[Mxyzptlk]

A lot of people have this problem for how to start programming. I have seen a lot of groups on Facebook, Subreddits, etc for people asking how to start programming and the first comment on most of those posts are Codeacademy, Tutorialspoint and others or they are recommended a book. But, the problem is, not everyone likes to read a big book on their first encounter to programming, some people favor video lectures than a book, and I can’t blame you, video lectures do more good but if you want more knowledge then books are the better choice. Although, I will recommend you to first go for the video lectures and then if you want a better understanding then you can always find a book.

Now, what most people don’t know is, apart from those resources mentioned above there are a hell lot of more better resources that very few people know about, and those include lectures from elite colleges like Stanford, MIT, etc.

Without wasting much of your time I will recommend you best resources on how to start programming, I know that you may want to learn some other language like Java or C# or anything, but I will say, first complete the given lectures and learn what they are teaching and then move on to your favorite languages, once you learn the dynamics of programming, it will be much easier to learn other languages.

One more thing, even a small kid can program, what’s main thing is, algorithm i.e. your problem solving skills, for programming, you don’t even need a brain, but for valid and meaningful programming you need to know the best way to solve your problem and the mentioned tutorials will help you do that. I will post more tutorials later:

Note: When you will click on enroll (after making an account) you will get a option to pay for the certificate, then just click on either “No Certificate” option or “Audit this Course” option to complete the courses for FREE. If you still don’t know what to do, comment here.

1. If you are a total beginner and you have no idea on where to start from? This course will teach you how to program in Scratch, an easy to use visual programming language. More importantly, it will introduce you to the fundamental principles of computing and it will help you think like a software engineer:
   Code Yourself! An Introduction to Programming
    
   
2. This course is the first in the specialization Introduction to Programming in C, but its lessons extend to any language you might want to learn. This is because programming is fundamentally about figuring out how to solve a class of problems and writing the algorithm, a clear set of steps to solve any problem in its class.
   Programming Fundamentals
    
   
3. This course aims to teach everyone the basics of programming computers using Python. We cover the basics of how one constructs a program from a series of simple instructions in Python. The course has no pre-requisites and avoids all but the simplest mathematics.
   Programming for Everybody (Getting Started with Python)
    
   
4. This course is the first of a two-course sequence: Introduction to Computer Science and Programming Using Python, and Introduction to Computational Thinking and Data Science. Together, they are designed to help people with no prior exposure to computer science or programming learn to think computationally and write programs to tackle useful problems.
   Introduction to Computer Science and Programming Using Python
    
   
5. Behind every mouse click and touch-screen tap, there is a computer program that makes things happen. This course introduces the fundamental building blocks of programming and teaches you how to write fun and useful programs using the Python language.
   Learn to Program: The Fundamentals
    
   
6. This is an introduction to programming and app development class series, partly based on an upper-division undergraduate introductory programming languages course from the Computer Science department at UCLA.
   Introduction to Programming and App Development
   

Whoa! That’s a hell lot of tutorials isn’t it? But not to worry, you just need to complete one of them to know the basics of programming and then you will be able to take off to your favorite programming language in a whiff (I will post about each one of them later).


Give this Guy A Cookie: How to start programming? | Original Source

[413]

I used http://www.howtostartprogramming.com when I first wanted to learn, It's been a good 6 or 7 years now and I still build applications, If anyone needs an example or tutorial feel free to message me or say so and I will help.

[IC3]

Nice share for beginners. The problem for me is not "how to start" but "what to code" lol. I'm a lazy ass and always have troubles getting ideas to code something

[Blink]

The real 'best' way to start, is to do a project. Choose a language (pls no Node or Java, they're bad), then read a bunch of code in that language. Once you've read a bit, start the project even if you don't know where to start. When you get stuck, Google for help, but [b]do not look for code on how to do the entire project, only Google for small, specific things like "get input in C", or "TCP connection in C". Eventually, you'll get through the project, or you'll abandon it for another one. Even if abandoned, you still got started and learned.

Also, avoid OOP. OO is overused, and can lead to bad habits if learned early-on.

[Mxyzptlk]

The real 'best' way to start, is to do a project.  Choose a language (pls no Node or Java, they're bad), then read a bunch of code in that language.  Once you've read a bit, start the project even if you don't know where to start.  When you get stuck, Google for help, but [b]do not look for code on how to do the entire project, only Google for small, specific things like "get input in C", or "TCP connection in C".  Eventually, you'll get through the project, or you'll abandon it for another one.  Even if abandoned, you still got started and learned.

Also, avoid OOP.  OO is overused, and can lead to bad habits if learned early-on.

What's better than a college course? apart from that, coding is not the real challenge, writing a good algorithm is.

[Blink]

The real 'best' way to start, is to do a project.  Choose a language (pls no Node or Java, they're bad), then read a bunch of code in that language.  Once you've read a bit, start the project even if you don't know where to start.  When you get stuck, Google for help, but [b]do not look for code on how to do the entire project, only Google for small, specific things like "get input in C", or "TCP connection in C".  Eventually, you'll get through the project, or you'll abandon it for another one.  Even if abandoned, you still got started and learned.

Also, avoid OOP.  OO is overused, and can lead to bad habits if learned early-on.

What's better than a college course? apart from that, coding is not the real challenge, writing a good algorithm is.

You'll learn to write good algorithms by doing projects, especially ones that are simple yet logical (like sorting), or ones that involve lots of math (like machine learning).

College courses often teach bad practices (more OOP and Java), so you'll likely end up better on your own if you try hard enough. Computer Engineering seems like a neat course though.

If you want to learn to write efficient algorithms, learn C, and try to use the least number of instructions and bytes of memory as possible. C gets you started in a good place, and has simple, nice syntax (unlike C++ and other languages).

[Mxyzptlk]

The real 'best' way to start, is to do a project.  Choose a language (pls no Node or Java, they're bad), then read a bunch of code in that language.  Once you've read a bit, start the project even if you don't know where to start.  When you get stuck, Google for help, but [b]do not look for code on how to do the entire project, only Google for small, specific things like "get input in C", or "TCP connection in C".  Eventually, you'll get through the project, or you'll abandon it for another one.  Even if abandoned, you still got started and learned.

Also, avoid OOP.  OO is overused, and can lead to bad habits if learned early-on.

What's better than a college course? apart from that, coding is not the real challenge, writing a good algorithm is.

You'll learn to write good algorithms by doing projects, especially ones that are simple yet logical (like sorting), or ones that involve lots of math (like machine learning).

College courses often teach bad practices (more OOP and Java), so you'll likely end up better on your own if you try hard enough.  Computer Engineering seems like a neat course though.

If you want to learn to write efficient algorithms, learn C, and try to use the least number of instructions and bytes of memory as possible.  C gets you started in a good place, and has simple, nice syntax (unlike C++ and other languages).

But first you need to know how exactly to start. I learned a lot of great things from MIT 6.001 course, Binary Search, Sorting are just one of many things I learned that is not taught anywhere, once you work on problem solving and algo, you can write better codes. MIT uses Python and have great lecturers, they even tell you how to debug a program and best practices. No offense, but take the course before making assumptions.

[phyrrus9]

The real 'best' way to start, is to do a project.  Choose a language (pls no Node or Java, they're bad), then read a bunch of code in that language.  Once you've read a bit, start the project even if you don't know where to start.  When you get stuck, Google for help, but [b]do not look for code on how to do the entire project, only Google for small, specific things like "get input in C", or "TCP connection in C".  Eventually, you'll get through the project, or you'll abandon it for another one.  Even if abandoned, you still got started and learned.

Also, avoid OOP.  OO is overused, and can lead to bad habits if learned early-on.

What's better than a college course? apart from that, coding is not the real challenge, writing a good algorithm is.

You'll learn to write good algorithms by doing projects, especially ones that are simple yet logical (like sorting), or ones that involve lots of math (like machine learning).

College courses often teach bad practices (more OOP and Java), so you'll likely end up better on your own if you try hard enough. Computer Engineering seems like a neat course though.

If you want to learn to write efficient algorithms, learn C, and try to use the least number of instructions and bytes of memory as possible. C gets you started in a good place, and has simple, nice syntax (unlike C++ and other languages).

Literally what he said, but I want to make a few points:

You will learn by working on your own, but in reality the more you struggle the more you will learn. Picking projects you can't finish is probably the easiest way to learn them, because as you do the project you learn more, sometimes you have to set that project aside and work on another, but once you finally do it it's a very rewarding feeling.

College tends to teach you bad practices, but you don't go to college to learn, you do that to get exposed to the ideas. It's still a good idea to take college classes in most cases, but don't consider a degree in computer science to mean that you know how to program, you don't, you simply know how to learn programming.

Agree exactly with Ender on this one, my two cents is that being anal about memory used and instructions included will make you a better programmer in the long run.

[Blink]

What's better than a college course? apart from that, coding is not the real challenge, writing a good algorithm is.

You'll learn to write good algorithms by doing projects, especially ones that are simple yet logical (like sorting), or ones that involve lots of math (like machine learning).

College courses often teach bad practices (more OOP and Java), so you'll likely end up better on your own if you try hard enough.  Computer Engineering seems like a neat course though.

If you want to learn to write efficient algorithms, learn C, and try to use the least number of instructions and bytes of memory as possible.  C gets you started in a good place, and has simple, nice syntax (unlike C++ and other languages).

But first you need to know how exactly to start. I learned a lot of great things from MIT 6.001 course, Binary Search, Sorting are just one of many things I learned that is not taught anywhere, once you work on problem solving and algo, you can write better codes. MIT uses Python and have great lecturers, they even tell you how to debug a program and best practices. No offense, but take the course before making assumptions.

You don't need to know how to start at all, that's the point of the projects. Sorting is everywhere, it doesn't have to be taught, it needs to be learned. Read example code or the Wikipedia page. Python is only good for scripting, it's useless for real software. Debugging shouldn't have to be implicitly taught. They don't teach the best practices, because the current college-CS-world is stuck on OOP and other bullshit.

If you actually are in MIT, then you're more qualified than me (I'm really young). However, that doesn't mean that it's impossible for me to be correct.

On top of all this, you're the one who asked the question. I simply gave an answer. You can learn things from college, I'm saying that some of what you can learn can be taught better to yourself by you.

[Mxyzptlk]

What's better than a college course? apart from that, coding is not the real challenge, writing a good algorithm is.

You'll learn to write good algorithms by doing projects, especially ones that are simple yet logical (like sorting), or ones that involve lots of math (like machine learning).

College courses often teach bad practices (more OOP and Java), so you'll likely end up better on your own if you try hard enough.  Computer Engineering seems like a neat course though.

If you want to learn to write efficient algorithms, learn C, and try to use the least number of instructions and bytes of memory as possible.  C gets you started in a good place, and has simple, nice syntax (unlike C++ and other languages).

Literally what he said, but I want to make a few points:

You will learn by working on your own, but in reality the more you struggle the more you will learn. Picking projects you can't finish is probably the easiest way to learn them, because as you do the project you learn more, sometimes you have to set that project aside and work on another, but once you finally do it it's a very rewarding feeling.

College tends to teach you bad practices, but you don't go to college to learn, you do that to get exposed to the ideas. It's still a good idea to take college classes in most cases, but don't consider a degree in computer science to mean that you know how to program, you don't, you simply know how to learn programming.

Agree exactly with Ender on this one, my two cents is that being anal about memory used and instructions included will make you a better programmer in the long run.

1. I understand what you are trying to say, but Algorithm itself means writing an efficient piece of code with minimum Space and Time complexity.

2. Indeed, most colleges teaches bad code practices, but I have taken the MIT course, they use IDLE and give you constant updates on time taken for each program. They care more about the space and time complexity than us.

3. I myself recommend Low level language check the courses for what languages they are based on, or let me help you:

1. Code Yourself! An Introduction to Programming - Scratch programming, for total beginners [will remove it if you want]
2. Programming Fundamentals - C language
3. Programming for Everybody (Getting Started with Python) - Python
4. Introduction to Computer Science and Programming Using Python - Python
5. Learn to Program: The Fundamentals - Python

I know Python is a high level language, but now a days almost everyone recommend python as starting language and I don't see any bad thing in it. I am not in MIT but I have taken 6.001, 6.042J, 6.006.