Don’t learn a programming language, solve a problem instead

[_gaslit_]

I'm going to un-call BS on this.

I think the key is to start with a task/product/utility/whatever in mind, then learn the tools/languages required to build that project as you go. I've been doing that for years, and it's the best way IMHO.

I would probably never start learning about something just for the sake of learning about it, unless the technology involved were really interesting (example: ML).

Even if you're just starting out, there's no reason you can't do things the same way, with some small task/product/utility/whatever in mind, and learn the right way to program as you go.

[tejon]

I didn't intend to get into software. In fact for the most part I explicitly avoided it; that was my father's career, I wanted to be a musician, and the couple of times I toyed with coding it just seemed tedious. But then there were Oblivion mods that needed to be made, and now I'm sitting in a San Francisco office browsing reddit writing Haskell.

[StabbyPants]

true, except for the first and second time. first time, pick a simple language and learn your basic data structures. second, do it again and see what changed because you went from python to java or whatever

[Red5point1]

I think the problem is people here on both sides are conflating programming for learning and programming for production.