Anonymous
asked:
i want to learn how to code but its all very overwhelming for me, what tips can you give a newbie who knows less than nothing about that sort of thing?

This is such a good question that I may address it in a more detailed post later. But I will try to give you some pointers. 

  1. What do you want to do? This will determine what you choose to learn. 
  2. Learn to use Google - If you are teaching yourself, this is where you will start. Googling things is a skill, but generally, a good place to start is the name of what you want to learn followed by “tutorial”, or a variation of that. For example: “python tutorial”, “try python”, “learn python”. 
  3. Do not be afraid of failure and don’t be afraid to get things wrong. Making mistakes isn’t just normal when it comes to programming. It’s fundamental. It’s expected. That’s what “debugging” means - fixing the mistakes you inevitably make. So don’t feel bad when you make these mistakes. Feel good, because you learned something. Sounds cheesy, but it’s so true. 
  4. Check out Reddit’s r/learnprogramming, and check out stackoverflow.com. Both are forums where you can post questions you may have and get answers. 
  5. But learn how to ask good questions. A good question is one where you have clearly shown effort to arrive at the answer yourself. It also includes all relevant information (a copypasted error message, what you’re trying to do, why you tried what you tried to do). 

Those are some pointers I can give you for the very beginning. Feel free to ask more specific questions about any of this if you’ve got them. Good luck!