I'm glad to see you again.

Even though I cannot actually see you, which is a shame.

I wish I could.

Anyway, let's move on before this gets weird.

Well done.

So I personally love this format of video because I feel like it can be very helpful.

I mean, we all have these things that we wish we could go back in time and change do differently.

And since we cannot change our own past, these videos might be a way to kind of help change someone else's future or at least help them avoid the same mistakes that we made.

So here are six things I wish I knew when I started programming.

It's not too late to learn to code.

This is something that I feel like.

It's the most common misconception when it comes to programming.

And I had this misconception as well, and that is that you need to start it when you're like five years old.

In order to become a programmer, or you need to be like a gamer or super into computers.

None of the above are true, and none of the above fit the description of me I play video games, maybe once every five months.

And my group of friends, I would have been described as like the grandpa when it comes to understanding how to do things with the computer.

So I really wish I would have known that it really isn't that difficult.

It's not magic, and you can learn it, learn the basics.

This one would have saved me so much time if I would have known it.

The thing is that I got started trying to build a nap from, like, zero knowledge of how any of this worked.

I had no clue what programming waas, and at that point I would have thought that programming was like riding ones and zeros, so I literally had no clue.

So getting started in that way meant that I was able to build some things.

But it was with, like, immense amount of effort, and I wish that someone would have just told me that if you just learn some basics of opiates or into programming, then you're probably going to be able to cut your time spent on this in half.

I mean, I feel like I wouldn't have listened, but if I would have listened.

It would have been a tremendous help.

And we're only talking about spending one or two hours per day for maybe two weeks trying to lend like the very basics.

And if you do that, then you'll become an infinitely more capable programmer.

And for most of stuff that I build on this channel, I still rely pretty much entirely on this very basic programming knowledge and allowed a link in the description of this video to a good article that I found on the basics of programming.

And I'll also add a link Thio, my favorite book for learning the fundamentals of programming.

It doesn't matter what language you choose.

Just pick one.

All right, so this one is a bit funny.

This is because I spent so much time trying to figure out which language to juice and trying to look at which language would be least likely to die or become like obsolete in a few years.

And what's funny about it is I now realize that it would not have mattered which one I picked because they're all so similar that you won't really have any trouble switching to another language in case that your language were thio like die out completely.

And also very few languages, if any, actually die out completely, especially if you look at the big ones.

And even if you were to be super unlucky and your programming language was to die out and no new programs are written in it, they'll still be a ton of old programs that still need maintenance and updates that are written in your favorite language.

So it really doesn't matter which one you pick as long as you're excited about the language and as long as you have, like project ideas and things you're excited to work on and in case you're having, like decision excited about which language should choose, I thought I'd just add my recommendations so that you have that, at least so I would recommend you like job because it's really easy to learn.

And it's also easy to transfer knowledge from Java to other languages.

And there's also tons of resources available to learn from.

Don't buy that.

You, Timmy course, you're better off learning it for free.

Okay, I have nothing against you, to me or any other sites for learning.

They're probably great, but something that I wish I would have known before I bought a you Timmy course on I West Development is that I would have needed a lot more basic programming knowledge to actually utilize that course.

Feli and the course that I bought was a course that, in my opinion, was trying to do too much.

It was trying to take you from, like, zero programming knowledge to a full blown Iowa sap.

That was like integrating an A P I and using source control with gets hub.

And basically they went over the basics way too quickly.

So I was not able to follow along, and that just ended up leaving me feeling like the task of learning this was just too difficult.

There are probably better courses on you to me, and maybe this was great, too.

And I'm just a bit slow.

Who knows?

Either way, I believe that most people are probably going to be better off just learning on their own and just googling their way to the answers.

All the questions that come up and the second benefit of learning that way is that you're actually practicing being a programmer because that's mostly what programmers do.

They run into problems they're unable to solve, and then they google their way to the answer's learn.

Get its notice.

Difficult, as you think, get to something that I know scares a lot of people and get scared.

Me, too.

The terminal also scared me, and I believe the reason for this is that we're so unfamiliar with this way of like interacting with the computer.

However, that's not strange, and it might feel daunting and uncomfortable, but it really doesn't take too long until you understand it to the point of actually being able to use it.

It's just about spending time in this environment, so I'd recommend spending some time in here every day, so in the terminal for Mac or console for Windows and just learned to navigate.

Learn to create new files and your folders and just get familiar with the environment and then learn gets so get is a source control system that's widely used by software developers, and basically what it allows you to do is save your local code to a daughter base, which in my case, is get up.

Come on.

And that means that if I loose the coat that I have on my computer.

It will be stored on get up dot com, and I could get it back and continue working from the last point where I saved and get us a lot more than this.

But for now, that's not really important.

Take breaks.

This is something I still struggle with, but it's super important.

And currently I try not to sit and code for more than three hours without a break, and that break will be to eat and then maybe either go for a walk or go to the gym.

So why is it so important?

Well, the reason that it's so important.

It's also kind of the reason why it's so difficult to actually do so.

Basically, when you take a break, you clear your head, which means it will be more able to solve the problems that you'll run into when you're coding, and usually when you need to take a break, you're stuck in a problem that you feel like you're just about the soul, and so you kind of postpone the break for just another 10 minutes and then all of a sudden the time just stops running away from you.

And the problem that you thought you were going to solve in the next 10 minutes is taking in four hours and you still haven't solved it.

At least that's the reason why it's so difficult for me to take that break because I constantly feel like I'm just 10 minutes away from solving that problem.

And you can always postpone a break for just 10 minutes, right?

10 minutes is like nothing, and I was feel like if I just saw this problem, then I'll be happy and I can go on my break.

And if I don't sell the problem, then I won't be able to relax.

So the brake won't matter anyway.

But that's the point when you actually need to take the break so ensure take more breaks, set a timer and when the timer goes off, no matter where you are, where you're at or how close you are to solving the problem, put your hands in the air, step away from the via computer and move away.

Take a break, do something else.

All right.

I hope I gave you some new ideas on some things that maybe haven't thought of before Or maybe I was able to cement some things that you've heard many times before.

Either way, I hope you enjoyed it.

And I hope I'll see you.