how to learn coding

[y a t s]

#include stdio
int main(){
    printf("kill yourself"); //the important part
    return 0;
}

#include iostream
using namespace std;
int main(){
    cout << "kill yourself" << endl; //the important part
    return 0;
}

@ECHO OFF
REM the important part
ECHO kill yourself
pause

fn main() {
    println!("kill yourself"); //the important part
}

push rbp
mov rbp, rsp
lea rax, [rip+0xec0] ; the important part
mov rdi, rax
call 0x1030 ; puts
mov eax, 0x0
pop rbp
ret

WRONG! People who spend more than 15 minutes asking "how do I learn to code" will NEVER code. You can't walk around the internet without tripping over programming educational material, it's basically like porn. In some ways, it's never been easier.

The correct answer to someone asking how to learn to code is: YOU CANNOT BECAUSE YOU WILL NOT

Asking stuff like this is how most people first approach self-directed learning. Plenty of resources exist for nearly all subjects in existence, but many of them (e.g. W3Schools) are dogshit. There are plenty of math textbooks I can think of off the top of my head that are only useful as toilet paper, fuel for a campfire, or to bash over the head of assailants. There's nothing wrong with asking where one should start when approaching a broad subject like CS. Clearly, based on the number of opinionated replies in this thread, there is no single objective answer (beyond saying to practice a bunch). Who seriously wants to waste their time learning from a shitty resource or using a bad approach to learning? Teachers provide guidance and direction as a student practices and strengthens his knowledge, helping the student to avoid falling into bad habits and to save him time and frustration. Imagine if every teacher had your attitude. Those like us who taught ourselves this stuff are all too familiar with being stuck with shitty or limited resources to help us when we're stuck. The greatest thing about knowledge is that it can be passed along and expanded upon; why would we want others to also waste the time we did when we could provide some guidance? We don't have any strict obligation to help others learn this stuff, but telling people "No, you're too retarded." is counterproductive and detrimental to future society. The false sense of superiority being evinced here helps no one, including yourself.

As an aside, I took a web development course in uni as a bird course. The professor would often say "I will not degrade myself by going to W3Schools." while searching for a resource to put up on the projector. It has always stuck with me, and I reflexively say it while looking for an MDN result.

My experience with programming is that 99% of my time is spent trying to get something to work so I can spend 1% of the time on a crack high of relief and pride after solving something I thought I was too retarded to solve. The ideas and the solving are rewarding, but the work involved in making your ideas solve the problem is what produces the bulk of dopamine from this hobby/career.

Having an idea, fleshing it out, and then building it is why programming is fun. Whether you're making a pretty website, fucking around with a database or algorithms, spinning up a cloud server, or building a robot that follows a line on paper... You're creating. Similarly, automating/solving a problem or increasing efficiency through your own creative musings is equally as enjoyable. Programming is all about solving problems via your imagination and getting a machine to do it faster, more accurately, and with a bit of creative flair.

Well said, friend. The high from problem solving is unlike anything else. The rewarding feeling comes from being productive instead of some inhaled substance. When something is truly earned, it's 1000x better. I do work in a lot of different subjects because the experience is enjoyable. I wouldn't be hunched over the keyboard, spending hours in IDA if I didn't enjoy it.

The info and resources you provided are excellent; I 100% agree. Kudos.

 

[Anti Snigger]

Fuck around, like a lot. Don't necessarily worry about making things good, just try to make shit. Expose yourself to problems and situations, even if you can't figure them out.
Just try to have fun with it I guess. I started coding at about 9, and I didn't manage to write anything really noteworthy for a decade, but that time I spent being a skid and goofing off gave me a lot of raw experience that I was later able to refine.

 

[Janny Jewsh]

where can i learn C

beginner-oriented:

https://www.codecademy.com/learn/paths/c

 

[DeadwastePrime]

give up. have ai do your coding for you. its only a matter of time before it replaces us all as the dominant species on the planet

 

[Archie_Kimkicker]

I learned C on the command line on a Solaris 5.x server. You can imitate this by setting up a virtual linux box (use an easier distro like Mint) and use nano and GCC in a shell window.

 

[std::string]

Clearly, based on the number of opinionated replies in this thread, there is no single objective answer (beyond saying to practice a bunch). Who seriously wants to waste their time learning from a shitty resource or using a bad approach to learning?

To be fair I don't think there's anywhere you can actually go wrong with reading programming books aside from maybe older C++ ones that will teach you hell code, but even then that's still sort of useful since that might be what you encounter in the wild if you're maintaining something.

 

[Anti Snigger]

Actually, I changed my mind.
Don't

 

[The Ugly One]

The first step to learning coding is to not be retarded. Sorry.

 

[N Space]

float was a mistake

Any decent alternatives? Fixed point is useless AF and symbolic arithmetic like the one used in Simpy is far less efficient.

 

[Flabba Wabba Jabba]

Fuck around, like a lot. Don't necessarily worry about making things good, just try to make shit. Expose yourself to problems and situations, even if you can't figure them out.
Just try to have fun with it I guess. I started coding at about 9, and I didn't manage to write anything really noteworthy for a decade, but that time I spent being a skid and goofing off gave me a lot of raw experience that I was later able to refine.

Honestly this. I learned so much by going "I want to be able to create calendar events from my own personal tool" or "I want to setup local encryption cron jobs for filepaths on my machine and then upload them to a cloud storage".

 

[geckogoy]

everyone asks this i don't know im overwelmed how can i learn it

You really need to have something specific you want to do, and then more specific advice can be given from there.

If you dont have some kind of goal in mind there almost isn't a point in trying.

 

[eatler]

You really need to have something specific you want to do, and then more specific advice can be given from there.

If you dont have some kind of goal in mind there almost isn't a point in trying.

He was super banned so you don’t have to worry about it anymore.

 

[geckogoy]

He was super banned so you don’t have to worry about it anymore.

Ah darn, why anyhow? I kindof liked him

 

[eatler]

Ah darn, why anyhow? I kindof liked him

I miss him too…. It’s mostly rumors but supposedly he asked to get banned. That’s probably the most SHO thing to do.

 

[geckogoy]

I miss him too…. It’s mostly rumors but supposedly he asked to get banned. That’s probably the most SHO thing to do.

 

[Demonslayer1776]

Enter what you want into Chat GPT and then copy paste it into your editor. When it doesn't work copy paste it onto stack overflow and ask someone why it isn't working so they will fix it for you

 

[Gender: Xenomorph]

Honestly, Scratch is amazing.

https://scratch.mit.edu