Do you want to code? If you do, you can harness great power. By learning to code, you can get a “tech” job, make a calculator, discover the inner workings of your favorite website, release the next wildly popular video game, and much more. Coding is an excellent skill to master.
First let’s ask: why code anyway? It’s a very important skill to have these days. Coding skills let you make computers do what you want. With the tech industry growing, this mastering of the computer is growing more and more important. In the many worldwide tech companies, coders work together to see what they can make next to challenge each other. Coding has already helped make many innovations possible--the computer itself, for example, and the smartphone, the Internet, certain systems inside automobiles, gaming consoles, robots, tablets, et cetera, et cetera. Coding is also a crucial key to whatever innovations we’ll end up making in the next century or so.
But where do coders get started? There are many programs that can be installed onto your computer. Scratch, C++, and Python programs are easy programs to get started with. There are also many interesting websites to use, such as Codecademy.com, MIT’s Scratch.mit.edu, and course-taking websites such as Udemy.com and Coursera.com. Now you just have to choose which language to use. Scratch is perhaps the simplest coding language, with drag-and-drop. You can also hack games simply: Java programming language and the development platform Eclipse can be used together to make mods for popular computer games such as Minecraft. Kodu console games let you modify the game itself without a programming language. Languages like Alice and platforms like Unity can be used to make 3D games that are able to go on an Xbox console.
If you have already learned coding, there are ways to share your coding skills with others. Programming classes in schools, including iCademy, are growing more and more common. Classes in iCademy include C++, Java, and VB Net. There are programming clubs in certain areas in which coders congregate to learn some of the necessities of programs and showing the programs they made. There is also a yearly Hour of Code on Code.org, this year in December between the 7th and the 13th.
If you want to become a coder, there are many things to consider making and doing. With the skill of coding, you can have the power to make just about anything you want on your computer, smartphone, or tablet. You can unleash many awesome games and apps with just several lines of code. If you’ve started coding already, there’s just one question to ask: what to code now?
