Ask HN: Can you provide a Roadmap+Tools for a Beginner?

11 points by joshfenmore 12 years ago | 8 comments

How would you learn programming if you were to start now?There are so many tutorials these days, that i find myself overwhelmed by it.I started with HTML and CSS but each tutorial/website/course is offering a different view/different style of coding/different tools. How do I know which is the best way?

Can Professional Developers offer some advice on this eternal topic?Like, if you were to start now, how would you do it and what would you use?An example would be:

Learn : A B C first. Then go X Y Z.

Use: Tutorials/Websites X Y Z + Books 1 2 3.

Tools To use/Using: X Y Z.

My goal is to get enough knowledge in the next months to build demo/basic websites.

Also if anyone has 10 min to talk to me about this on gmail I would really appreciate it. Thank you.

Josh

samirmenon 12 years ago |

For me, when I was starting out with this stuff (and by the way, I'm not an expert now), I learned one lesson the hard way:

Just pick something.

It honestly doesn't matter what, you just have to choose something. There is so much time to be wasted agonizing over whether you have chosen the right framework, tool, platform etc. The best strategy is to just choose something and run with it. Once you learn and feel comfortable in one language/area (for me it was python), you'll be able to transition easier.

Perhaps this strategy will take more time than if you pick the "correct" path now... I really didn't see time as a consideration when I learned. Nevertheless, it's probably better than spending time dillydallying. Good luck!

joshfenmore 12 years ago | |

The reason I'm asking is because I see people building apps after learning rails in 4-6 months which to me translates to skipping and/or poor quality coding. I might as well be wrong about it but it seems too easy judging by how hard it looks like...

mgingras 12 years ago |

Hey Josh,

Here is a good link to a project that popped up on HN a while back http://www.bentobox.io , basically pick one of the topics and click toggle what to learn next, and it will show you a sort of progression.

As far as tutorials, just google the technologies name + for beginners or something similar. (there are also links to instructions in the site I posted)

As far as where to go for what it really depends on your end goal and who you're working with.

I.E. for web development, some people swear by Django or Rails or some PHP framework, all depending on their use case and the expertise of the people they're working with.

Figure out what you want to make, research what tool would be best to make it, then learn that tool and the languages/frameworks that compose it.

If you're just looking to make a basic web app, I would recommend using Sinatra (Ruby), Flask (Python), or Express(NodeJS). All provide a very simple configuration to get to the "Hello, world" point, however are extensible enough that you can use them to learn more advanced tools, technologies, etc.

If you want to chat more feel free to shoot me an email at martin@mgingras.ca

Cheers,

Martin

joshfenmore 12 years ago | |

Thank you for your adivce, I will definitely email you some questions I have. I wanted to learn PHP but it was not recommended by other people.

clubhi 12 years ago |

I have a co-worker that came out of school with an economics degree. In a couple of years he went from having no programming experience to cranking out pretty impressive apps with elasticsearch/django. (*I should clarify.. He started making apps right away. It took him a few years to make them what I'd consider professional quality).

I've been programming for about 20 year so really don't think I realize how difficult it is to pick things up.

joshfenmore 12 years ago | |

A few years seems reasonable but when people go straight into rails and build apps in a few months without any prior knowledge I'm starting to think if i should go on that path as well.

ziyadb 12 years ago |

Hi Josh. I'm actually working on a book that is intended to provide you with the basic principles and how to actually build applications, which is something I've personally struggled with, considering the language-centricity of the majority of tutorials out there.

It's far from done, however, email me (email in profile) and I'd be happy to send you a draft.

Good luck with your journey!

joshfenmore 12 years ago | |

Thanks, I'll definitely email you about the book.Perhaps I will even make some suggestions.