1. [I’ve CODE the POWER] 3 things to expect when learning to code 
  2. [I’ve CODE the POWER] Have you code it in you? 3 things that make a great developer

In the last two parts of this series, we’ve gone through what to expect and what will make you stand out. We now get into the fun stuff-where to start. The coding trade though is very, very wide. You can write code to automate lift doors, microwave ovens, perform time travel, turn on the light in the fridge when you open it…the works. The trade is really wide; you can’t know everything. You need to choose your battles.  To zero-in on what to learn….

Define your target

target

How do you want users to interact with the code you have written? What’s your target device? Do you have your eye set on a mobile handset? When you finally look up and wipe the sweat off your brow, do you want that your code will have produced an app for android/IOS/the_rest or will your app be used by SMS and/or USSD?

Is your eye set on a desktop as the target? Or would you want your users to access your app from a browser on the web? The different target devices necessitate learning one language or another. If you are targeting the web for example, PHP might be a very good place to start. If you want to make your Android device do things, Java would be the language for you. Target notwithstanding, for someone learning code for the first time, I recommend PHP. You can eventually move to something else but start with PHP because:

  1. It has tonnes of resources. Learning can be daunting if you have to scratch a lot to get stuff that speaks to you. Going for something that’s a bit complex might make you feel dumb-yet you aren’t. You can do this.
  2. With minimal set-up, you’ll have an environment on your computer that allows you to immediately see the results of your coding efforts. As you start out, seeing what you are doing gives you the ego boost you need to keep going.
  3. It is an easy language to learn.
  4. Its use-cases are innumerable. It is being used by most sites on the web today

These factors combined make it tick. In all this, remember that a language is merely a tool; the mindset is what’s most important.

Language locked, we can go into the even more fun stuff-writing our first code. Let’s get into that in the next part

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