Part 1: Why should you learn Android development or programming in general?
This post is the first part of the course,
Hi,
If you are wondering why you should learn to program, let me give you some insights from my personal experience. Programming is one of the inexpensive ways you can learn a skill and, in turn, earn your bread and butter. I learned to code using my mediocre HP laptop and modest internet connection seven years back. Even back then, good samaritans created and maintained good quality tutorials for absolutely free. Times have changed now. Our internet speed has improved significantly. And today, many tech giants and universities are providing curated courses for kick-starting a career in programming. They are targeting not just youngsters or school students. The objective is to find the best talents out there without considering their educational background, age, gender, or location. If you are good at what you do, then companies will hire you. Everybody loves a quality developer.
Secondly, the gratification of creating something from scratch, seeing someone using it, and enjoying it is indescribable. Imagine you have built or were a part of an application that simplified the process of the patients connecting with the doctors or hospitals. A little self-promo here, I currently work at a health tech startup ( BestDoc ) that does this.
Thirdly, are you bored of your current career (Not programming :p)? Then, most probably, you will be looking for a career change. Why don’t you give a chance to programming before looking elsewhere? I can assure you one thing. You will not be bored if you are curious. Because tech is moving at an unbelievable pace, and it’s so much fun catching up with it.
Lastly, it doesn’t really matter whichever programming language or framework you are learning. Be it android, ios, flutter, python, kotlin, java, C, dot net, js, react, or any other. Everything has its own market and job opportunities. Start learning and see for yourself if you have got the mindset and passion for it. Don’t be scared. Most of the talented developers across the world are not computer science grads or even went to college in that case. Imposter syndrome was and always will be there to put you down. Carry on with it. It is natural.
A few words about Android Development
If you have made your mind about starting with Android Development, then God helps you ( I’m just kidding :p ). As of now ( 2021 ), there are three billion active android devices across the world. I’m not going to give you a pretense that it means three billion opportunities are waiting for you. But, the Android job market is having its best time now, and companies are searching for excellent developers. I think it’s the right time for anyone to start learning Android development and have fun.
PS: A word of advice. Learn first and master it. Then, be worried about the salary packages. Not the other way around.
I’m also listing down tutorials or courses which I found amazing and helpful for learning. If you don’t want to follow my course, that is more than fine as well. I’m adding details of Android courses as well :p. Remember, the purpose of this post is to inspire you to start coding.
- Code org: I started learning from this site. The contents are curated for school kids or young children. But, you can learn the building blocks of programming from here. It’s nice.
https://code.org/ - cs50: One of the best courses on Introduction to computer science that is available on the internet. Developed by Harvard University and lead by David J. Malan ( of course, the best teacher on the internet )
https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-computer-science-harvardx-cs50x - FreeCodeCamp: A nonprofit organization where you can learn about responsive web designing to machine learning for free.
https://www.freecodecamp.org/ - CodeCademy: They concentrate more on front-end development.
https://www.codecademy.com/learn/paths/web-development - Philipp Lackner, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKNTZMRHPLXfqlbdOI7mCkg Coding in flow,
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_Fh8kvtkVPkeihBs42jGcA
Coding with mitch,
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoNZZLhPuuRteu02rh7bzsw
Wiseass, https://www.youtube.com/user/gosuddr93. They are the masters of Android Development, from which I took some inspiration.
Watch this video before you start. It might give you some much-needed motivation.
I hope you must have gotten some inspiration to start your coding journey after reading this. From the next chapter onwards, we will start looking deep into Android development. In the next chapter, we will have a sneak peek at Kotlin. Stay safe and have fun coding. Please make sure you are following me on LinkedIn, Medium, Github, or Twitter.
The article was originally posted at clintpauldev.com
