Can You Use Git Without GitHub?
Can you use Git without GitHub? The short answer is yes, you can. Git is a tool for revision control. GitHub is an online service that allows you to store, manage, and share Git repositories in the cloud. You can use Git with online services other than GitHub, with an in-house server, or on your local computer without any server at all. First, let’s look at what Git is. Then, let’s see what GitHub and other Git-hosting services have to offer. What Is Git? Git is a revision control tool. It’s most often associated with software development, but you can use it to track changes in any file. For example,…
How Long Does It Take to Learn Python?
How long does it take to learn Python? Well, how long is a piece of string? How much peanut butter is too much? Is this glass half empty or half full? None of these questions has one correct answer. The answer to each depends on your opinion and your goals. And how long it takes you to learn Python depends on what you want to create with the language. So, while I can’t tell you how long it will take to learn Python, I can give you deeper insight into the language and how it will suit your needs. What Do You Need to Learn Python? Python is a general-purpose…
7 Tips for Beginner Programmers
You’re just starting out as a programmer, so you’re looking for some tips on how to get started. Maybe you’ve landed your first job. Or you’ve just finished school. Perhaps you’ve done what many of us before you (including me) did and simply said “I’m a programmer!” and got to work. Either way, congratulations! Here are a few tips for beginner programmers that will help get you on your way to a new career. There’s No Substitute for Getting Your Hands Dirty You can read hundreds of books. You can watch thousands of hours of YouTube. But nothing makes you a better programmer than, well, programming. Stop preparing and start…
Lessons From a Veteran: Dawid Ziolkowski on Trusting and Taking the Plunge
This post is part of a series interviewing veteran developers, asking them questions about their journey to tech mastery and sharing the advice they have for those getting started. Today we’re talking to Dawid Ziolkowski. Dawid has 10 years of experience. At the beginning, he worked as a network/system engineer, did DevOps in between, and recently became a cloud-native engineer. He’s worked for an IT outsourcing company, a research institute, telco, a hosting company, and a consultancy company, so he’s gathered a lot of knowledge from different perspectives. Nowadays, he’s helping companies move to cloud and/or redesign their infrastructure for a more cloud-native approach. If you’re considering a career switch…
What Is a Programming Framework?
One of the reasons that learning to program might feel like an overwhelming task is the sheer number of new words, terms, and expressions you come across. Today, we’re here to make your life easier by explaining one such term: programming frameworks. Specifically, we’re going to tell you everything you need to know in response to the question “what is a programming framework?” You can think of a programming framework as a tool—or a set of tools—you use to make your life easier when performing common programming tasks. I know that might sound a little vague, but it’s hard to offer a more complete definition without going deeper into the…
Lessons From a Veteran: Turning a Hobby Into a Fulfilling Career
This post is part of a series interviewing veteran developers, asking them questions about their journey to tech mastery and sharing the advice they have for those getting started. Today we’re talking to Mauro Chojrin. Mauro helps PHP developers hone their craft through his trainings, books, workshops, and other tools. He’s been in the IT industry since 1997 and has held roles such as developer, architect, and leader of technical teams. Mauro also likes to write and vlog. Mauro is going to tell us about how he got his start in programming, and you may or may not recognize some of the throwback systems he references. While the technology may…
Best Programming Books for Beginners
What are the best programming books for beginners? This is a broad question. Programmers need a wide variety of skills, and the field you want to work in can have a significant impact on which ones you need. There isn’t one book, or even a list of books, that will teach you everything you need. Some skills can come from books, and some will only come from on-the-job training. You need books that will improve your knowledge and skills regardless of what type of programming you’re interested in. I’ve put together a list of seven books that will do that for you! These books teach you basic skills that any…
Lessons From a Veteran: Back to School With Michael de Ridder’s Drunk Metaphors
This post is part of a series interviewing veteran developers, asking them questions about their journey to tech mastery and sharing the advice they have for those getting started. Everyone has a different path in life, and that’s OK! Today we’re talking to Michael de Ridder, who tells us about how getting into programming was accidental, not intentional. And that’s OK, too. Michael has worked in software development, data visualization, data science, research, consulting, and business analysis across health care, telecommunications, radio and finance. He enjoys the challenge of combining and utilizing the relationships between different domains and technology. A big fan of travel, Michael is a proponent for the…
Lessons From a Veteran: Gabriel Aizcorbe on Unexpected Lessons
This post is part of a series interviewing veteran developers, asking them questions about their journey to tech mastery and sharing the advice they have for those getting started. Today we cover a lot of topics, from whether you should go into programming or IT to being specific about what you set out to learn to the lessons you’ll never learn until you start working. And we’re learning about all of these things from Gabriel Aizcorbe. Gabriel got into IT when he received his first 8088 at 14 years old. From then on, his whole life was about computers, programming languages, and learning more. As a project manager with PMP…
What Languages Should Every Programmer Know?
It’s easy to get lost in the sea of programming languages. On top of that, there are some languages (I’m looking at you, JavaScript) that have a vast ecosystem of frameworks. Wikipedia has an exhaustive list of programming languages with several for each letter of the alphabet. I won’t count them, but there are at least 260 at a glance. There’s no way you can learn all of them. So, what languages should every programmer know? Where to Start? If you want to know where to start, you can take a few approaches. Of course, this depends on what you want to do in your programming career. If you want…
