How I Code With No Programming Experience (And How You Can Too)

Are you interested in learning how to code but don’t have any programming experience? It may seem like a daunting task, but with the right approach and mindset, anyone can learn how to code. In this blog, I will share my personal journey of learning how to code with no programming experience and how you can do the same. From finding the right resources and tools to adopting a growth mindset, I will provide you with practical tips and strategies to kickstart your coding journey. So, let’s dive in and discover how you can become a proficient coder, even without any prior experience!

How I Code With No Programming Experience (And How You Can Too)

Introduction

I’m going to make a video that I wish I had seen about two years ago when I started learning about programming and I wanted to talk about things like Visual Studio code and Python and how to use them. Probably you’ve seen before in Programming you have to send you’re basically sending commands to a computer. Now, on Windows the old way to do this was to use what you’ve probably seen before which is the terminal. The problem with the terminal is that it’s not immediately clear to someone who is a Noob what you’re actually doing so I spent hours and hours and hours trying to get a piece of code to work using the terminal and it’s a way to interact with folders so what the terminal is is it’s a way to interact with a folder and basically that’s like 99% of what we do on the computer is we interact with folders or we interact with APIs. These are the two things that we kind of interact with folders and APIs. Now, APIs are ways to it’s like a software inside a program so for example chat GPT has an API, stable diffusion has an API etc. But you’re still on your computer you’re mainly interacting with your folder.

Visual Studio Code

What Visual Studio code is it’s called an IDE but I actually don’t know what ID stands for. Okay, integrated development environment that makes a lot of sense. So what I want you to do is download visual studio code and then I want you to open Visual Studio code now if you’re doing something with python you will need to install python if you’re doing something with react you’ll need to install node js there are specific programs that you need in order to execute that language’s code okay and for python you just literally need to type in Python go to python.org download and more I I would say download like the last version 3.1 3.11 it should be just because certain things including chat gbt don’t Some parts of chat gbt don’t work with the latest version of python so this is what you will be met with this is Visual Studio code and what this is It’s almost like a visual way to see code and to see files etc.

Writing Python Scripts and Interacting with Folders

Previously what you could do is you could make a file on your desktop let’s say so new folder I can’t see my thing I have them hidden I just realized so we’ll go in my Downloads then so previously what you would do is you would do new folder hello what I mean by previously is what you might be tempted to as a noob okay and then inside the terminal you would go inside this folder so you do like CD uh downloads CD hello and then you could add a python file so new I don’t know if I think this will work hello. p oops I don’t know if this will work I don’t know how to make this an actual python file and then you would run python hello.py okay but the the problem with This is it’s really hard to like keep track of what you’re doing etc. etc. so this is why people use Visual Studio code so what you can do instead is you can click open file here and you can go to downloads and you can open the hello Folder sorry it should be open folder go to I always do that go to downloads hello select folder and then you can actually make this a p file instead of being aext file I don’t know how to make a pi file outside of Visual Studio code so now What you can do is you can interact with different things in the same folder so here every time you do new file hello. text I don’t know keywords. text oops anyway you understand the point you can now interact with other things inside this same folder so if you write Script that says something like open hello. text and read hello. text then when you run the script it will read from the same folder okay so I’ll just show you an example here we’ll put in hello. text or in keywords. text let’s just put some random Keywords and save there and then I want to write a little script here that says now write a python script that opens keywords. text and the results okay so we’ll copy the code here and then we’ll put this into hello.py and then we’ll save it now you can I can use the terminal so you can use the command prompt as well if you want so you can do CD download CD downloads CD hello Python hello.py and then it will just print the keywords okay or you can go to these three buttons here terminal new terminal and then do python Hello.py so you’ve affected ly just written your first bit of python now this might not seem that useful and it I never really understood the use of it until I thought about it in the context of sit Maps now Shopify especially has a very interesting sit map although There are ways to do this with WordPress as well but for me, Shopify is one of the most interesting uhsitemaps so there’s the page of sitemap the collection sitemap the blog sitemap but most importantly there’s the product sitemap so what you can actually do is if you have a lot of products and I work with a lot of clients who have thousands and thousands of products two men is a good example and right-click save as and then you save this sitemap and drag it across to here then you can change what hello.py is doing but make sure it’s Always reading whichever file you want it to read and you can make it do some really interesting things now I’m sorry to do the classic here’s one I did earlier but I I can’t be bothered going through chat gbt right now it takes about half an hour for you to go from having the sit map knowing that you want to write the site read from the sitap to having a chat gbt created script which will search the sit map and give you all the information you need so let’s say I find a keyword this is what I’ve been doing recently with some great success By the way um you can watch the video from yesterday this video right here but actually the workflow is the one where I actually show you how to do it so I recommend watching the workflow now that you’ve watch this video to understand how the programming part works of it but basically find a keyword let’s say I’m writing about loafers so all you do is change the included terms and I’ll leave this particular script in the description as well and then excluded terms here so let’s say you have women’s loafers and you you’re writing an article about men’s loafers then you can exclude the term women’s and then all this is doing is the exact same thing it’s just a bit more of a complicated script it’s only 39 lines it’s actually a pretty simple script in terms of what it’s doing and it’s not doing any scraping there’s only two Imports there’s no chat GPT API there is no API here at all and all you do is the same as before you run the script this time it’s it’s still called hello.py okay so it’s giving me an error and it’s really important to kind of understand what uh if an means okay so no such File or directory sitemap products 120 it makes…

How I Code With No Programming Experience (And How You Can Too) – FAQ

What is coding?

Coding is the process of writing instructions for a computer to execute. It involves using a programming language to create software, websites, and other digital applications.

Do I need to have programming experience to code?

No, you do not need to have programming experience to start coding. There are many resources and tools available that can help beginners learn how to code.

How can I start coding with no programming experience?

You can start coding with no programming experience by taking online courses, watching video tutorials, and practicing coding exercises. There are also coding bootcamps and workshops that cater to beginners.

What are some programming languages that are beginner-friendly?

Some beginner-friendly programming languages include HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Python. These languages are widely used and have a supportive community for beginners.

What tools and resources can I use to help me code with no programming experience?

There are many online platforms and tools such as Codecademy, FreeCodeCamp, and GitHub that offer free resources for beginners to learn how to code. Additionally, there are coding editors like VS Code and Sublime Text that are beginner-friendly and easy to use.

How can I stay motivated while learning how to code?

Staying motivated while learning how to code can be challenging, but setting realistic goals, joining coding communities, and working on fun projects can help keep you motivated and engaged.

I hope you find useful my article How I Code With No Programming Experience (And How You Can Too), I also recommend you to read my other posts in my blog.

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