Ask HN: How long did it take to learn your first programming language?

1 points by mandown2308 4 years ago | 4 comments

I'm taking an online course in Python and it is a lot to take in. Wondering for those who learnt their first language online, how long did it take to complete and learn all the stuff?

garmaine 4 years ago |

Learning a programming language is easy. Learning software engineering takes months even just for the basics. The first time you learn to code, you’re doing both. Just hang in there: it gets easier with time.

gerardnico 4 years ago |

There is a rule for that

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Year_Rule

mandown2308 4 years ago |

Thank you gilbertmpanga for your answer.

gilbertmpanga12 4 years ago |

I failed countless times always procrastinating and getting intimidated.

My journey: I learned about html and it clicked fast then got introduced to C & C++, but shit was so hard I didn't know what I was typing even

Then I moved to C# , installed Vs studio but still things weren't clicking

A friend suggested python is easiest , but when I tried I got discouraged, I didn't know how indenting worked, most of my programs failed so I dropped it.

Then I attempted again with JavaScript, early days of react js when SPAs were hot, I still failed. Angular js was more easier but still couldn't put up anything.

I gave up and took a break, that was after failing for a whole year, nothing clicking.

I tried again the following year, and that's when I heard about ruby and rails. I downloaded Learn enough rails to be dangerous, and walked through the tutorial step by step, finished my twitter clone, was amazed that I had a twitter clone!

This inspired me to learn more, there's a way ruby abstracted simple concepts into readable syntax , non scary cryptic stuff. It was almost like plain English.

This made me realize why I was failing, the languages I had started with introduced advanced concepts so fast without telling you why such things exist in the first place.

I mean writing a class just to print first hello world is such an overkill. Plus many languages use strange symbols & syntax that look intimidating.

Now, I can learn any language in just minutes or a day. Overall it took me 1 year and about 6 months . More solid knowledge has been learned on working on projects at companies

All the best