Learn How to Code on Your Own

“Whether you want to uncover the secrets of the universe, or you just want to pursue a career in the 21st century, basic computer programming is an essential skill to learn.”

- Stephen Hawking

I received my Computer science degree a decade ago. Due to personal priorities, I could not start my professional life immediately. I kept brushing my expertise to the background until I was sure to be obsolete in my field.

My best friends, both software engineers started their professional careers immediately after graduation. To date excelling in their professions making me proud.

Off and on they kept reminding me, how it was never too late to revisit my ambitions.

Eventually, when my youngest child started going to school and I had some free time at hand, I decided to relive my long-lost love for programming.

The whole web was full of “Teach yourself videos”, but the question was what do I want to teach myself? I wanted to start something I was familiar with.

Choosing the language

Java is the first thing that came to my mind. Java was a programming language I had studied at University. I found it to be easy to use and therefore easy to write, compile, debug, and learn than other programming languages. It is object-oriented. Which allows you to create modular programs and reusable code. Its best feature is its platform-independence and the fact that it is still popular.

Specifically, at big companies. Airbnb is using Java, Uber is based on Java, LinkedIn is a Microsoft product it is sporting Java. eBay is based on Java, Pinterest, Groupon, Spotify, Pandora, Square are based on Java mostly.

So I chose to start off with java.

The uncomplicated beginning

As a first step, I bought a book ‘Java How to Program’ which is currently used as a coursebook at Universities. Next, I tracked a video series of learning to code Java with the best reviews.

I started off with basic steps.

I read the topic. I saw a video on it and got down to code my own. At first, it seemed very easy. Beginning with “Hello World”. Moving on the basic loops, arrays, classes, and practicing concepts of inheritance .polymorphism and Interfaces. It seemed like the concepts were coming back to me.

Each time I wrote a code and it worked, It felt amazing. Every little step was a huge achievement for me.

“The happiest moment I felt; is that moment when i realized my ability to create.”

― Dr. Hazem Ali

I loved the joy of creating something new although almost all the codes I practiced were already written by other people but creating them my self felt great.

I believe coding is an inbuilt art, we have it in us but being good at it requires a lot of practice.

Making codes every day for weeks, Overall I was enjoying the whole situation until I got stuck.

Getting stuck

“A computer program does what you tell it to do, not what you want it to do.”

Programming is all a perfect breeze until you get stuck. As I advanced in my self-learning course and started moving towards longer codes and object-oriented topics. I started getting stuck more often. I would spend days stuck on a single problem trying to solve it every second of the day, at times even in my dreams.

The frustrating part was that when I finally figured out the problem, most of the time it was just a tiny mistake that I overlooked.

A misplaced decimal point will always end up where it will do the greatest damage.

Moving on to the Databases and web pages life became hell. Although there are all sorts of help and explanation available online. Making a full-fledged project requires a lot of effort, determination, skills, and guidance.

A Couple Of months down the lane

Working day and night I have come to the conclusion that learning to code on your own is possible but it requires a continuous effort and extreme willpower.

“Also, don’t forget that some of the most successful people in the world are self-taught programmers. Steve Wozniak, the founder of Apple, is a self-taught programmer. So is Margaret Hamilton, who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her work on NASA’s Apollo Moon missions; David Karp, founder of Tumblr; Jack Dorsey, founder of Twitter; and Kevin Systrom, founder of Instagram.”

― Cory Althoff, The Self-Taught Programmer: The Definitive Guide to Programming Professionally

Written by Sumera Rizwan

Published in Medium publication Age of Awareness