{"id":13,"date":"2021-10-06T23:29:31","date_gmt":"2021-10-06T23:29:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/codebrew\/?p=13"},"modified":"2021-10-06T23:29:32","modified_gmt":"2021-10-06T23:29:32","slug":"dos-and-donts-for-learning-new-programming-languages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/codebrew\/2021\/10\/06\/dos-and-donts-for-learning-new-programming-languages\/","title":{"rendered":"Do&#8217;s and Don&#8217;ts for learning new programming languages"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Yesterday I had a kick-off meeting with my capstone team members and mentors. I was not surprised that I&#8217;ll be learning new technologies and frameworks along the way. That&#8217;s part of being a software engineer. I was surprised, however, that I have had little exposure to such technologies since my time as OSU. So much of being a computer science student in 2021 is self-teaching, building personal projects, and leetcode (that is a topic for another day!). For my capstone project, we&#8217;ll be using C#, .NET, learning how to deploy an existing project to the cloud, machine learning topics, and so much more! I&#8217;m probably missing a few things, but will refine my knowledge as time goes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For now, here&#8217;s my advice to learning new programming languages. This is as much a reminder to myself as for you, the reader. Whether this is your first programming language or your fifth, I think you&#8217;ll find something useful from this list!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Do: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Have an idea of the types of projects you want to make. <ul><li>If you&#8217;re just starting out, learn Python. Python is not fussy about the syntax and it will come in handy when you are solving technical interview questions. <\/li><li>In my case, I want to learn C# for my capstone. <\/li><\/ul><\/li><li>Search <em>the programming language you&#8217;re interesting in <\/em>+ reddit + beginner + resources + other relevant keywords<ul><li>You will find discussions on reddit for the best resources on the topic you&#8217;re interested in. From a developer with 10+ years in industry or a student that is also in your same shoes, having different perspectives and consensus on the many resources out there will cut back your learning time.<\/li><\/ul><\/li><li>Use different resources to learn the same thing<ul><li>Having someone explain a concept in a different way can help solidify the topic.<\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Don&#8217;t:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Get stuck in tutorial mode <ul><li>Tutorials are useful, but only as useful as you make them out to be. After a certain point, if you&#8217;re watching tutorials but not coding along, how useful is it? How much information are you retaining?<\/li><\/ul><\/li><li>Sweat the syntax <ul><li>Familiarity comes with practice. The more you use a language, the syntax will become second nature. <\/li><\/ul><\/li><li>Not ask for help<ul><li>Taking the time to craft how you&#8217;re stuck, the things you&#8217;ve tried but didn&#8217;t work, what the expected outcome is, is actually very valuable. You&#8217;re practicing communicating your problem and getting closer to the solution! I have found that asking for help is normal and encouraged. <\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Goodluck on your journey!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday I had a kick-off meeting with my capstone team members and mentors. I was not surprised that I&#8217;ll be learning new technologies and frameworks along the way. That&#8217;s part of being a software engineer. I was surprised, however, that I have had little exposure to such technologies since my time as OSU. So much&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/codebrew\/2021\/10\/06\/dos-and-donts-for-learning-new-programming-languages\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Do&#8217;s and Don&#8217;ts for learning new programming languages<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11654,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/codebrew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/codebrew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/codebrew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/codebrew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11654"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/codebrew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/codebrew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/codebrew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions\/14"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/codebrew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/codebrew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/codebrew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}