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General Discussion

Cody Stine
Cody Stine
977 Points

Point me in the right direction.

So after countless YouTube videos, listening to podcasts while at work or the gym and scouring the internet I have decided to take the plunge into programming. I learned HTML and CSS in high school but never really took it past there cause it wasn't something that interested me. But now that I'm older and hate my job feel like I hit a dead end I want to learn a valuable skill like programming and listening/watching videos on programming has made me want to learn but I am beyond confused on where to start. So I made a trial account here at tree house and I just want to know what language I should start with.

Websites really interest me and I heard Ruby and JavaScript are good to start to learn but which one is the better option for someone who possibly wants to study and get a job.

I think mobile apps are cool but I heard Java and Swift are tad bit harder to learn. I also don't own a single apple product and read that swift only works for mac.

Video games are a huge interest of mine but I don't think I could have make a game completely on my own tbh. C# and C++ are the languages I was looking at for Game Development.

I also heard Python is super easy for people to learn and it can be used in a bunch of different things like web development through Flask or Django but if I learn python do I need to learn JavaScript and Ruby as well? What about the back end languages like PHP? There's just so much stuff I don't know where to start so some guidance please!

Sorry if this type of topic has been posted all over the place but I just need someone to stand here and be like this is the path you need to take and I will be good to go! I'm tired of making up excuses for not jumping into a programming language or saying I can't do this.

1 Answer

christopher walsh
christopher walsh
7,272 Points

everyone must start with html, css and JavaScript. those are the abc's of web development and programming. Beyond that, it becomes more dependent on your career goals. If you want a quick career change, aim for learning fullstack MEAN development. if you have a little time and want to venture into interests, I think learning swift is really fun and easy, and yes you do need a mac and iphone to learn swift and ios programming.