Start learning at 50
I’ve always wanted to learn programming. I’ve read a blog post saying that at this age it was to late . Then I read a post here in saying the opposite. I’ve found a site that was learn x in y minutes where it has a bunch of languages there. After reading them, the languages that caught my attention were Julia, Clojure and Go. Are any of these good for a beginner or should I start with something else? I know what are variables, can spot an if/else statement but that’s about it. What are some good resources for someone like me who likes to learn by doing things?
I’m 48. Last year, during a period of unemployment, I decided that to kill time I wanted to create a 3D aircraft model for my flight simulator (X-Plane). I had dabbled in Blender in the past, but nothing too in depth. So I sat down and just did it.
Some of the features I wanted to implement required plugins that had to made with Lua (a programming language) so again…I just did it.
Age and learning have nothing to do with each other. Regardless of the topic. I feel like maybe the only valid reason that such ideas took hold is because the older we get, the less time we have to focus on learning new things, and so it can seem as though we can’t learn, when in reality we just don’t have the time to. That’s certainly what I found to be the case personally. It wasn’t until I had literally nothing else to do that I could focus on really learning 3D Modelling and basic programming.
The solution to that, that I found, was to be project based. I wouldn’t have made as much progress if I didn’t specifically have some thing I wanted to make, whether that’s an app, a 3D model, or whatever.
Python is suitable for beginner and is also easy to write code in different fields. I’m a developer, half of my time is writing code to get things done, and the other half is learning more development techniques, which I’ve been learning for over twenty years.
Lots of great advice here. NEVER too old to learn.
Check this out, if you’re interested. Excellent free course to help you learn how to learn:
Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects
Julia, Clojure and Go
From these 3 I think Go is the most straightforward and similar to most industry standard languages.
What are you looking to actually do with your programming skills? That will heavily influence which languages to recommend you learn. Do you want to make websites? build games? do AI stuff? Create enterprise-level software? something else?
This is always the question that trips me up.
I’m 5 years younger than OP. I work in a municipal transportation power system job (we maintain and control the grid for trains, trolleys, etc.). I’m sure I’m wasting all sorts of effort in my professional life. I have time. I got a lot out of learning Power Automate. However, if you ask me to pick one specific project, I get overwhelmed because I don’t know what’s reasonable.
I don’t know enough to know if my ideas are achievable, or if I’d just be bashing my head against the wall. I don’t know if they’re laughably simple tasks, multimillion-dollar propositions, or Goldilocks ideas that would be perfect to learn a coding language.
I don’t know enough to know if my ideas are achievable, or if I’d just be bashing my head against the wall.
Achievable is subjective, and even if you progress a ways and learn something that makes you realize that that particular project can’t be achieved how you envisioned it, you still have the knowledge to either a) figure out new ways to achieve the same effect, or b) take to a new project.
Knowledge builds on knowledge builds on knowledge. If factor in not starting a project is not knowing enough to know if it’s achievable or not, you’ll never actually get the necessary knowledge to figure that out. You can’t know how to do something until you try to do it…fundamentally.
