Getting started with Self-Learning for Programmers
Published: 2022-09-23 14:21:43

To program something can be difficult sometimes, especially when you are a beginner. This blog will help you get a good career start with programming. But before that, let me ask you a question! Most of the time, you might have heard about the word programming as well as coding. What is the difference between them? Are they the same or?



![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/qduqy6lldc16i1dp01ws.png)



For some time in my life, I thought they are basically the same but later I came to understand that they are not. How so? Coding is simply putting your idea into a machine-understandable code, for example, building games, apps, simple websites, etc. But Programming is something different and is on the whole other level compared to Coding. Programming involves building a robust software development process. It requires analysis, planning designing, testing, bug hunting, and lots and lots of reviewing. A simple example would be building a next-gen Andriod or IOS operating system. 

One of the key differences, that I believe, is that programming requires a considerable amount of mathematical and analytical skills which coding does not need. Sometimes, Developers say that "you don't need mathematics to become a developer or programmer". It's actually true but if you are sitting in a room full of developers and if you want to stand out and show that you are better than other developers, improving your mathematical skills is a way to go. 

That would be the main difference between a coder and a programmer, I would say. Coding is fun when the stuff you are coding is beautiful or easy to grasp but using mathematics to develop software can even represent you as a magician, where mathematics is doing all the magic behind the scenes.

There is one piece of advice I would like to give you if you really want to be a successful programmer, learn how to apply mathematics to your code.


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/v60tttyt0zv8xt8maj9s.png)



In this blog, I would like to show you some of my favorite places where I began learning programming or coding, and all of them are freely available. 


[YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/)

Youtube is a giant platform for E-learning Courses. I learnt most of the programming languages through youtube itself. Even now, when I want to start learning something new, youtube would be the first place I would go for. Till now, a wide range of content is available on youtube and is actually a best place to start with, doesn't matter if you have a degree or not. 

[Udacity](https://www.udacity.com/)

Udacity is an E-learning platform where you do courses and learn from professional tutors just like Udemy. But most of the courses are freely available. It would most likely be like you need to pay if you want the certificate for the course you are doing. Even, without the certificate, you can still put it in your Resume or Linkedin profile.

[Edx](https://www.edx.org/)

Edx is another one of the huge platform where programming as well as theoretical courses are available. There courses are offered by famous universities like MIT, Havard University, etc. These courses will definately be helpful if you want to understand the mathematical basis behind the algorithms.


[Codeacademy](https://www.codecademy.com/)

Codeacademy is a great platform to learn programming languages. There are wide varities of languages available so that you can learn. They also have a interactive website where instructions are given, and you write the code according to the instructions and test the program and if you suceed at it, you can move forward in the course. I personally learnt python from Codeacademy.+

[Happycodings.com](https://happycodings.com/)

Happycoding is not much of a famous website but here I would like to draw your attention to this website. In this website, most of the program in most of the famous programming languages are available and you can try it out and you learn it by trying it out. Make sure you check this out. This is one of my favourite website where I learnt programming.


So, that was all I would like to draw your attention to. These are my views on programming. I am no expert and am still in the learning phase. If you find something in which your views differ from mine, please do tell me in the comment section below so that I can learn too. To those who are still in the beginning phase and trying things out, Happy Coding and Don't give up, keep going and you will have a life you always dreamt about.