How Hard Is It to Learn Programming?
One comment I frequently hear from my non-techie friends is whether programming is hard to learn. Or does one have to be super smart to pick up programming concepts? Don’t get me wrong programming isn’t easy, but I do believe anyone with a brain can learn it. Now might you turn into the next Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg? Probably not, since most of us are just average.
To get started in programming, I think you’ve definitely got to start small and work your way up. You won’t learn everything there is to know about programming in a matter of days, weeks or even months, but over time you will soak up more and more knowledge. That’s what I find amazing even to this day. I primarily work as a php/mysql programmer, and even after several years I still find new PHP functions I never knew existed.
Early on I read as many programming books as I could handle and they definitely formed a solid foundation. But I feel like I’ve learned the most from trial and error.
You can find many programming books that are very detailed and offer various samples and how-tos. Naturally these books will come at a cost, and that might lead some to try and learn from info they find on the internet. The trouble with this approach is that there is no framework for learning with materials found on the web. You will get a much better start by picking up a few books, and you can always sell them back later if you don’t want to keep them around. But I do find myself frequently flipping through some of my old PHP books.