a place to start

“Talk is cheap. Show me the code.”

—Linus Torvalds

I have never been one to rush things; my ego will tell you it’s the perfectionist in me, but a more candid explanation would call it classic procrastination. As Kevin Malone would put it, I am a “textbook over-thinker” . With all that thinking going on, I can admit most of it is unremarkable. But sometimes we have to sift through all the trite thoughts to dig for something meaningful on command. What is something meaningful I can provide right now? I want to provide an access point for those looking to learn how to code. I am no expert (yet) but I understand the fundamentals and remember what it was like to start from zero. I hope I can give you something approachable that shows how accessible programming can be.

first things first!

Code needs to be written, evaluated, and executed. We do all of this in an IDE, and there are many to choose from! But don’t worry about figuring out which one is right for you. We can use easy and free online applications for now. Go to codepen.io, create a new account, and create a new “pen.” The only real way to learn, is to do. So make sure you’re typing out all the code I show you, but also take liberties to play around and see what happens! I’m only providing a starting place, the real knowledge comes from immersing yourself.

some important things to note:

green line — this is the title of your pen. the default from codepen is “untitled” so you’ll want to name your projects something appropriate and memorable.

blue line — this is the javascript file. you will get a better introduction to javascript in a moment, but for now just remember to never call it “java.”

orange line — this brings our console up. the console allows us to see the outputs from our javascript code. it will show us meaningful errors and successful computations.

read the rest of the lesson on medium