Coding For Beginners

Top tips

• A good place to start is by checking out the resources section and seeing how you get on with the tutorials.
• Front end or backend? If you want to start by creating visual web pages try Javascript, HTML and CSS. If you're more interested in the behind-the-scenes workings of applications I'd suggest kicking off with Python or Ruby. Your first language needn't be a life long commitment so there isn't a right or wrong place to start. You can change your mind later or sample a bit of everything.
• Google all the things! Your search engine is your best friend. Use specific terms in your searches and amend them if you're not getting what you want.
• Your searching will often lead you to Stack Overflow. Any beginner questions will have been answered on there many times over. Be sure to check the dates of questions and answers since things do change over time. Remember that the accepted answer isn't always the best and read the comments which often highlight extra information answers may have overlooked.
• Talk to your coding friends and/or mentors. If you are coming to them with a problem you've had, they will likely be more receptive if you can demonstrate that you've researched the topic and tried a certain approach.
• Practice makes perfect better. Even the most experienced developers get stuck all the time and occasionally spend ages trying to fix something before realising they were sidelined by a mere typo. The only way to get better is to keep at it. Making mistakes is a big part of the process and helps you learn important lessons for next time!
• Once you've made some good headway in your tutorials in a particular language, embark on a small project to solidify and extend your knowledge and give what you've been learning some context. Projects are a lot more fun than tutorials and you get a great feeling of achievement from building a real thing. Good first projects could be a simple web page or a service that calls an API and sorts and prints out the results.