Where do I start to learn coding?

Quote:

There are a number of ways to start:
1) Find a course.
2) Find a book
3) Find an online tutorial
4) Grab a compiler and find Google.com
5) Get a job working in the industry.

These are in descending order of effectiveness: a course is best, because it is run by a real human who (should) know the subject well, and who can rephrase things if you don't understand. Some are pay-for, others are free. Depends on your area, really.

A book is a good way to learn: provided you start at the beginning, and work through. Skipping chunks to get to the "interesting stuff" is not a good idea. Wrox and Addison Wesley both do very good ones. Avoid any book with multiple exclamation marks, "in XX days", or "for dummies" in the title.

For a course or a book, it is very important to do each and every exercise yourself: don't try to skip it "because it's obvious" or get someone else to do it and look at what they did. "Doing it" is important in learning - it helps to reinforce knowledge in ways that reading can't.

Web tutorials can be good - but generally they are a little poor. Don't have real interactivity, and mostly written (or worse videoed) by people who have no idea how to write, direct, or teach.

Grabbing a compiler and giving it a go can work up to a point - but you generally miss huge amounts which would have made your life a lot easier. Avoid!

Strangely enough, there are people who blag their way into a job and then try to learn how to do it while being paid. Generally they don't last long, mostly because they are total idiots. Don't even try it if you have any shred of self respect or want an employment history that isn't full of 3 or 4 week employment periods...

Quote:

Where do I start to learn coding?