Best place to start learning a new computer language

When we going to start learning a new thing we always get confused with where should we start it. I think it is important how we start learning a new programming language. If you took a good start, it is easier to continue it and you can be satisfied with what you learnt.

Start with what you already know

Always start with something you already know about programming. Couple of questions you can ask from yourself:

What are the computer languages that I already know?
How the languages I already know relate to the new language I am going to learn?
How do I find coding with the languages I already know?

Even if this is your first computer language, you can always find some related information you already learnt or heard. Otherwise you can question how you good at thinking logically and according to the situation.

By doing this you build the confidence to learn new programming language. It is no longer something very strange to you. This is only small preparing your mind.


Start preparing the runtime environment before coding

Most of the cases we start learning how to programme in a classroom or a computer lab. Environment to run your code is already set up accordingly. You need to put the code in correct format, compile it, and run it. If you try, the same thing in your home computer there is a good chance that it will not work, because necessary runtime environments are not installed.

For all the popular computer languages has a official website where you can download the documentations and the installers to setup the right environment to run your code.

Download the documentation and the installer program and install it in your home machine. If it is web based programming language, you need to setup your computer as a web server. It is challenging but it is fun after you set it up.

Now you know what exactly happening behind the scene.

Always refer to the documentation and if you have further problems, you can always get help from forums and examples available. However, do not copy and paste the coding from web, as you will not learn anything.

Use Notepad to become a perfect programmer

When you are learning a new programming language use the Notepad. In Microsoft Windows, it would be Notepad but in Linux UNIX environments, you can use the VI editor. There are special editors for all the popular programming languages. It gives coding suggestions, syntax, auto correction, and many more features. Why you must use a basic Notepad when it comes to leaning a programming language?

These fancy editors hide all the basic elements of the programming in order to make your life easy. That is not what you want to archive at this stage. You are learning a new language you need to know the meaning of every single character you entered and how it affects. You start from the hard way and then find out the easy ways as you confidence with what you are learning.

Notepad dose not provide you any help. You are on your own. You must type all the syntaxes, variables, new line and all the necessary coding. You will have a better understanding of the building blokes of a code. How you should stat coding and how you should end it. How line should start and how it should end. How you can leave a comment line. When you type it for sometimes, you will remember them. If it automatically pops up from nowhere and you just selected it will not do any good for your learning process.

Therefore, during the time you learn a programming language stay out of fancy editors and stick to a basic Notepad. Do the entire coding examples by yourself on a notepad, compile it, and run it in command line.

After you are confidence with the computer language you learn then you can choose your own editor to make your life easy fast and accurate. When you go to production what it matters is how fast you can finish a project.

How to learn a programming language

Learning a computer program language is not easy. There are so many programming languages to be learnt. From project to project, interview to interview it can be varied. Therefore, you have to learn all languages that required. Here is the complete list of programming languages. What is the easiest and efficient way to learn a computer language?


What is a computer Language?

Generally, we use a language to communicate between people. Then the language we used to communicate with a computer is a computer language. In another words it is a method to give instructions to a computer.

First Start from the Basic


Learning a programming language is a simple logical process. It is easier than learning a natural language. Computers need to understand couple of things in order to complete a task.

1. Define Variables – What type of information you would like to work with
2. Provide values to defined variables
3. Functions – What you want to do with the information
4. Output – After applying the functions to the variables what would be the outcome.

This is the skeleton of a programming language. Everything else will be build up on that. When it comes to the skin, you only see pretty interfaces that provide complicated functions to the user.

Think logically is the key

Computers do things in logical way. It is not intelligence enough to understand the feelings and ideas. In a natural language, word has couple of other meanings but with computers one word one meaning. It needs to be straightforward and logical. As a result, you always have to think like a computer and feed the computer base on what you want it to do.

Think Generally

Think generally will help you to expand what you know and learning to other programming languages. Try to understand the similarities and differences in two programming languages. Generally, it is the same structure and logic used in all the programming languages. Difference is the syntaxes and the way instructions are given. If you have understand the basic structure of a programming language and master to think logically like a computer learning new computer language is not a difficult task.

I find Java is quite easy but C programming is hard. This is a common type of complain that computer students do. That is because we are learning java, c, c#, etc not programming language.

We will discuss learning a programming language in detail and hoping to share more hacks and tricks. I would like to hear your experience learning programming language.

[Mind Hacks] Learn to Learn

You learn every minute, every second. Still you have lot more to study as world keep on changing. Everyday there will be new theories, concepts, ideas added. It is pretty much impossible to learn everything. But it is possible to learn how to learn which will improve how you learn things and simplified the complicated picture. I will explain couple of method that can be used to improve learning. It is always important to try couple of methods and select the best working method for you.

Mind Mapping  
Mind mapping is one of the best method to get a whole concept/chapter in to one A4 size paper. Start from the middle of the paper (Main Concept) and all the sub categories and information will spread through like a tree. As you summaries the whole thing into one paper you can easily understand the relations between the facts and make it easy to remember. You can make it colourful funky as you want. You can find software to draw mind maps Will lot of information but personally I prefer create my own mind maps on a piece of paper. 

Learning to Read 
There are so many methods to read. Even though you do not know by name you use couple of these methods in different situations. If you can master the reading speed and reading techniques you can improve your learning. Following is the methods you can use and apply it to the appropriate situation.
Hop method
Photo Reading
Card Speed Reading
Zig-Zag Speed Reading
Skim Reading
SQ3R Reading
I am pretty sure beyond the general efficient learning techniques you can build up your own techniques. However, most of the time they are personal always it will not work for someone else. For example study with a back ground music will work on some but others prefer study in a quite environment. It is always good to try couple of such methods and identify they best suite learning environment for you.