The author is trying to eat an elephant and doesn't know where to begin. They are trying to learn too many things at once without a foundation to build on. Sta

The author is trying to eat an elephant and doesn't know where to begin. They are trying to learn too many things at once without a foundation to build on. Start by developing fundamental skills: learn your environment, your editor, your debugger, the syntax of the language. It's like learning to cook. You need to develop safe knife skills, and learn the best way to cut and portion vegetables. Learn to oil and use a pan and thermometer to thoroughly cook, but not burn, your food. These are fundamental skills that can be learned through observation, but must be practiced through trial and error. > Debugging is 90% of coding. > You learn by breaking, not by watching. This is how you learn, but is a terrible takeaway for learning to build software. > Write garbage code until it barely works. See here for another way: How to Design Programs https://htdp.org/ https://htdp.org/ "The typical course on programming teaches a “tinker until it works” approach. When it works, students exclaim “It works!” and move on. Sadly, this phrase is also the shortest lie in computing, and it has cost many people many hours of their lives. In contrast, this book focuses on habits of good programming, addressing both professional and vocational programmers." "By “good programming,” we mean an approach to the creation of software that relies on systematic thought, planning, and understanding from the very beginning, at every stage, and for every step. To emphasize the point, we speak of systematic program design and systematically designed programs. Critically, the latter articulates the rationale of the desired functionality. Good programming also satisfies an aesthetic sense of accomplishment; the elegance of a good program is comparable to time-tested poems or the black-and-white photographs of a bygone era. In short, programming differs from good programming like crayon sketches in a diner from oil paintings in a museum." It uses a language so simple that you can learn most of it in well under an hour[0], and with a proper editor few syntax errors are even possible. It leads you quickly to the important parts of conceptualizing, designing, specifying, implementing, and testing programs. Like cooking an entire meal, these are more fundamental, but higher level, skills that you can carry on to the other platforms that might draw your attention. I highly recommend reading books over watching videos, but here is an online course that uses the book: https://www.edx.org/learn/coding/university-of-british-columbia-how-to-code-simple-data https://www.edx.org/learn/coding/university-of-british-colum... [0]: https://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse341/03wi/scheme/basics.html https://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse341/03wi/scheme...