I decided last month that I'm going to learn coding. Nobody around me works in
IT, so I asked 3 people. My neighbour's son, who's in his final year of engineering,
said Java. His whole college runs on it. A colleague at work said Python, because you
can make something appear on the screen on day 1. A guy on YouTube said JavaScript,
because you can build a website and show your friends. I tried a bit of everything.
Last Sunday I installed Python and wrote a program that asks your name and says
hello. It took 2 hours because I typed a colon wrong. Those were the happiest
2 hours I've had in weeks. Then I opened a Java tutorial and the first
program had 5 lines just to say hello. I closed the tab. JavaScript I haven't
touched, mostly because I don't know where I'm supposed to type it. My budget is small.
I've got an old laptop with 4GB of RAM, and I can give maybe 1 hour a
day. I'm not trying to get a job next month. I just want to find out if this
is something I can do. My brother thinks I'm wasting time.
He may be right, but I'd like to try for 3 months before I decide anything. So
here's my plan, and you can tell me if it's silly. Python for 3 months, then see. If
it still feels fun after the first hard chapter, I'll carry on and maybe look at websites later.
I don't want to pick the wrong thing and lose 3 months. I know that sounds dramatic.
If you started from zero, which one did you pick first and would you pick it again?