratch.
Scratch is created specifically for students to create
interactive games and stories through easy-to-follow lesson plans and
collaborative work environments. Scratch is great for students just starting
out, primarily designed for students ages 8 to 16.
Find What Works For You
You don't need to have a particular project in mind to start
learning the concepts of programming, but it definitely makes it more fun if
you have an idea that you can turn into reality.
If you’ve heard “You should learn to code!” one too many
times and you’re ready to finally begin, dive into any class that doesn’t
require programming experience and get started. Once you find a class you’re
comfortable with, an idea for a project will materialize, and from there, you
can learn as little or as much as you want.
Summary; If you’re ready to buckle down and learn programming, here’s where you should start.
![Learning To Code: Get A Degree, Or Just Teach Yourself? [Infographic]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vvyrEEaUMujFXzIPE7kPcIq2JnwfAQrf9RbXDyZ_vw7jqm-9l1nj_eqsqFtpc77UkhgMT0_IBVSgAsZcnwviQZS3cxHp5uiKhCe8ehqg4SmuIQXUpuD2sTsn2Vvl-clJu-EYewLmqrKcg0=s0-d)
