Learn Programming | Best Tips & Secrets

[Music] okay I am back and I haven't been making videos on this channel because I've been involved in another channel okay it's a long story but I don't let's get right to the point so this video is for people that want to get better at programming and you may and I don't know the problem is everyone's at a different level so I could be talking to someone that's never seen a computer before wants to learn programming or someone that's been doing it for twenty years and wants to get better so I've been doing it for twenty years mostly web development I've done tons and tons of file processing input/output database I've kind of done it all I've done XML Java not JavaScript angular of course c-sharp sequel Linux I've done tons of stuff just a little bits and pieces but mostly it's been business logic for companies okay so I guess that's kind of my point it's you have to do whatever the business needs so you work for a company small or big they're not gonna they're almost never going to need you to do something that you already know how to do okay so and I always say this um it's very easy actually to learn program but the hard thing is learning what to program so you'll get into a company you'll think I know how to program right I could do it I can do anything but then they're not sure they're not sure what the data to give you they're not sure how things are gonna be they're not sure what things are gonna look like there's a lot of questions like no one kind of knows what they're doing to be honest in in some ways but over time if you work through things and you work with the business analyst you work with the business eventually you get things done okay so my point is yeah you can learn to program and what you should do is pick a core pick something that you want to be really good at pick something you want to be really good at and for me that was dotnet c-sharp I had the opportunity to work at a company that was a consulting company and they said Donette c-sharp where's gonna be as soon as it came out we got training and they were right because it does it does so much it does asp.net web pages it does database interaction it does processing it does file it can do anything it's an operating system Windows is dotnet runs on top of it of course so it was a very valuable skill and there's been tons of jobs and there still are in c-sharp net so I graduated in 1997 with a computer information systems degree and my grades weren't that great they were in programming but not everything else cuz I did basically didn't care that much about everything else two geographies and geologies and all that so to get my first job one of the things I did was I made my own experience I went out and created a classic ASP right there was no dotnet back then I made my own shopping cart so I made my own webpage and I made my own shopping cart so you could add things you could subtract things and you could I don't think I took money back then because there was no paypal or anything so anyway I created proof of concept then when I went in an interview I showed them hey here's what I did so I had something to show so that is one thing you can do is make your own experience when I was going through college I didn't know what I wanted to do and I heard they paid well in programming so I got into the CIS program and I started doing very well in those classes because to me they were easy you could take your work home you'd get it perfect you'd hand it in you know you got an A before you handed it in in the math class if you you would get to the test and they say put your books away I would forget the formulas and stuff and I would get a C B or C or D right so I did very well on programming to me it was logic everything made sense and if it didn't make sense it wasn't really your fault is because something was hidden from you so so what I did was I made my own experience I was interested in webpages and at that time in 1999 they were very mysterious there was no Google there was no all there was was Yahoo and it wasn't very good and it was very difficult to find any information out because right now you've got tons and tons and tons of information on the Internet so you almost don't need college anymore I mean I'm still glad I went but you almost don't need anymore because there's online training out the butt on the internet okay so I made my first experience I created a web page I figured out how to do it I don't even remember how just by asking people and being in college I made I made my first web page and shopping cart okay so I had something when I went in an interview to say hey here's what I built I could talk about it I can if I had nothing no no experience no not great grades you know it was gonna be harder to get a job so my first piece of advice is to find something you like and make a project okay try to think of a problem solve some kind of problem think about something like somebody has ten thousand files and you need to get them into a database that's a problem that you can solve and you start thinking well I've got files what do I do with files well first of all you read them how do you read them go type in a language you like how to read files in Python how to read files in c-sharp and there'll be examples examples examples out there so you solved the first problem in the second and the third when you make your own first project you're gonna learn tons and you're gonna get something done so that kind of brings me to the next part so you don't have any experience and I'm kind of getting off topic a because this was supposed to be about how to get better at programming but it kind of bleeds into how do you get a job also so the next thing you can do is volunteer your services so you can go to your local church your local housing administration or whatever the you can go to your neighborhood use the city the City Council or something and just volunteer to make a webpage for something to somebody volunteer to help out with them volunteer to create a newsletter or something find some way to get the experience you can kind of fake the experience you know you can volunteer and then say oh I did this for my church or my community or whatever okay so make some experience that's my first bit of advice all right another way to learn programming a very good way to learn is to find an open-source project there's thousands and thousands of open source project projects out there go to github download them and just start reading the code one of the first things I looked at when I wanted to learn c-sharp was I found a blackjack program a program that would play you can play blackjack with it but it was written in c-sharp and so I opened it up and I looked at it and I knew how to play blackjack so looking at the program I was able to see what they were doing a lot of the open-source projects are gonna have pretty darn good coding and you'll be able to learn from that go find something you like download the code and just start looking at it run it if it's not running ask why send an email say how come when I build this say I'm a newbie how come when I build this it's not building what do I need and they'll tell you oh you need a reference you'll just be learning just like that okay so look at open source projects and look at the code that's my second bit of advice so this is not in any general order I'm I just have these random thoughts so just bear with me as I as I go through this all I want to talk about if you're learning in programming you need to find a core language that you're gonna be an expert at and what I chose was c-sharp okay one second I'm gonna get a book for you okay now I'm not saying run out and buy books don't do that because books are not a great way to learn they're really kind of they're pretty boring and they're not very interactive I buy them because I'm a professional okay and any I believe I can learn anything from anywhere I've been doing this for 20 years I'm not I'm just saying don't run out and just buy these books just because you saw me doing because they're expensive I do them because I have a good reason but anyway my point was you want to learn something very very very well and then build off of that so pick something valuable I chose c-sharp dotnet and I just bought this book not too long ago it had I'm still learning I've been doing this for twenty years I learned every single day and that will get to another point to later where you learn something new every day but anyway so pick something core that you like pick something that you also want to look and make sure there's jobs in it so you might love Linux and you might love playing with and making games and that's great but are there jobs in it are you trying to get a job are you trying to be a great programmer I'm not gonna answer those for you you answer them for yourself okay answer those questions for yourself but go and make sure there's jobs don't spend tons and tons of hours on a language and then find out oh wait no one hires so-and-so right even though you love it by the way this is a interesting book haven't got a chance to find it get through it much yet but okay so you have a core language and you're gonna learn it and you're gonna go through all the tutorials go on YouTube of course find the basics course you can find basics on anything and you're going to look at open source code to get better so anyone can do that at any level you can open up a source the problem with that might be if you're very inexperienced looking at source code it might be overwhelming you might look at this code and go oh my god what the heck is this so don't be overwhelmed though if you happen to look at something it just means you haven't learned it yet okay so we've made some experience you're reading you're reading some code you know you're gonna work for free if you need experience install Visual Studio Visual Studio community if you want to go that route and Cornette core okay so there's this idea of these guerilla courses and they're kind of new to the scene right now I actually really like the idea of a guerrilla course they're really great idea I even want to put one on myself if I had time and it'd have to be organized because clearly this this what I'm saying right now isn't that organized but so the guerrilla courses they sound great I think they're wonderful the problem is don't spend tons of money because a lot of that you can do on your own you could create your own guerrilla course you could just like check into a motel room go to your mom's house close all the doors get on the internet and just spend ten hours a day ten hours a day just learning learning like read a little bit code a little bit take a little break back and forth for out you can make your own you can make you don't have to have them yes it's great if you have the money but if you don't you don't have to have it okay make your own guerrilla course and that means just it's just like learning a language you immerse yourself in the country and you're kind of forced to learn it so you would be you can do that yourself although the course would be great too if you have the money I said I heard somebody made a comment that it was thirteen thousand dollars for a guerrilla course ah I don't know man that's an awful lot of money but then again thirteen thousand you probably make that up within a year you know with extra money or less than a year if you got a great job from it um okay another thing you can do is one really good way to learn is especially like if you want to learn hardware go to go to a garage sale or something and gets a really cheap computer and and then delete every fire it up and delete everything off of it and then install Windows install Linux find out how to do that go to go to Google how to install Linux they will tell you step by step you need a little thumb drive you install the bootloader onto it you put it in the thumb drive you have to go into the BIOS all that stuff you will learn a ton if you build your own computer and I mean from the software now if you want to learn Hardware the same thing back in 1999 I wanted to build a computer there's one guy they had a webpage how to build a computer and so I got a motherboard I got a case of computer case I got a video card I learned tons from that it's not that hard most of it is plug screw in plug it's all plug and play the hard part really comes when you when you have a problem or when you need to install the operating system so my point is get a computer beater don't be afraid to destroy it because you can always reinstall windows you could offer always if you're gonna be a networking guy you got to learn how to image things you have to make an image of your computer install a virtual pc or something if you don't know what virtual pc is it's a program that runs on computer where you can install another operating system within it so you can have Windows running and have another Windows inside this little application and if you screw something up you can blow it away and create a new one and you haven't run your computer so all right you're gonna need high-speed Internet to watch videos and you're gonna immerse yourself you can of course find a mentor to help you that that is a really hard thing to do but if you can find somebody to help you in your in your school or something YouTube videos alright I have I make no money from this but they are there are tutorial websites out there called there's one called udemy ude my comm and it has very well structured courses and I spire them to this day someone sometimes they're $12 sometimes they're $20 but you get six hours of a class in udemy for 15 bucks I mean that is amazing that's why I say when you you're gonna go do it you're gonna go do it guerrilla course for 13,000 you know many courses you could buy online for them and those courses are really good too it's not just like they're it's not like a YouTube video where people kind of just throw things in kind of like this video sorry about that but they're very well-organized and you will learn a lot I learn a lot on udemy sometimes if I want to know something bang I'll just pay fifteen bucks I'll just buy it and then you can speed them up too so if you're watching the video you can go one and a half times two times or sometimes even faster than two and you can skim through and if it starts to get complicated you slow down so you can skim right through those really quickly so you deme youtube videos alright now at my level I I know a lot of things or I may have forgotten a lot of things but there's still some concepts that that are mystifying to me and there's still tons of things at once so what I did was I decided one thing a day I'm gonna learn one thing a day one topic and at one point in my career I said I'm gonna learn interfaces I don't understand interfaces but I'm gonna learn them so every day I'd spend 20 minutes in the next day if I didn't feel like I got it I would go back and I would just type in interfaces what's an interface and then I would open up console application and I would create an interface I created my own project that is the best way to learn is if you take a topic and then you don't just read about it but then you go and do it so run an application make it work copy some code paste it change it ask questions like what if I took the I took the interface name off and try to compile it in it you'll get an error why ask yourself these questions challenge yourself that way so take a concept apply it code it take any concept like for example let's just take an example oh extension methods I did this yesterday I had forgot what extension methods were so I created a simple console app and I copied and pasted it from a from somebody else's code and I did an extension method and I'm like oh yeah that's how you do it I'm gonna use that I'm gonna use that cuz I forgot about it you see take something and apply it so 15 minutes a day that's a minimum when I say just that's for a busy person right you're super busy you're already you're already programming all day or something and you kind of get into this grind where you don't feel like learning force yourself 15 minutes a day to do something those people that don't have a job you need to be just constantly hours and hours a day program program program to actually do it find it find a group of people and create a project you know when when I may started making these programming videos when I pick a topic I teach it you also need to teach if you can teach something you will really learn it well I know it's it was a strange concept but if you have somebody else that you're mentoring you will be kind of forced to teach them you'll be forced to learn so you can teach them so if you can teach somebody that's also a great way to learn I don't know to summarize I would say make your own experience volunteer solve a problem find a problem and solve it create a website if you don't know how to create a website just google it and there's step by step find open source projects read ok research unfamiliar popular terms so a lot of times you're in a job and people start talking about this program or this word or a concept that you don't know you keep hearing this word angular angular what the heck is angular it's time to learn it okay the more you hear these buzzwords go for angular I went to udemy and I bought the class and I went through it and I started I just did what he said you create a project he tells you what to do when you create a project then you start asking yourself questions like man what if I did this what if I did that and you can kind of manipulate and that's how you learn also reading is good it's a good supplement but I wouldn't play it place a lot of faith in books it's kind of thinking the thing you would do while you're traveling I use books as kind of a you know I'm kind of interested in just reading today you know I don't look at a book is a great way to learn because it's so static you know it's not dynamic I don't know maybe I'm starting to repeat myself here but all right anyway I think that's it make experience find the core language build a computer destroy a computer don't be afraid to destroy a computer I've destroyed lots of computers my first computer in college my here's another story I got a gateway computer spend a lot of money on I was all excited about it and something like wasn't working like I think the drivers for the modem weren't working I was trying to connect to the school right and so I took that I took it out and I reinstalled the drivers and then it broke something else and then like then I said let's screw it I'm gonna reinstall windows or I think it was Windows yeah windows 3.1 or something it didn't work I installed the drivers again and the drivers all night long I was at for like 20 hours just like kind of frustrated because I wanted it to work so bad but I learned so much too I learned how to install drivers I learned how to wipe everything I learned how to install an operating system and but I wasn't afraid to break it you know what I mean you cannot be afraid to break it and I mean software wise if you if you install something an uninstaller back then it was a lot more difficult but I did learn a lot that way also all right now this is the final this is the final thing I'm gonna say and unfortunately the the absolute best way to learn is to actually have a job you will learn more on your first job than you will in one month than you will in a year of school because you will be doing eight hours a day and you will have to know it you will be half to solve problems and you will learn tons and tons and tons so besides everything else I said having a job you will learn more in your job than anything else you can do unless you make a business or something if you were to mega business and it was it would be kind of like your job right so it's kind of a down thing to say but you will learn more in your first job by far by far and then anything else you can do it's kind of a sad thing to say but you kind of have to have a job to learn really really learned because that's when the problems come is that it takes it takes years is it actually takes years before you really start to feel confident not not everybody but it was around the 5 to 7 year mark where I started feeling like I wasn't clueless you know I felt started confident like I now can do anything I can figure it out and it takes years to get there so don't feel bad if you're not great at first ok it might take you're gonna learn tons of stuff and you're gonna get in a good pattern you're gonna know a lot after your first year but guess what after your fifth year what did they say they said something like 10,000 hours it takes 10,000 hours to be to master anything I don't know how many hours I have I've got 20 I probably have more close to 20,000 hours and I feel like I've mastered it but they're still it's always changing alright and I should add one more thing today's world is different in that I know c-sharp I know how to create webpages I know how to do business logic and databases but I in the today's world in today's economy I'll walk into a company and I'm at one right now where they use tools they'll throw a tool at you we use another tool here's another tool we use jams I've never heard of jams they use booming never heard of booming they use on base what's on these guess what you got to learn it you got to learn it you got to find a way to learn it so what do you do you you open it up and you start researching how do I learn you google it are there tutorials the tutorial is the first thing you do you open up the tool that these companies use and they're starting to use more and more tools now it's not just coding coding is kind of taking the back seat you know you might code here and there but these tools these tools are becoming more and more powerful there's servicenow tool there's there's ticketing til there's all kinds of tools and now and they'd rather just buy it if they can but the good news is often these tools don't work perfectly they don't work that well so you'll use the tool but it'll fall short and so you'll have to come in and create a program to support it for example we use this tool that brings files in but it doesn't it doesn't know how to parse certain data types so we have to write a program in JavaScript to parse the data type to make sure it's a valid social security number you see the tool does some stuff but it doesn't do enough so the custom coder and that's where you come in as a coder programmer you'll come in and you'll make that extra program okay I hope this was helpful is a little discombobulated I plan on making more videos one of them is how to get a job an interview I've had a lot of interviews so I'll work on that I'm sorry if this video was a little discombobulated but if if if it's not discombobulated I probably will never make it

Channel: codingisforyou

Views: 29,875

Keywords: how to learn programming, software dev career, how to become a programmer, it career, computer science, it jobs, computer programming, learn software development, software developer, become a web deve

Id: KvUHJxpECsw

Length: 23min 50sec (1430 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 17 2018