How did you learn to code?

I have never been to college. I learnt by reading books ...challenging myself ...making mistakes.Repeating the process again and again.

4 months of online courses at https://teamtreehouse.com/

$25 each for total investment of $100 and I managed to get my first programming job (was working in event management at the time) that increased my income sevenfold.

Change focus from learning code (complete course) to making and launching products. In this case learning code is not a goal this is more a tool. And I learning code on demand by just googling "how to add button in HTML). Users don't care how many coding courses you completed. They only care if it's solve their problem.

I learned to build websites from scratch over Christmas between my studying periods. When I came back to class in the new year I ended up teaching the class how to also build websites.

From there I ended up freelancing web design projects for 2-3 years whilst also self teaching myself to design and build video games.

I learned the LAMP stack on my own. Front end first, I couldn't build a working UI from a drawing back then. Was not aware of XSS/sql-injection, preventing bots from injecting ads into my comments. Started with W3Schools(I know...)

I then had to learn back end to setup user registration/login, ssl, domain mapping, etc... started with GoDaddy at first(expensive hosting but great support), started with cPanel too before getting into CLI more. It was tough to at first figure out how to use JS to work with the back end receiving endpoints for GET/POST requests. After you figure out how to use error logging it's much easier to do than guessing.

Yeah started in 2013, there's a lot to learn, I'm currently behind in frameworks. How did I learn? Doing and asking a lot of questions, getting banned on Stack Overflow a few of times. Joining almost every coding forums out there particularly PHPFreaks.

Now if you want to learn things/work on something that exists, knowing how to read code and follow execution/docs it's not bad to pick up new things, that's if you want to anyway. I'm behind in frameworks currently, lots of directions to go.

FWIW I was not into coding or anything from a young age, though was into the IT section eg. fixing computers for viruses or hardware work. Actually was going to school for physics/engineering but my education fell through, just picked up coding thinking I could get rich, did not happen, but I have been paid to code for other people as a freelancer so that's pretty cool and I can build what I want to build generally(mostly for myself, not at the scale of mass users).

YouTube videos are great too, there's some good 1 hour videos like by Traversy Media. Great for introductions, then it's "buy our course" sort of thing but yeah.

Five years of super-tough college [of which the first two years were pure math, and much of the rest had so much theory that my brain still hurts], then ~3 years of Ph.D. training...

Oh, sorry for the musing, to answer your question: I learned to code when I quit my Ph.D. - just before the finish line! A random Indian dude pinged me (I was born, have been studying & living in Europe) to found a startup with him and I said YES (best decision of my life. I'm not a Ph.D. type, as I found out since then.)

Upon arrival to Kolkata and a day or so of jet lagging, I went on to hack up an initial prototype of a stock market trading simulator in Ruby on Rails (with quite rudimentary knowledge of RoR) in 48 hours, then working on it for the next few months.

That's when I really started to learn to code (about a decade ago), kept it up ever since, and I think I'm starting to get better now.

Obviously, that's a bit of a sarcastic take on the situation; I surely learned plenty of programming during college/ Ph.D., but it was VERY ineffective towards what I call 'real' programming. If I used those eight years to learn ONLY programming optimally, I would be a God by now (sadly, I'm slightly better than average, at best - 8 years of 24/7 learning vs. real life (making money, family, kids, etc. are very different beasts)).

The point I'm trying to make is: nothing beats hands-on experience:

1. starting a side project, even if you have limited knowledge (you can start way earlier than you'd think)
2. learning as you go (vs. wondering if you are good enough up front)
3. keeping at it, no matter what
4. learning, learning, learning like crazy
5. rinse/repeat

I have worked with so many developers and no matter how much education they had, the majority of their day to day tasks were solved using self taught skills. The traditional education system doesn’t make sense for software devs. Things change so fast you need to be a lifetime learner, and it doesn’t matter if your self taught or went to school. What matters is that you are growing every day.

StackOverflow :)

I started learning to code more than 20 years ago but I think I still have a lot to learn 😄

How - reading tutorials, books, books, books, tutorials, and more importantly: doing 😉

Experiment, write about what you learn. It's incredible how many things you realize you still need to fully learn, while trying to explain something in words.

Spend days reading programming threads on popular sites like HN or Reddit, you'll learn a ton.

In the end, dedicate to the craft and give it time.

I learned to code a little before starting college (5 years ago), but nothing crazy. I did a formal CS degree but the entire time I was doing Python and JavaScript on the side recreating sites that were popular. I made a ton of mistakes, thus learning a lot. It's a marathon, not a spring.

When I was about ten I decided I wanted to make games and got my hands on a "game development kit" that my local computer store sold. I learned some C, but didn't really start to dig into seriously until my early teens.

After making a few really terrible games, I experimented with some web technologies, got part of a computer science degree, and then dove into the industry.

I started coding late 80's and early 90's before the internet as we know it today. My first programming languages were GW-Basic, Pascal and Clipper.

I learned by hanging out with friends who could code, reading books and computer magazines and also asking questions on Bulletin Boards and later Usenet groups.

Once I gained experience I also spent a lot of time answering questions on Usenet groups. This helped me hone my skills and actually scored my some early clients :)

I also built software for friends and family. Building an actual piece of software which people use is much better than just fooling around.

Downloading and copying/remixing QBASIC games in the mid-90's from geocities sites. : )

I learned basic syntax on freeCodeCamp and I googled the things I wanted to build then copied from whatever popped up

My parents can barely use an iPad, but in ~1985 (when I was five) they bought an Amstrad CPC. I lapped up books about BASIC and got hold of early computer magazines. Many of them had a the code for a program printed across the middle pages - which had to be typed in and saved. I was constrained but disks - with no pocket money and write-once disks, each save of a program wrote a new file and disks soon filled up.

Then, just as I was choosing my GCSE's at school (at 14 years old), my school got a technology grant and built a new block of computer rooms. I learnt Delphi, VB and a little C++.

Two lucky breaks combining to pique my interest, and I've been able to follow web development, strategy, etc ever since through various roles.

Coding is an awesome skill. I personally learnt it when I needed to code up my own website. Used a book that built the exact application I needed (their example tutorial). I improved over the years. I would say the fastest way d getting good at it is to launch production apps. Like a lot of it. So tl;dr... just practice a lot.

Started in 2009. At the time it was w3schools, smashingmagazine, nettuts (I think), and a handful of other tutorial sites. Just kept doing tutorials, creating portfolio pieces, and applying to freelance job postings until I got one.

Once I got one paid job it snowballed into others. Fun fact, my first programming job paid $10/hr. Now I make enough contracting to support my family by myself.

I learned the basics at uni, but I didn't get proficient at it until doing my own projects outside of school. Just used a combo of books and the web.

I would say the hardest part about coding isn't actually the coding itself. The hardest part is setting up your computer for it: needed libraries, IDE for both debuging and quick syntax checking, etc... By that logic, either an online IDE or a bootcamp where they do this for you is ideal. I don't know why but there's a graveyard of online IDE startups.

I learned Ruby on Rails completely online. Starting on YouTube with McKenzie Childs courses and then moved on to GoRails.

I learned Completely online. Udemy is a great resource

I learned by looking at other people's code (back before the days of GitHub) and fiddling with it to make it do what I wanted. As I've gotten older I've started to prefer books and reading project documentation, but I still do a good amount of just fiddling.

I've always found it easier to learn if I have a project in mind. Learning by just going through examples and simple, little programs has never been super useful to me.

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