Where to begin

Chacha97 · 04-03-2021 9:57am #1

Hi all,

I am looking to start the journey of learning to program. I know this will be tough and take time. My goal is to learn ruby and rails. I want to be able to develope a platform in the future. I'm a recent college grad with time to spare.

My question is where do I start to learn basics before beginning to learn the ruby language. Is harvard cs50 a good place to start? I know I need to learn basics and get familiar with html, css and java script but just don't know the best place to start.

Appreciate any help.

Thanks

Mr. CooL ICE · 04-03-2021 11:22am

codecademy is a handy resource for learning the fundamentals of new languages

Jim2007 · 04-03-2021 3:09pm

Sign up to freecodecamp and they will take you from zero to hero... ;-)

Their program covers the entire range starting from beginning HTML and CSS through Javascript and back ends in Node.js and MySQL.

Now they don't use ROR, but that should not stop you as you need to learn the basic no matter what and since you are starting out it should not matter what language you learn first.

I have nothing agains Ruby and in fact I spend several hours a day coding in Crystal, which is a compiled version of Ruby, but at this point I would caution against ROR especially for a beginner. The main reason is that ROR has fallen off in popularity and as a result it is difficult to find up to date study material. There are very few books and courses on the subject, much of what is on offer is dated.

Where as if you go with one of the more popular backend languages you'll find a wealth of support in the community, books, training courses etc... And at the end of the day PHP/Node.js/.Net Core/Java/Python etc are more than capable of producing a solid back end for you.

Chacha97 · 05-03-2021 12:05am

Jim2007 wrote: »

Sign up to freecodecamp and they will take you from zero to hero... ;-)

Their program covers the entire range starting from beginning HTML and CSS through Javascript and back ends in Node.js and MySQL.

Now they don't use ROR, but that should not stop you as you need to learn the basic no matter what and since you are starting out it should not matter what language you learn first.

I have nothing agains Ruby and in fact I spend several hours a day coding in Crystal, which is a compiled version of Ruby, but at this point I would caution against ROR especially for a beginner. The main reason is that ROR has fallen off in popularity and as a result it is difficult to find up to date study material. There are very few books and courses on the subject, much of what is on offer is dated.

Where as if you go with one of the more popular backend languages you'll find a wealth of support in the community, books, training courses etc... And at the end of the day PHP/Node.js/.Net Core/Java/Python etc are more than capable of producing a solid back end for you.

Thank you for the response. I will definitely check it out!

In terms of the language to try learn after the basics I'm still open to changing of course! Mu goal is to create an online type marketplace. I researched a few bits and rails came up as a popular language for starting up initially. So I'm still a bit unsure what language best suits

*I can get started on the basics now anyways thankfully and research potential languages.

John_Mc · 08-03-2021 12:16pm

Chacha97 wrote: »

Thank you for the response. I will definitely check it out!

In terms of the language to try learn after the basics I'm still open to changing of course! Mu goal is to create an online type marketplace. I researched a few bits and rails came up as a popular language for starting up initially. So I'm still a bit unsure what language best suits

*I can get started on the basics now anyways thankfully and research potential languages.

Programming is a style/way of thinking and once you grasp it in one language, it's usually easy enough to work with another language. You know what you need to do, you just need to look up and learn the syntax to achieve it.

Vanilla Javascript might be a good place to start learning how to write functions and methods. You might then look at an object orientated language such as C# or Java to take it to the next level. The two are very similar in syntax.

I would avoid learning Javascript frameworks such as Angular and React until you're absolutely comfortable with Javascript itself.

It's a long journey and can be frustrating but it does get easier and more enjoyable. You never stop learning and improving which is one of the biggest advantages of the job in my opinion.

Chacha97 · 11-03-2021 3:36pm

I have begun my journey on freecodecamp! Currently tipping away at html and html5. Going well so far!

Just like to thank all the posters for the input!

I was considering purchasing the leaving cert computer science book but unsure if would be of use to me. Would ye know any good book recommendations?

Jim2007 · 11-03-2021 5:30pm

Chacha97 wrote: »

I was considering purchasing the leaving cert computer science book but unsure if would be of use to me. Would ye know any good book recommendations?

I know it is not great in the pandemic, but I also found their local FB group a lot of help. We had some meet ups and so on. Also a good way of making contact that might be useful later.

APress seem to regularly offer their annual subscription at a discount, so perhaps keep an eye out for it. I got one at Christmas for $69 and I'm happy with the content. BTW, it is all PDFs

RangeR · 11-05-2021 2:38pm

I started learning Ruby a few years ago. Never put it into practice though and moved on to something else. I've tried a few courses but I learnt the most from Learn Enough Ruby To Be Dangerous. He has branched out into other areas, like Git, HTML, CSS but he started with Ruby. It ain't cheap but it's comprehensive and easy.

Where to begin

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