How Do I Learn and Master A Programming Language?

Feeling frustrated or overwhelmed when learning a new programming language? Are you beginning to think that learning a new programming language is hard, thus, wanting to give up? No worries, I have been there, and I understand how you feel.

So, today I am going to share some tips I have learned through the years when learning a new programming language. Also, I am going to share tips that you can use to master the programming language that you are currently investing the time in learning.

Before we start, here’s a video version of this content as well:

Without further ado, let’s get started.

Programming languages are tools

First, when you start learning a new programming language, I suggest that you start by working on your mindset. Programming languages and frameworks are tools that you can use to develop applications and solve a specific problem. Each programming language has it’s own strengths, weaknesses and use cases where the particular language excels in. So, when you start studying a programming language ask yourself these three questions:

1. What values does this programming language add to society?

2. What are it’s strengths and weaknesses?

3. Where is it used the most?

By asking yourself what values does this programming language at to society, you are focusing on understanding its importance in the programming community. I believe that answering this question can help you gain a more in-depth perspective on why this programming language was invented in the first place. That is, you can comprehend the problem it tries to solve in our society.

Now, to the second question, what are the strengths and weaknesses can help you understand why use that particular language over another to solve a problem or perhaps build a software application. In my experience, as you keep learning new programming languages, knowing the strengths and weaknesses can help you decide which to use when working on a new project. Thus, making better decisions in the long run for the application you are working on, in terms of speed and performance when users start interacting with your application.

The third question, where is it used the most can help you see the popularity of the language and where it has already added value. These can be companies that build applications using that programming language or open source projects based on that language. You can do research online on the different use cases of the programming language, this way; you can understand the shortcomings of the programming language when used on a large scale application, even get to know its limitations. Which is great in my experience, because as the years go by and you keep asking yourself this question you will keep maturing as a software developer, at least, that’s what has happened to me.

By answering these questions to yourself every time you learn to start learning a new programming language, I believe that it could help you master the programming language and help you gain confidence writing code in that language.

Start from the basics

After you answered the previous questions, I would advise starting from the very basics of the language. What type of programming language is it? Is it an object-oriented programming language? Once you learn the basic theoretical concepts of the language and answering the previous questions, you can move on to the more practical aspects of learning the programming language. I always recommend the students I mentor and tutor to start with printing a “Hello world” on screen and go from there.

After writing your first “hello world” statement, I would recommend studying the fundamental ideas of the programming language. For example, if you are learning how to code in Python, I would suggest learning concepts such as if-else statements, loops, and variables. Moreover, I would recommend repeatedly practice the process of applying these concepts.

Start from the basics, build a solid foundation and go from there

As you practice the basics, then move on to more complex topics and ideas that the programming language has to offer. The more you practice, these concepts and ideas will be solidified in your mind, thus, gaining confidence and mastery of that programming language, which brings me to the next tip, which is to build things (applications) with the knowledge you have just acquired.

Build things

Building applications using the programming language you are learning can help you gain confidence using a particular programming language. The more you write code with the language, in my experience, the closer you get to mastering using the programming language to write code and develop applications with it. Like the saying says “Practice makes perfect” I believe that this applies to programming languages as well. So, do you have an idea for an app? This might be an excellent opportunity to start working on that idea you have always had with the knowledge you have acquired.

Practice, practice and more practice

Also, in my experience, the more you practice writing code in a language you are learning, the more bugs you may be exposed to and to the process of fixing these bugs or errors. Which is great, because the more errors you know how to fix in that language, the more experience you will gain, and you can help others who are using the programming language as well.

Another way you can gain confidence when learning a new programming language is to solve algorithm challenges. You can research some practice questions online or practice in a platform such as HackerRank. Again, the more problems you solve, the more comfortable you will get using the programming language.

There you have it, some recommendations you can use when starting the process of learning and mastering a new programming language in your coding repertoire. These are things I have learned through the years through my experience writing code, as a computer programming tutor and teacher.

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Disclaimer: Results may vary. These tips and advice are based on my experience and opinion as a former undergraduate Computer Science student, tutor, teacher, and professional software developer. Everyone is different, so, the advice shared in this article may or not work for you. Also, I am not sponsored by HackerRank, it is a platform I have used, and I want to share and help others with what I have learned through the years.

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Published at yadielcabrera.com on March 17, 2019.