I have never been interested in coding or basically anything engineering or anything to do with math. In school, I have never done well in any math class. I find it boring, hard to understand and quite frankly, useless. It is my least favorite subject. That’s why I was scared when I started learning to code. I was afraid of all the math involved but what I am learning, there is no math which makes it easier to understand. There are codes that require math, but I am focusing on making websites which have numbers, but no math. If the code does involve math, I learned how to write a code to do the math for me. I am still new to coding and am by far no expert, but I wanted to share what I have learned and why I decided to do it.
As I said, I am no expert, but with the help of my boyfriend who loves to code and is a computer engineering major, he has helped me navigate through the tough world of coding. To start, my boyfriend had me understand the three most prominent code languages, Java Script. Python, and HTML. I have been using Java Script and HTML.
Before I started coding, I took the time to understand what makes these three languages different and why there are different languages to begin with. For whatever project you want to do, it is best to understand what language would be the most beneficial to code in. For example, HTML is used to make websites. HTML is code that structures a web page and its content. Java Script is
used to create interactive web content like browsers and applications. This language also allows the coder to update content, control, multimedia, and animate images. Lastly, Python is used for developing websites and software, task automation, data analysis and data visualization. So, as you can see, just these three languages are very different in terms of use. There are many more languages out there that all do different things.
Understanding all this can be very tricky but I have been lucky to have someone teach me how to do it all. But there are other ways to learn and practice that don’t require a tutor. Code is something that you can learn yourself. There are countless videos out there that take you through the step by step of code.
Thanks to my boyfriend, he found me two great websites and one app that makes practicing code and learning it a lot easier. The first website he showed me is called Practiceit. My boyfriend took an online summer coding class, and this is one of the websites they used. It is completely free. This website offers coding in the language Java Script and in three different editions. I started with the 5th edition. Inside this edition, there are 18 chapters to go through with online problems. Now because this website was used to help teach a class, it is more difficult to go through it on your own. But once you get the hang of it, it is fairly easy.
In the beginning of this article, I talked about how I am learning to make websites. Replit.com is another free resource that helped me do so. The great thing about Replit is that you can code in any language you want. Again, this website is harder to master on your own, but with YouTube videos, you will be a master in no time.
The app I mentioned, I found myself. It is called Mimo. You can choose what you want to code, for example websites and it will take you through free lessons and practice problems that you can do independently with no prior knowledge to code. I really like this app because it breaks down the lessons and gives you solutions of you stuck. Plus, it is very easy to use.
Now on to why I decided to learn code. My boyfriend constantly talks about code and what he is learning, and he has always been trying to get me interested in it. But for a while I would always say no because I was not interested, and I was afraid of the challenge. I also saw my boyfriend and his friend code and when I looked at it, I said to myself, “I think I can do that”. So, I tried it and, in my opinion, it is not as hard as it looks. Yes, I am still a beginner but the lessons I learned were fairly easy. I did have some bumps in the road because of confusing problems but I stuck with it and I am very happy I did.