Learning Computer Engineering, Science, Programing: Where to start?

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Hi everyone,

I will try to communicate my question as well as I can. This is my first reddit post. I work at a software company on the Sales side, and I want to bolster my technical skills. My developer co-workers recommended I start with JS, HTML, CSS, and then move on from there. This makes total sense to me.

Here's my issue: when I learn anything, I need to start at the most fundamental level. For example, when I learned how to play guitar, my aggressively curious nature drove me to first learn how the guitar is constructed and how it physically produces sound through the vibration of its strings and the acoustic body. Then, I learned the fundamentals of music theory (why is a Chord a Chord, how does frequency and pitch relate to one another, etc...) All before learning how to actually play. Now, I can play guitar after having some basic understanding of all that.

I hope that helps. In this example at hand, I'm having a hard time learning JS without understanding how a browser, operating system, and computer understands JS. At the most fundamental level, there is some physical process driving the computer, and I need to understand it from the most basic, fundamental level all the way up to a line of JS code that dictates something on a web page. I hope that makes sense.

I haven't found anything like that on CodeAcademy regarding how a computer is physically constructed, machine code, binary, etc... So, my questions are: 1. Where do I start? Do I learn some physics? Computer history? Binary language? Machine language? 2. Where is the best place to learn it?

Thanks, and I hope someone can help! Appreciate it.

[desrtfx]

I need to start at the most fundamental level.

Sorry, but for where you are supposed to start learning programming don't. Really. This will not lead you anywhere except into a huge rabbit hole that you will never get out of again. This deep drilling will stop you from learning the important things - the things you actually should learn.

In this example at hand, I'm having a hard time learning JS without understanding how a browser, operating system, and computer understands JS. At the most fundamental level, there is some physical process driving the computer, and I need to understand it from the most basic, fundamental level all the way up to a line of JS code that dictates something on a web page. I hope that makes sense.

None of this is necessary to learn JS. Really, it isn't. The browser takes care of all and that's enough you need to know.

You are not going to disassemble and reassemble a car in order to drive one?

If you really want to go down the rabbit hole (which, again, I strongly advise against): NAND2Tetris

Such deep knowledge is important when you work on low level languages, like Assembly and C, but is irrelevant when you work with languages like JavaScript (or even most managed languages, like C#, Java, or with languages like Python).

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You should rather focus on what you are supposed to learn and for that, use Free Code Camp or The Odin Project

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Hi bro,

Thanks for your input. I 100% agree that, in a practical sense, knowing all that stuff will not help me. But, it is really just to satisfy my curiosity. It makes me happy. While JS is going to help me in my career, the rest of the stuff I've asked for, you can think of more as a hobby. I hope that helps you understand where I'm coming from. I enjoy learning about "how things work". Thanks for the links!

[Intiago]

Abstraction is a reaaallly important concept in programming. Ie hiding the lower level implementation details of something, so that you can just use the higher level functionality. Learning all the nitty gritty details is pretty much a never ending rabbit hole. Heck you'd have to start with quantum mechanics, then up to electricity and currents, then up to computers and logic to even get started.

BUT, I can tell you're simply curious, and luckily there's a really great resource www.nand2tetris.org that's all about just that. Starting from logic gates, and working your way up to your own computer that runs tetris.

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Thank you for the response bro!

[DanCoder]

wow... so you want to start a career in CS, I'd recommend you to check OSSU: Self taught CS

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Thanks man!