How To Become A Programmer

Being able to understand software, able to read, modify it, create it and share it, is a very powerful skill to have in the age we live in.

But where do you get this skill?

Does it seem like some people "just get it" and others feel hopeless and incapable of ever "getting it"?

Well, not one of those people who seem to "just get it" were born that way: they all spent many, many hours tinkering before they had that "knack" that seems so natural now.

There are many organizations that can help you (or your kids, or your students) some of which are listed further down the page. There are also countless resources online, which I'll go into first.

One way to become a programmer is by starting with very simple steps and then building up and up and up over a long period of time.

There are interactive tutorials you can try in the browser, for a lot of languages. Here is a list of more than 20 languages you can try in your browser

The site Learn X in Y minutes gives you a whirlwind tour of many languages and tools.

There are various programming environments targeted at children.

The article Kids Coding covers many different sites, apps and languages targeted at children.

Here are some of the best:

The difficult thing is finding one that moves at the appropriate pace for your child's current age, knowledge and interests. If your child is bored, see if there's a way to make the game run faster or a way to skip ahead by a few levels.

There are also various puzzle games that introduce a programming concept.

Underlying all of these tools, are the thoughts of Seymour Papert and the theory of Constructionism

How to become a Web Programmer

Board Games

Other Games and Puzzles

  • KrazyDad — "Printable Puzzles, Mazes and More! Thousands of FREE printable sudoku, logic puzzles, mazes and more. Print as many as you like!"
  • papg — pencil and paper games. ❤️
  • Puzzle Prime — "Only the best puzzles, diligently hand-picked by mathematicians"
  • Mathoverflow: Mathematical games — "Games interesting to both you and a 5+-year-old child"

Organizations

Online courses

See Also