We all know how rapidly technology is advancing nowadays and can gauge at what tremendous pace, it will continue to grow in the future. It is almost a direct challenge today to name a sector that is not utilizing and experimenting with technology to facilitate its growth, be it in the engineering field, research, or even in the management field. Learning to code has many perks:
- It opens up the door for a massive number of high-paying jobs in the IT sector throughout the world.
- The knowledge of various programming languages doesn’t matter in which stream you belong to, makes your application stand out from the rest.
- Apart from your regular job, you can also choose freelancing which will give you the liberty not only to be your boss but also to earn you a hefty amount apart from your salary.
- Last but not the least, coding helps tremendously to develop your analytical and thinking skills. And if you are working in a team, congratulations, you will develop pretty good interpersonal skills too.
Now, let’s get to the main theme of the article. Learning a programming language isn’t that easy, which can be speculated by looking at the high base salary that millions of coders around the world earn. But it isn’t that much hard either that you need to have an IQ that of geniuses to learn to code in a language. Proper guidance and personal efforts can make coding an addiction; an addiction that is good to have.
In this article, we will discuss the top 5 golden rules to follow while learning a new programming language.
- Lend a deaf ear to people who talk dark about coding
You might have heard, “The journey of a thousand steps starts with one.” All you need to do is just start. Some people had failed in coding due to some reasons and start blaming it on the difficulty. Everyone cannot do everything, and this applies to coding too. Else everyone who started to learn a new programming language would have become another Dennis Ritchie or Bjarne Stroustrup. Just ignore the negatives and start learning to code.
- Patience is the key
Learning and implementing a new programming language will test your patience. At times, you might not be able to understand the concept, or the implementation might fail many times in a row. You need to keep pushing until it’s done. Remember, where there is a will, there is a way.
- Practice makes the final code bug-free
Learning a new programming language is not a subject where you can excel by cramming up things. The more you practice and the more you run your fingers on the keyboard, the faster your code will compile as the chances to find bugs will decrease exponentially.
- Don’t jump into difficult concepts too early
Give yourself time to grasp the basic concepts. One of the biggest mistakes beginners make is, to indulge in difficult concepts, fail to find a solution, and, after repeated similar moves, give up learning the language, thinking it’s not their cup of tea. Learning a programming language is similar to learning a communicational language; you cannot directly jump to writing a paragraph without learning the alphabet. First of all, subdue your excessive excitement, learn the basic concepts, and then go for the hard nuts.
- Participate in various online competitions
This point comes last on our list and should be the last on your to-do list while learning a new programming language. It will put your knowledge about the learned programming language to test. Various popular online coding challenge websites like CodeChef, CodeForces, HackerRank provide ample opportunities to practice and compete with coders around the world. The best thing about participating in various online competitions is that with a higher rank, your resume will stand out, enabling you to easily get your dream job.
