What's the best way to learn programming languages

Hey there, i’m new to the forum. And i really love freecodeamp.org they provide great content on youtube and more helpful content on the website so big shout out to you guys, thank you so much for sharing this content to help everyone.

I’m a new coder, well i don’t consider myself as a coder right now because i just started. I like web development and Game development. I started to study/learn HTML and CSS for now. They are just a markup languages but they’re a great start i think, If you have any tips to make it easier for me to learn new languages “coding languages” feel free to write it down here:)
I’ll be so grateful for that

Also when i was learning HTML i’m kinda forgetting some elements in the course i’m using currently, I don’t know how to memorize them again, i think its because it wasn’t studied well. So feel free to help me out with this issue as well. Its the only thing standing in my way.

Also i love to code and mainly i started coding right now because i wanna make money for myself and my needs and to be successful:)

Thank you guys. :sparkling_heart:

Choose whatever you are most interested in.
Build websites, games or apps or …
As long as you continue with building stuff,
everything is alright,

You don’t have to memorize stuff on purpose.
Build things and the more you write code,
the better you will memorize it automatically.

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Thank you, i’ll remember that :heart:

When you are starting out, there are a lot of things you don’t understand. You will be overwhelmed by concepts, memorizing syntax, reading overly unclear documentation, tutorials that assumes you know what they are talking about.

Start small and work on what you already know. If you only know how to do HTML/CSS, then build small web pages and a lot of them until you are comfortable with the concepts of HTML/CSS.

If you move too fast and stray too far away from your comfort zone, you’ll be lost in 2 dozens of coding languages in 7 different industries.

This is a game that I am working on with HTML/CSS/JS.
https://cowwy.github.io/PooperClicker/sandbox/

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Thank you so much for these kind information. I’ll start building websites with what i already know so far and master it first until i feel comfortable like you said. and then i’ll move on to something else
HTML and CSS are kind of easy languages, but JavaScript is way harder, i think its related to mathmatics and i’m meh at math

I checked your game, looks nice but looks unfinished like you mentioned. I’d love if you wanted me to try it once you finish it.
I actually wanted to be a Game Developer at first but i like knowing CSS and HTML for now
Also do you use any game developing engines such as Unity or Unreal Engine? I know they use different languages than you’re using, just wondering
Thank you for commenting again^-^

Yea the game is not finish. It is the demo version that showcase my html/css and js ability.

I didn’t use any engines in the game. It is all vanilla js. Yea feel free to play around the game and gimme inputs.

I am learning react right now. The game is on hold for a bit.

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freecodecamp does have some great HTML, CSS and Javascript tutorials. On Youtube look up thenewboston - he creates tutorials for all kinds of programming languages. He keeps it simple and doesn’t overwhelm you with unnecessary garbage trying to make himself sound smart. His tutorials have helped get me through tons of projects in school. Like @Cowwy said, build projects and build lots of them in whatever language you’re interested in. Practice practice practice practice practice. It’s the only way you’ll be able to commit the concepts to memory.

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Hello welcome to the forums :smiley:, hope it helps and supports you on your journey :smiley:

I want to start off with bringing up a distinction, HTML and CSS are not programming languages. Consider HTML as as an extension for words, in that you markup your words to describe it better (to a browser). CSS is used to describe how things look, so its in a similar boat. You can consider both as just syntax, where memorizing how the syntax works is more or less all you have to do.

I wanted to bring up this distinction because JavaScript (the next thing to learn after HTML/CSS for front-end web development) is a programming language. As the same as before, learning the syntax is something you will need to do but, you also need to learn to program with the language. This is where you learn concepts that are easily transferable to other languages comes up. For example, learning about data structures and algorithms using JavaScript is easily transferable to other languages once you understand the syntax of the new language.

So if your concerned with learning other languages down the line, continue your web development journey and learn JavaScript. JS will allow you to make your web pages dynamic, and then some.

The best way to “learn” is to practice. If you read about how to do X, you wont 100% remember this forever unless you use it a number of times, and learn about how it can be used in a number of cases. The easiest way to gain this experience is to go out and build stuff. This goes for learning basically anything. The more you practice, the more knowledge gets transferred to “muscle memory”.

For syntax and API problems, looking at a reference usually helps you get over the “what does that do?”. When you need help on doing X, being able to get answers usually relies just on straight google-fu, AKA phrasing your question correctly to get the most relevant answers.

One of the best references out there for web development is MDN it has tons of resources on web apis, references, tutorials, guides, and everything in between. For higher-level overviews FreeCodeCamp guides is another good one for situations where you go “what is that technology” or similar.

Finally, if you like web development and game development, why not build a game using web technologies? I recommend looking into something like phaser which is a JavaScript powered game engine. Its great for simple 2D games, and very accessible since all you need is a web browser to run it(!)

Good luck, keep building, and don’t worry if you forget stuff or need help, its all part of the learning experience :smiley:

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Wow, Thank you guys for all the information. It really helped me a lot, i’ll continue practicing as soon as i finish the course i’m using right now. And yes i’m interested in game developing also, i might try to build a 2D game using Web Technologies like you said Brad :sparkling_heart:
Thank you so much for letting me know about MDN,phaser,etc

And of course, I’ll learn the first programming language JavaScript As soon as i finish the course. Because HTML,CSS and JavaScript are the core languages for web development :sparkling_heart:

Wish me luck on this journey guys, i find it very fun to code. I’m a little bit scared that there are difficult languages out there that i might not be able to master. I hope it all goes well :sparkling_heart:
Thank you @bradtaniguchi @arronp :sparkling_heart:

It looks cool to be honest, I’m excited to see how it’s gonna be after you finish it :sparkling_heart: