• Question: If your job involves coding how did you get into it?

    Asked by 835artk34 to Fran, Peppe, Greg, Petros, Rumman on 2 Nov 2017.
    • Photo: Giuseppe Cotugno

      Giuseppe Cotugno answered on 2 Nov 2017:

      When I was young, I did not have internet at home, so my first attempt was to learn an ancient language, called Pascal, reading a school book from a friend of mine. I proficiently learned to code only at university (in Java) thanks to the lectures and the books. Unfortunately the lack of a mentor or resources was a big limitation. Once I learned the basics of one language (and the “paperwork”, theory of programming) I was able to easily learn as many languages as I wish, and I shifted to C++ just by reading an online book (Thinking in C++) and a lot of practice.

      If I would have the opportunity to learning coding now, I will pick an easy language such as Python (or Java, if you are braver). Then I would need a beginner’s book (there is a lot of such stuff online), some video lecturers (can be even from a bachelor course at University) and a lot of practice

    • Photo: Petros Papapanagiotou

      Petros Papapanagiotou answered on 4 Nov 2017:

      We used to have a computer at home and I would play games on it. Eventually I became curious about how I can make the computer do more things that I wanted. I think this has been my main driver in anything I code. I just want to control computers!

      Initially, my older brother showed me a few commands in the programming language called Basic. I remember one of my very first programs ever was about guessing a random number from 1 to 10.

      I enjoyed it so I kept reading and learning. I remember I used to buy a magazine about computers (mostly computer games obviously) and they had a special section with examples of simple games written in Basic. I learned a lot from that.

      Eventually I met friends at school that also enjoyed coding so we started learning from each other and even coding together. One particular friend seemed to always know way more than everybody else. I learned a lot from him!

    • Photo: Fran Zuch

      Fran Zuch answered on 6 Nov 2017:

      Hi

      My job involves looking at the code, but not coding myself. As part of that, I do have to have a basic understanding of coding. I got into it when I started my new job over a year ago, however, it has interested me for years and as part of my studies (I am doing a degree in Physics right now), knowing some coding is very good and useful. One of the things I did was attending a day workshop which introduced the basics and since then I have completed some online course with Codeacademy.com (those are free) – have a look and give it a try.

    • Photo: Greg Chance

      Greg Chance answered on 7 Nov 2017:

      I started programming games on an old computer when I was at primary school and have always had and messed around with computers. I got more serious a few years ago when I realised what an important skill it is. I self-taught C++ using an online tutorial and wrote the Monopoly game as an exercise, this was a great way to learn as I love the game and it got me deep into coding. 2 years ago I was introduced to Ubuntu, Python and Matlab and have made daily efforts to learn about them. There is a really good app called SoloLearn for getting some of the basics, check it out.

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