📑 Ten Lessons I Learned While Teaching Myself to Code

In light on Clive Thompson’s new book, he reflects on the ten lessons associated with learning to code:

1. The online world is your friend. Start there.
2. Don’t stress over what language to pick.
3. Code every day.
4. Automate your life.
5. Prepare for constant, grinding frustration.
6. Build things. Build lots of things.
7. “View Source”: Take other people’s code, pick it apart, and reuse it.
8. Build things for you—code you need and want.
9. Learn how to learn.
10. Reach out to other coders.

Two points that stood out to me from Thompson’s was coding every day and doing so with purpose. I have been doing quite a bit with Google Sheets lately. I find myself needing to relearn things after leaving things for a few weeks. Repetition is important.

I was also reminded of Richard Olsen’s post on why coding is the vanguard for modern learning.