You have been fascinated by the idea of creating softwares, applications and web plugins etc. and now you wish for becoming a programmer. You must be researching on programming, programmers and programming languages. It is always a good idea to research things before picking a career. It gives you a good idea of whether you should be a part of this career or not. In all truthfulness, you can make any job or profession work if you enter it with realistic expectations. You will have to enter the programming world with realistic expectations too.
Not everything is amazing as a programmer and not everything is boring. You have to forget about the idea of working in fixed shifts i.e. 9 in the morning to 5 in the evening. As a programmer you might have to work at nights sometimes. In simple words, there is no fixed time for your work as a programmer. You will also have to get comfortable with the idea of sitting for long hours. Programming is all about sitting in your seat and staring at your computer for hours. There is not much activity and the repetitive nature of the job requires you to be a self-driven person.
Before you start programming, you will have to go through several programming languages, their descriptions, pros and cons, and then decide which one you want to pick. The choice of a programming language can be made on the basis of how popular it is, how lucrative a career in it is and how future proof the language is. When you think about popular and future-proof programming languages, the name that pops up first is Java. Java has been around for years, its platform independent nature makes it a language of today and the times to come.
Python is another strong language with popularity rising every day. C# is a good language to learn along with C++. Now, when you are ready to be a programmer, you need to make things easier for you to start with. This is because you want to remain encouraged and motivated to be a programmer. For that reason you are highly recommended to start with a programming language as simple and basic as Visual Basic. Visual Basic is a programming language from Microsoft and it becomes a strong foundation for anyone interested to learn Java and C++.
When you start learning programming, the first step is to choose your language and then look for tutorials of that language online. You can find most of the important educational stuff about any language online. However, to come out as a professional programmer after learning a particular language, you are recommended to pick a paid course at some recognized institute. With most languages, you can start writing your codes on programs as simple as a text document or notepad on your computer. Every programming language has its own syntax that needs to be memorized. The best way to memorize is by practically writing the code over and over.
After you have written the code in a notepad document, you need to run the code. Any problems with your syntax will result in errors or code not working. In most cases, you will be able to find the problem in your code by going through it again. However, if you are stuck at some place and can’t find a solution to your problem, you can always take help from online communities for any language that you have picked for programming. As a programmer you can work for software houses and companies or as a freelancer too.
First step in learning to program is really important. Find a great online programming tutorial (you can user https://hackr.io for that) and then start coding. Practice, Practice and practice.