Advice to my past self regarding programming

In this blog, I talk about a few things that I wish somebody told me back when I started learning to program by myself, I hope you can benefit from this if you’re also new to programming.

1. Talk to real programmers who know what they’re doing

Getting into the world of programming is quite easy, all you have to do is own a laptop, watch YouTube videos and try to build programs yourself.
In the beginning, you will be so happy with what you’re achieving, all these new concepts and these new projects you’re building (despite being simple) will make you feel happy about yourself, and maybe even a little bit arrogant.
After a while though, you might begin to feel that this is endless! There is always a new thing to learn, you can spend years learning the ins and outs of a specific language, you keep hearing a lot of new terminologies and you’re not sure whether or not you should understand what they mean. You try to focus on a certain technology but you always doubt yourself whether you’re going in the right direction or not, even worse you might be unsure where you want to go in the first place!

You should know that when you embark on this journey you will get distracted! This is normal to happen due to the massive ocean of online resources that are available for free.
The best way to deal with this problem is to stop watching all these tutorials online and get in touch with people who are currently working in programming fields. Try to talk with web developers, data scientists, embedded systems engineers, and many others, you have no idea how easier your life will be if you do so.
A lot of your questions will be answered, you will doubt yourself much lesser and you will start to get feedback about your progress.
Most importantly, you should know that you are not qualified to assess your work, other people have to do this for you.

2. Learn HTML, CSS, and JavaScript

When I started, I didn’t want to become a web developer, I preferred other disciplines much more, things like data science and AI.
Therefore, I thought I don’t need to learn web development, I would be wasting my time and deviating from the right path, correct? Wrong! You cannot call yourself a programmer if you don’t know HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Even if you don’t want to be a web developer, not knowing these languages is like shooting yourself in the foot. If you want recruiters and by extension, business managers to notice you, there is no other way but to show them, and the only way to do so is through a website.
The average recruiter is not going to clone your code from Github, they want to see something dynamic in front of them just by navigating the web. If you don’t do that you have to know that a lot of other programmers are doing so, they will be noticed instead of you. You can be a better programmer than most, but that doesn’t matter nobody is going to notice you!

3. Learn Git as soon as possible

If you want to be a developer then you have to know how to use Git and Github, the sooner the better.
You don’t want to build good projects and not push them on Github, also you will not work with a team if you don’t know how to use Git. Keep in mind, you should learn Git commands and use a terminal.
Avoid Graphical User Interfaces at the beginning, working with a terminal will enhance your skills.

4. The internet is not always right

The internet is a wonderful place, however, it might mislead you sometimes (remember advice number one!). Don’t assume that just because a lot of people are bashing a certain technology, company, language, etc. that means they are correct.
It’s common for people to imitate each other, a lot of people will repeat what seems to be the cool thing to say, which makes a snowball effect. Always check for yourself if you have to, before blindly taking sides.
Take for example JavaScript, everybody online seems to hate the language and talk about how bad it is. I believed this without checking myself, which had bad effects on me because it discouraged me from learning the language
Finally, when I started learning it, I loved it! It’s not as hard as people were saying, furthermore it is quite easier than other languages that I started with (e.g. C++).