BANDUNG, unpas.ac.id – During Covid-19 pandemic, there are a lot of people choosing to spend their time at home. Other than it is due to government policy and urgency, it is quite impossible for people to leave the house due to the Covid-19 exposure.
In the midst of pandemic, technology has important role in fulfilling people’s need, so that there are many of them who are interested to learn the Information Technology or programming.
For those who want to study more on the field of programming, there are some tips from teacher of Informatics Technology Universitas Pasundan, R. Sandhika Galih Amalga, ST., MT to start learning the basic programming.
Reported from YouTube channel of Unpas Web Programming maintained by the teacher, these are 10 tips to learn basic programming for beginner.
- Determine the Goals
Before getting to learn the basic, make sure you already had the goals on your own and do not only follow the trend. After that, focus more what you want to create, for example, website, mobile application, internet of things, music learning, games, or others.
“If the goals are for work, you determine first where to work and what to do. Or, you could think first about the first-grade students’ future dream is like, and so is with final-semester students: what kind of program they want to learn. Thing is, it is never too late to learn,” he said.
- Prepare the Mental Health
Programming does not belong to everyone, but everyone can try to learn the programming. It is admitted that coding is not an easy thing to learn, but it is rewarding and worth it. Therefore, mental preparation is really needed, because learning coding takes a long time and quite hard process.
“[Managing] the programming is skill to train, learn and hone continuously, as similar to learning other things. Learning quantity does not make it faster for use to master the coding, but the quality matters. For me, [mastering] the coding is challenging. So, when deciding to learn on coding, it means that we already committed not to stop learning,” he said.
- Choose Technology to Learn
In the field of programming, there are a lot of terms of programming, technology and library. However, to learn on programming, it cannot be mastered it all at once. If there is already a purpose, choose a specific technology or programming term and look for the learning path.
“Especially for web development, you can visit a website created by a developer Kamran Ahmed, its name is roadmaps.sh. On that website, you will find out the kind of learning path that you need to learn to be a web developer,” he explained.
Learn on things step by step and do not stick on terms which is hard to understand. Then, you find and prepare the development environment or supporting environment.
“These are important to estimate what kind of specification needed in creating a program. Sometimes it needs high computer specification or specific operation system to develop a software,” he said.
- Look for Learning Sources
After doing those three steps above, continue on finding other learning sources. Do not worry: to become a programmer, its steps are not only from formal education, but also from articles, audio visuals, coding application, even podcast. You can adjust them with the need and type of learning.
“On the channel of Unpas Web Programming, there are hundreds of videos that can be accessed: from the basic, especially about web development. There are also videos about learning path of front-end development, PHP developer, web programming tutorial, coding, in-depth talks with IT practitioners available,” he explained.
- Create Something from Things You have Learned
If you already followed the learning source, try to create something different from things you have learned. It does not need to be too complex or to-the-point to the huge project. It is quite enough by making small application that can solve personal specific problem.
“Make something you want to maintain much simpler. For example, a simple application such as to do list application which is useful for people’s daily life. Thing is, create an application to solve your problem, as long as it is different from the source,” he said.
- Try to read Technical Documentation
Reading technical documentation is quite hard and boring, since the term it uses is very technical. However, it is important to have this skill in order not to depend on other people to solve the problem which has already been explained completely in the documentation. If you cannot solve it on your own, before asking to the forum or other people, at least you have already browsed it on the official documentation.
- Try to have an Error during the Process
This skill is not less important, because all programmers have often faced and experience the errors. Therefore, you need to learn how to ask to find a solution in the forum like Stack Overflow.
- Find Some Companion-in-Arms
Try to learn it with your friends. Look for a friend whose level is similar to you to follow similar learning in order to open discussion when having an error or facing problem
“If you already have a friend, follow the learning and create a project together. For example, create a web whose job is divided into two. This is for training the communication and collaboration, since a programmer cannot be separated from them,” he continued.
- Join the Community
Sandhika always suggests to students to always get the update from the community. In a community, there are a lot of things that can be obtained and applied in field of industry or work.
“Usually, you still find a gap [between things you learned at campus and in the field] when learning programming at the institution. So, to relate these kind of problems, you can join the community, either offline or online, like in Facebook group, Telegram, and others,” he said.
- Share the Knowledge
Share the knowledge you have obtained by taking active part at the forum and responding to the problems faced by other beginners. It could also be by making a useful content, such as video, blog, or posts in the social media or other. It is for making it useful for others who is also learning.
