Hi guys, I'll be going to college this fall for computer science, but have never really gotten into coding. I spent a little time learning python and C, but just very basic stuff. I know it's kind of late to start, but I'd at least like to learn a little bit before I go off to college. The biggest recommendation I've seen is to have a goal in mind, like designing a program or website, but I honestly have no clue what I would want to design. So where should I start?
Yes you should have a goal in mind, start with something easy and work your way up to something harder.
Now for code to learn all depends on what you wanna do if you wanna make programs or websites
Programs start with the basic C learn C it will make it easier to learn C++ and C# later down the road also python and ruby are good ones too theirs a whole long list of programming codes out there , Theirs several websites out there that teach basic coding for free.
Web design start with HTML/CSS then work your way up to java script, ruby on rails, php, .net framework agile theirs a lot to learn just depends on the website you want to make also doesnt hurt to maybe take a photo shop class or 2 if they have them
https://teksyndicate.com/forum/code/programming-super-thread/142214
Thanks. That's the issue though; I have absolutely no idea what I want to do. Game development sounds cool, but it also requires much creativity, and would probably be very difficult to start off with. The most complex program I have ever written is a tic-tack-toe game. I've messed around with some html stuff, but I'm not too interested in creating websites, especially since you have sites like Square Space that do a lot of the hard work for you. I'm sorta of interested in contributing to open source projects, but with no real knowledge of coding, I don't think I could help much right now.
Thanks. Will definitely check out some of those links. I just found a video series on programming basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjM4VkE3ZQA
With games development the roles of programmer and artist are usually split so if it's a lack of artistic skill that is concerning you I wouldn't worry about it to much, unless of course you are thinking of being a one person development house building your own stuff. Even then, just do an art course or two as electives if your degree allows for that.
I think that some knowledge of web development is good to have because very often a website will be the way a user interacts with some backend system you have written. For example, in my current job I had to write a system that allowed users to upload videos and then would convert them into multiple different formats and then place them on the CDNs we use. There is no way a pre-packaged website like one from square space would be able to interact with the backend parts of that, at least not out of the box.
Don't worry about not knowing what to do with your degree other than programing in some general sense, because even if you did there is a good chance you would change your mind by the end of your degree and that's kind of the point: going through the education process allows you to try things and figure out what it is you want to do, working from the general to the specific. Not only that but software solutions are moving into so many industries where they didn't exist years ago (think Uber vs Taxi industry or AirBnB vs hotel industry), so you could end up working anywhere.
From the looks of it, it seems like learning JavaScript should open up all kinds of opportunities, since it's use has climbed so much. I guess networking and mobile would probably the safest bet.
Yeah, and node.js means you can do javascript on the server side now.