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.
This is what I’ve found too. Tutorials help to learn tools and some basic techniques, but actual learning requires doing. That’s easy if you have something you want to do, but incredibly difficult if you don’t.
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.
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.
List out some ideas you’re thinking of. While it may not be obvious to you, someone who is seasoned (me or someone else) might notice at least a general theme or idea to point you in the right direction for where you should go and what you should learn, regardless of if the projects are reasonable.
Note - Most projects take teams to realize, so if your ideas are too large, they might not generally be feasible alone.
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.
Feel free to comment some ideas
Julia, Clojure and Go
From these 3 I think Go is the most straightforward and similar to most industry standard languages.
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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.
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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:
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Find a computer problem that you want to solve and focus on technologies that will help you solve it. Traditionally python is considered an excellent learning language due to the wide library support and adherence to most common programming styles - is there any romanticized pet project you’ve got on your brain?
It is never too late to learn something like this. Especially now when there are so many resources that can help you to learn it. It is another story if you want to find a job as a programmer, because I think the majority of companies prefer to hire younger talents.
Python is an excellent choice for a beginner.
Good luck and keep going!
ChatGPT is great at tutoring python. Go as well. Not sure on the others.
I don’t know Julia, but Clojure and Go use two different programming paradigms (functional vs imperative). They are two different ways to think about programming. Which one you pick depends on what you feel comfortable with.
What I’d recommend is to find a free, online course or tutorial for the languages you’d like to learn and just give a go!
- https://exercism.org/ has free courses for many languages contributed by volunteers. quality can vary per language
- https://www.codecademy.com/catalog proprietary but has a free Go course of a few hours to get your feet wet
Otherwise, Python is quite the easy language to learn first. It’s nearly as if someone wrote pseudo code on a napkin and said “this should be able to run on my PC”.
Its only too late if its for a career change since you really need to be safe about income and retirement (notto mentions age discrimination). Still could help you in your day job to automate tasks. If you like math puzzles then coding them is a nice hobby too! Learning is always worth it in my opinion.
Its never too late to start learning something! I am sure you are well aware of your learning rate and how it changes as you get older but that doesn’t mean you cannot learn at all.
As a beginner, often Python is recommended as a simpler language to pick up and start learning.
Do you have a goal in mind with what you want to learn? Learning to write code in general is fine, but if you have an idea in mind that you want to program, different languages maybe a better starting point. For example if you want to build a web app browser based, id suggest learning front end tools like javascript. Whereas if its a desktop app you want to build, python would work well.
Or maybe you want to just learn programming as a concept without any specific goals in mind beyond how stuff works?
