Computer Programming: Is it Possible to Learn This Profession on Your Own?

Is learning code on your own possible? This is a question you may be asking if you have considered other options and they don’t work for you. Learning programming requires discipline and commitment. It is basically learning how to give your computer “instructions” that it can execute. If you learn best independently, learning computer programming on your own could be a suitable option for you.

Understand the basic concepts

You need to start off with basic coding exercises to understand more about the concepts involved in programming and how things work. Understanding the basic concepts is more important in the beginning than understanding all the different languages. You can find many courses and tutorials online that will help you to get started with basic computer programming.

Also Read: Best Programming Languages To Learn

Start writing your own code

At some point, you have to go beyond tutorials and guided projects and start writing your own code. When you start out, your scope may be limited, but the more code you write, the better you will get at it. Start writing your own code to make things, even if they aren’t perfect or have been done before. Make sure you keep working on your code until it works. You won’t improve unless you’re dedicated to writing your code over and over.

Teaching students programming

It takes time to learn computer programming, and if you’re a student trying to do it on your own, you may need help, especially if you intend to have a computer science career and get a computer programming job. You can use an online service and get a professional writer to write a college essay for you. If you buy a college essay from EduBirdie, you will receive a high-quality and plagiarism-free essay. It will be delivered within the required deadline and can devote more time to your computer programming.

What if you get stuck?

While learning on your own, you may often reach points where you feel stuck. You may try a more difficult exercise building on an earlier concept and find you’ve lost your way somewhere. What you will discover is that almost every problem you encounter has already been a problem for someone else. Google searches can get you quite far on your journey to learning code. If you can find a senior programmer to mentor you and help answer your questions, this will be a big plus for you.

Reverse engineer a website

If you want to solidify the knowledge you have already picked up, a good exercise to try is reverse engineering a website. Online Course Report has a list of tutorials where you can clone some well-known sites.

As it isn’t a paid job, you can take your time and learn as you go. Choose a fairly simple website and open it up in your browser. Look out for techniques such as CSS3 effects, animations, responsive web design etc. and find out more about them before using them. Studying good code is a great way to improve your own skills. If you get stuck, you can right-click on the webpage and “inspect element” to give you a clue on how to continue.

Get your code out there

By putting your code on GitHub, you can get feedback on it and even get suggestions for improvements. This is extremely beneficial if you are learning to code entirely on your own. There comes a time when you have to expose your code to other coders, even if you feel it’s amateurish and messy.

Having others review your code can be intimidating, but it is one of the best ways to learn. Other programmers can see if you have any obvious errors in logic and if you managed to translate what you were trying to do into code in the best possible way. If not, they can show you a better way to write it.

Will I ever be good enough to be a software developer?

There are many programmers with successful careers who are self-taught. It can be a tedious, lengthy process to teach yourself code. You will need many hours of practice if you want to become a professional coder.

Also Read: Software Development Languages For Programming

Conclusion

You may decide to get a Computer Science degree, take online courses, attend a coding bootcamp or teach yourself to code. No matter which route you take to learn to code, you will need persistence as it becomes harder the further you go. Overcoming all the obstacles along the way will give you what it takes to succeed in your career.