Tips for LearningProgrammingHaim MichaelDecember 20th, 2013

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You can find the video clip at http://youtu.be/N1XHWcFBa0E.

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© Haim Michael

Table of ContentLi fe M

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m● The English Barrier● Self Learning Capabilities● Writing Code is The Only Way● Be Ready for Class● Effective Time Management● The Main Technical Website● Understand Everything● Use Code Samples● Community Help● Learn Programming Languages● Questions & Answers

© Haim Michael

The English Barrier● Overcome the English barrier. The up-to-date professional training

material is available in English. If you still have problems with

reading technical material in English you must overcome this

difficulty. The sooner the better.

● You cannot expect finding translations for each and every technical

document. You can find translation for very few of them only.

● It isn’t about learning English. The technical language is very

limited. You just need to improve your reading skills. It isn’t difficult

as it might seem in the beginning.

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Self Learning Capabilities● You should learn how to find answers by searching the

web, learn how to read technical documents in an

effective way and learn how learn new material by

reading books and practice their code samples.

● Practice your self-learning skills by learning new

technologies every day. If you don't put the required time

for learning new technologies you will stay behind. You

will become a dinosaur.

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Writing Code is The Only Way● Just as you cannot learn swimming without getting into

the water it is impossible to learn programming without

writing code.

● The more code you write the more understanding you

get. Learning a programming language without writing

code doesn’t work.

● If you are getting into difficulties writing your first

programs try to start with running code samples.

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Be Ready for Class● If you are taking a programming course make sure you

come ready to the meetings.

● Make sure you read the material in advance. Make sure you

run some code samples in advance. The more prepared

you come the more understanding you will get during the

lesson.

● Going over the material before each and every meeting will

save you time at home. Come ready with questions and

exploit your teacher!

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Effective Time Management● We are all limited in our time. Unless you learn how to

manage your time in an effective way you won’t be able to

keep the pace.

● Make sure you have friends from whom you can get

immediate assistance.

● If you find yourself in a loop wasting time on specific

programming assignments it might be very useful to take a

break, move forward with other exercises (maybe a more

fundamental ones) and return back at a later time.

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Main Technical Website● Each and every technology has its main technical website. The .NET

framework has the msdn.microsoft.com website, Java has the

java.sun.com website, PHP has the www.php.net website, Scala has the

www.scala-lang.org website and so on.

● Each programming language usually has its own official documentation

pages. Java has the well known API, .NET has the well known MSDN and

so on.

● Make sure you are familiar with the main technical website as well as the

documentation. You will find them highly useful.

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Understand Everything● Insist on understanding everything there is to understand. Exploit your

teacher. Raise the questions. The deeper you get the better

understanding you achieve.

● Many programming languages and many programming platforms have

their own professional certification exams. Learning for those exams and

taking them afterwards will usually assist you with getting the best

understanding one can get.

● When getting error messages avoid the temptation for trying a quick fix.

Insist on reading the error message and understanding it.

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Use Code Samples● Code samples can assist us learning new programming

languages.

● Introducing small changes into the code watching whether the

output is the one you expect will allow you to verify your

understanding.

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Community Help● In most cases, searching google will yield results fetched

from various community help websites, such as

www.stackoverflow.com and others.

● In most cases, the question you have was already asked

by others.

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Learn Programming Languages

● The more programming languages you learn you will

enrich yourself with new programming languages

paradigms and improve your self-learning skills.

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Questions & Answers● Three courses you might find interesting include

Software Engineering in PHP

more info

Android 4.4 Java Applications Development

more info

HTML5 Cross Platform Mobile Applications

more info

● If you enjoyed my lecture please leave me a comment

at http://speakerpedia.com/speakers/life-michael.

Thanks for your time!

Haim.

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