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Learn outside the box

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Hello!

I am Gilberto Ayala

I am here because I want to give you tools to succeed.

You can find me at

Twitter: @gil1012

Github: gilbertoayala12

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Topics:

School isn’t going to teach you everything

Which programming language should you start with?

Recommended languages for common projects

Where to learn?

How to improve?

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School isn’t going to teach you everything

Let’s start with the hard stuff...I know, phrasing.

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School is great but...

It doesn’t teach you everything you need to know to succeed

They only teach you 1 or 3 programming languages maximum

You can learn more outside school

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Advantages of taking online courses:

Variety of programs and courses

More comfortable learning environment

Career advancement

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Which programming language should you start with?

In reality, there’s no best language to start with, and your first language has virtually no lasting effect on your eventual career.

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Choosing the most suitable one

All programmers should ideally have experience in multiple types of languages

Once you’re comfortable with one language, move on to another which differs in some fundamental way

As you learn more languages, you will become more equipped to choose the right task at hand, which is the hallmark of a good programmer

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Recommended languages for common projects

If you already have a project or goal in mind, you will learn faster if you can apply your skills to the problem you’re trying to solve.

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Recommended languages

I want to...	Consider using...
...Make iPhone Apps	Swift, Javascript
...Make Android Apps	Java, Javascript
...Build a website	JavaScript, CSS, HTML5
...Write Windows desktop applications	C#
...Make 2D games	Python or JavaScript
...Do automation and scripting	Python, Ruby, Bash, Powershell

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If you still can’t decide...

Try Python.

It’s a good, beginner-friendly language with a huge community and many libraries for doing most anything you want, like making games or websites.

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Where to learn?

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Programmers seem to have stopped reading books. The market of books on programming topics is miniscule compared to the number of working programmers

Joel Spolsky

“

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Reading books

Read the WHOLE THING

Pay attention

Where to find them?

1.-One common mistake is to not thoroughly read the explanatory material.

Going directly to the coding examples without reading the accompanying explanation of how the code works is a recipe for failure. The reason you buy a computer book is to obtain the sample code along with the explanation that goes with it.

2.-Make sure you read only as long as you remain focused on the book. If you find yourself suddenly thinking about a fishing trip or the ball game on TV, it’s time to put the book down for a while. Casual reading simply isn’t good enough, you need to focus or there’s little point to the exercise. Don’t worry if you have to backtrack a little to ensure you actually understand the material that swam right out of your head as you were thinking of that fishing trip.

3.-where to find em

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Get your camera ready or...your notebook?

English:

http://bit.ly/1fDwBCX

http://libgen.io/

Spanish:

http://bit.ly/1guk9rB

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But if you want to jump right into the action

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Codecademy.com

Great to learn basic syntax but lacks information about the language.

Place your screenshot here

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Codecademy.com

In here you can learn from JavaScript to PHP

Place your screenshot here

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Sites like Coursera, EdX, Udacity, SoloLearn and many more

In here you can learn a lot of stuff not only programming languages and they give you a more detailed

Place your screenshot here

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And many more.

1.-One common mistake is to not thoroughly read the explanatory material. Going directly to the coding examples without reading the accompanying explanation of how the code works is a recipe for failure. The reason you buy a computer book is to obtain the sample code along with the explanation that goes with it.

2.-Make sure you read only as long as you remain focused on the book. If you find yourself suddenly thinking about a fishing trip or the ball game on TV, it’s time to put the book down for a while. Casual reading simply isn’t good enough, you need to focus or there’s little point to the exercise. Don’t worry if you have to backtrack a little to ensure you actually understand the material that swam right out of your head as you were thinking of that fishing trip.

3.-where to find em

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How to improve?

Making this jump between intro tutorials to complex code can be difficult and is a normal part of learning a new programming language

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How do I move from a beginning to an intermediate level.

Switch from passive learning to active learning

Constantly be practicing

Don’t be discouraged by having to debug or google

Learn how to be systematic

Don’t be afraid to ask for help

And mostly DON’T GIVE UP

Switch from passive learning to active learning
Rather just taking courses and classes that (you hope) will teach you what you want to learn, start actively researching for ways to teach yourself. If you don't know how to make a game, for example, google "how to program a game in X", where "X" is the programming language you want to use. If you run into an error message you don't recognize, try googling it. Want to learn how to do machine learning? Google, and find a textbook, tutorial, or online course that seems good.
Constantly be practicing
Programming is sort of like exercising, in that the main way to improve is through constant practice. Start simple, and try programming a basic game like "rock-paper-scissors" on the command line. Once you finish, try picking a more ambitious project, and work through that. Perhaps try some programming exercises, if you want to mix things up.
Programming, fundamentally, is really about applied problem-solving, and the best way to learn how to problem-solve is to constantly be solving problems, big and small.
Learn how to be systematic
When coding and debugging your code, never fall into the habit of just "trying" things and hoping they work. Be as systematic and rigorous as possible, and avoid "trial-and-error".
When writing code, take a moment to pause and plan out in paper a rough plan of attack. Consider sketching some diagrams, or jotting down some pseudocode. If you have to change your plan (which you most likely will), think about why you're making that change, and what your new plan of attack is. (This planning phase is also a good time to practice problem decomposition!)
When debugging, never be aimless. Try and think like a scientist -- conduct experiments to either try fixing the bug or to narrow down where the bug might be, and record your results. If your hypothesis/attempted change turned out to be wrong, or if something worked when you didn't think it would, stop, pause, and figure out why. Consider tracking your experiments and tests in a notebook, if it helps you stay on-track.
Bugs happen when your assumptions don't match up to reality. If something feels "off", don't ignore it -- trace that down until you pin down what the issue is/what incorrect assumption you made.
Don't just "do" random shit until you get lucky -- be systematic about it.
Don't be discouraged by having to debug or google
Something that not all beginners realize is that having to spend more time debugging or googling is perfectly normal, even among professional programmers.
Debugging (and struggling!) is an essential part of coding. Try and avoid being stressed out or impatient, if possible. Treat it as an interesting hunt or a puzzle!
Even if you're making no progress on your actual code due to some bug, as long as you're being systematic, you're still practicing your problem-solving skills, albeit in a different way.
As a result, even if you spend many hours working through a single bug, you should still consider it time-well spent. Debugging is one of the best ways to become good at problem-solving!
(This is even more true as you grow more experienced. It turns out that the the difficulty of bugs you encounter will grow and scale with your level of experience. It isn't uncommon for experienced programmers to have to spend months tracking down just a single bug.)
Don't be afraid to ask for help
And finally, if you're completely stuck and have no idea what to do next, don't feel bad about asking for help!
Programmers are generally very helpful. Many of us are also self-taught, and so understand what it's like to struggle as a beginner and what it's like to be completely stuck.
As a caveat, make sure you've done your due diligence (tried decomposing the problem, tried debugging, tried googling, etc), and make sure you've written a good-quality post. Like any subculture, programmers tend to have certain implicit rules and expectations. One of the key ones is that your question should be well-written (even if it's basic).

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Cool stuff and freebies

Tons of stuff:

https://github.com/sindresorhus/awesome

http://noexcuselist.com/

Free stuff if you’re a student...pst pst you’re one.

https://www.jetbrains.com/student/

https://education.github.com/pack

http://www.autodesk.com/education/free-software/all

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Thanks!

Any questions?