I think I should learn how to code. What's the quickest way?

[Luke.]

So here I am, 20 years old with an app idea. I want to bring it to life, but i have no experience in code, no capital to invest in anyone to develop it and a lot of free time on my hands.

Right now, I'm currently living at home with my parents. I have no job but do make a small income from eBay. Not a lot but i get by. This only takes a couple hours a week or so to run, if that.

I'm also fairly good at maths and problem solving, always exceeded mentally in this area and enjoyed solving problems. I have read that learning code is very much mathematical and solving problems, so i don't think it would be a headache for me to do.

That being said, i feel like i'd want to learn code anyway to take control of my app/business as much as i can. I'd rather myself mess up and learn from it to improve rather than paying someone else for something i might not even want.

My plan? Save as much as I can for the next 6-9 months and in the meantime, learn how to code and develop my app. Then, whatever funds i have available i can invest into the app, pay a developer and hopefully get it moving to where i want it to be.

So my questions are;
Is this a good idea?
If yes, where should i start learning how to code for my app?

 

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[Guest34764]

Google.

Unless you want to take a free course then you can check out websites like Codeacademy.

 

[Filipe]

There is a channel on youtube - "thenewboston" - that's where i first picked up on basic programming skills. I like video tutorials a lot.

Still didn't check out the codecademy thing though, thanks @Omega. Will check it out.

 

[LEF]

So here I am, 20 years old with an app idea. I want to bring it to life, but i have no experience in code, no capital to invest in anyone to develop it and a lot of free time on my hands.

Right now, I'm currently living at home with my parents. I have no job but do make a small income from eBay. Not a lot but i get by. This only takes a couple hours a week or so to run, if that.

I'm also fairly good at maths and problem solving, always exceeded mentally in this area and enjoyed solving problems. I have read that learning code is very much mathematical and solving problems, so i don't think it would be a headache for me to do.

That being said, i feel like i'd want to learn code anyway to take control of my app/business as much as i can. I'd rather myself mess up and learn from it to improve rather than paying someone else for something i might not even want.

My plan? Save as much as I can for the next 6-9 months and in the meantime, learn how to code and develop my app. Then, whatever funds i have available i can invest into the app, pay a developer and hopefully get it moving to where i want it to be.

So my questions are;
Is this a good idea?
If yes, where should i start learning how to code for my app?

Programming is not for everyone, personally I hate it, I've learned many different languages back in the day, Pascal, Basic, VBasic, C, C++, Visual C++, ASP, ASP.NET, I've programmed e-commerce solutions back in the day and they were pretty good, but there was always someone much better than me. At the end of the day, I spent lots of time and produced mediocre results, I think mainly because I just didn't enjoy doing it.

My advise, if you have no inspirations of becoming a programmer for life and only want code in-order to bring your idea to life, you will have an uphill battle. However you might learn a valuable skill on basic level which could open up other doors. There is a possibility in you liking it too.

So, the process of learning programming is rough, it will take you 6 month to a year to learn programming to a level where you could start building something that somewhat decent. Probably double the learning time if you are no taking instructor lead courses.

Maybe make a new friend who knows programming, that would be helpful.

LEF

 

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[Lavi Fletcher]

Go on Quora and search "How to learn *whichever language" and you'll get a very good answer from people who have learnt a particular way and their thoughts of another way.

Like for me I'm learning Python at the moment and I much prefer the book "Learn Python the Hard Way" and Googling things along side it than the codeacademy or video route because I have to constantly watch, try, the rewind video slightly, then try to find where he says something important and I just don't like it. With words however I can see stuff straight away.

May not be the same for you however.

 

[Karri]

Microsoft Virtual Academy also has some resources, c# for beginners as an example. Go check it out!

 

[Panamera Turbo S]

The best way to learn everything in life is by practice. I am coding for about 5 years and i can tell you that for me the way i learned is by having a problem and search on how to solve it.

For example: "How do i set a cookie using PHP ?", i go to Google and search for it and this way i learn. But because you are at beginning you should have a little foundation. YouTube can be your best friend. There are tone of videos out there and i made some. It depends what programming language you want to learn. For iPhone apps you will need Objective-C, for Android you will need Java, for Windows Phone you will need C#, VB or HTML5 and JS.

Now if you want to make an app for all 3 Operating Systems you can search for xmarin, which is a software that allows you to type in C# one time the code, and compiled it for all 3.

But first, decide what you want to do, and start to learn the basics of that programming language. Oh, and don't get frustrated if you have problems and beginning. We all had and crash our laptops. Any time you have a question regarding code and programming you can find an answer at http://stackoverflow.com/ .

And one for thing to add, i personally code excellent when i am in a good mood, i listen my favorite music and i eat something sweet. It rocks when you do this because you stimulate your brain.

Good luck!

 

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[ilrein]

Where do you live?

 

[Leo Hendrix]

http://www.w3schools.com/ (web dev)

Udemy also has some good courses, some are free.

 

[Aaron W]

Step 1: Figure out what the future of coding apps will be.

Step 2: Google a course based on the language you found in step 1
(udemy is a great place to try as well)

Step 3: Learn and apply your skills as you go.


Coding is all about repetition & excitement:

- the more you do it: the better and quicker you get.
- the more you want to learn: the better you will become.

(but thats pretty obvious :> )

 

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[lowtek]

OK, so, let me offer some more concrete advice:

If you want to be an app developer, specifically, then you need to learn the languages apps are written in.

That means you are either learning Swift (for iOS) or Java (for Android).

If you don't already have a Mac, then don't bother with iOS development just yet. Start by learning java and focus on Android.

If you do have a mac, then by all means learn Swift and start programming for iOS - the profits are generally higher on that platform.

Start by outlining your App and what features you want it to have - settle on 1 or 2 at the beginning. You must resist scope creep at this stage.

Start to program those features. and report back.

 

[Dream&Achieve]

There is a channel on youtube - "thenewboston" - that's where i first picked up on basic programming skills. I like video tutorials a lot.

Still didn't check out the codecademy thing though, thanks @Omega. Will check it out.

w3schools is another good one along with codecademy

 

[Jon L]

If you have the time to do it, and you want to go into software as a career, then learning to program is an excellent idea. Here's the way I've learned:

1) Pick a language based on what is required for the project you want to build
2) take an introductory course in the language you chose. Spend maybe a month or two on this. At most.
3) Then start building your project. The learning isn't really in taking the class, but struggling with each step of the process of writing an application. Google whatever error code you get or google what you're trying to do. You'll usually find someone who has already written the few lines of code you're struggling with. Copy and paste and modify and learn.
4) You may find that you love programming, or you might find that you don't. Regardless, if you're going to run a software company, having a background in programming is really helpful.

 

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[GIlman]

My person recommendation would be to learn JavaScript. It's quickly becoming the language that works everywhere, and if you ever do any webapp development this is the only language web browsers all support native.

Facebook has released react native which allows you to create native apps on any platform with JavaScript.

https://facebook.github.io/react-native/

I've taught myself and programmed in many different languages, but have pretty much abandoned them all for JavaScript. On the server this will mean nodejs.

I'd recommend web storm by jet brains as your text editor. It is super powerful and will grow with you.

If you want to get off the ground quick look at meteor available at meteor.com. There's lots of tutorials and other great stuff for meteor, the learning curve is less than most other JavaScript frameworks, and you can do stuff easily with meteor that will take tons of code to do with other frameworks.

Good luck,
Gilman


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Ethan_Scott]

So here I am, 20 years old with an app idea. I want to bring it to life, but i have no experience in code, no capital to invest in anyone to develop it and a lot of free time on my hands.

Right now, I'm currently living at home with my parents. I have no job but do make a small income from eBay. Not a lot but i get by. This only takes a couple hours a week or so to run, if that.

I'm also fairly good at maths and problem solving, always exceeded mentally in this area and enjoyed solving problems. I have read that learning code is very much mathematical and solving problems, so i don't think it would be a headache for me to do.

That being said, i feel like i'd want to learn code anyway to take control of my app/business as much as i can. I'd rather myself mess up and learn from it to improve rather than paying someone else for something i might not even want.

My plan? Save as much as I can for the next 6-9 months and in the meantime, learn how to code and develop my app. Then, whatever funds i have available i can invest into the app, pay a developer and hopefully get it moving to where i want it to be.

So my questions are;
Is this a good idea?
If yes, where should i start learning how to code for my app?

To be honest, I am impressed at your approach to this problem and I can see that you want to make it on your own.
I understand the part where you'd rather learn a coding language yourself instead of outsourcing the job to someone, because if you do develop an app, it will need constant updation in terms of the code and the interface too.
I think you might already know that Java is one of the coding languages that are used while developing an app and node.js is also one of the platforms used to run a javascript. Which basically means that Java is mainly used for the back-end part which won't be visible to the user and node.js is used for the front-end part of the application which deals with the interface part.
To be honest, coding is not all that mathematical but it does involve a lot of problem solving so that part should be fine by you. But then again you need to code the solutions in a proper syntax.
You are right to say that you want to learn a coding language to develop an app because it will be like an investment on yourself and you will be able to develop the app according to your liking.
Yes, I think it is a great idea and I think you learning coding won't go to a waste.
To start off, I would suggest you to learn Java since the initial app development stages extensively requires Java. Later on you can go ahead and develop an app using Java itself.
After your app takes off, I think you can go into more advanced tools in order to make the interface better.
Either way, you should start with Java!