What is Coding and How To Use It

The world of coding can seem vast and overwhelming sometimes.

I know it was for me when I first started learning it, but I wanted to help break some concepts down to help others who might be interested in learning this language of the tech.

Einstein once said “genius is taking the complex and making it simple” and over the years as I dived more into this world of code I began to see the smaller pieces come together.

Now learning to code is much easier than you may think and I think you can benefit more when you understand these principles and how you can apply it to your learning.

So the first thing I want to address is that learning to code is kinda like learning a language.

A language where you write instructions for a computer to follow.

Make sense?

Now let’s think back to a time when we were kids learning our ABCs, 123s and understanding how letters make up words along with associating specific words to different objects.

Coding is no different.

For example here is a kid worksheet I think we all seen something similar.

Now learning to code is no different.

There are small bits of code (kinda like letters and words) that make up statements (the instructions) for the program to understand and operate.

Through my studies I have noticed there are about 7 fundamentals that can be seen in most programming languages.

Once you understand the basics you can build highly complex projects.

But first mastering the basics is the key to building those complex projects.

I think as we get older we think we become smarter and learning something new as we did as kids is not good enough and we overlook the technique and so it has to be done differently which is not the case.

All children learn to speak by listening to their parents or environment and repeating what they heard along with association of the object.

Repetition is the mother of skill so the more you practice the basics the more you become familiar with the “syntax” which is coding’s way for saying the grammar and vocabulary, and then the better you will become at code.

So what are the 7 fundamentals?

Well I personally started to learn code with JavaScript and the 7 basic fundamentals I picked up are…

1. Variables and Data types
2. Functions
3. Arrays
4. Loops
5. Objects
6. Events
7. Conditions

The majority of all code within JavaScript can be broken down into these seven parts.

Once you can see the bigger picture of coding you can breakdown each individual part. 

As said before each part ties in together  to create one program.

Which leads me into how to use coding.

The 7 fundamentals used to build a program is for one purpose…

Problem Solving.

You may ask, but how? 

Well every program, every application was created out of someone’s desire to be filled aka a problem they were facing.

Problems don’t only have to be stressful.

It can be something to solve somebody’s boredom, like a game to play.

Or it can be a website built as a learning tool for students to study with.

Maybe a company needs a website because they are trying to create a presence online.

These are all legitimate problems people are dealing with and if you know how to code you can be a solution for these people and even better get paid well for your services. 

Now that’s a good incentive isn’t it?

Helping people and getting paid for your skills and knowledge, thats a win win in my book.

So you see coding is simply another language that helps to solve problems. 

That’s how I see it and it made learning and building code so much easier for me.

So just to recap the 7 fundamental basics of JavaScript are 

1. Variables and data types
2. Functions
3. Arrays 
4. Loops
5. Objects
6. Events 
7. Conditions

Learn these concepts and you are on your way to becoming a well established developer aka…

A coder.

If you want to get started with learning the fundamentals get a free copy of my JavaScript functions basic worksheet below.