5 tips for learning a new programming language in 2022

With the power of open source, programming can be accessible to anyone. Find a project you want to work on, and let that be your first entry to programming.
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Ray Smith

Anyone can get started in programming. We all started somewhere, and you don't need to have a computer science background to learn to code. That's the power of Linux and open source—anyone can learn a bit of coding.

If you want to learn a new programming language, we have several great articles to get you started. Below are a few of our most popular articles to help you.

Comparing programming languages

Most programming languages share certain similarities. Once you know how to do a thing in one programming language, learning the next programming language is mostly a matter of figuring out its syntax and structure.

How different programming languages do the same thing

A great way to learn a new programming language is to write a simple test program, such as a game, to explore how the programming language works. One sample program I often write is a simple "guess the number" game, where the computer picks a number between one and 100 and asks me to guess it. Earlier this year, we ran a series of articles exploring how to write the number-guessing game in several programming languages. Learn how these different programming languages implement the major steps in the "guess the number" game.

How different programming languages read and write data

Alan's article compares how different programming languages read and write data in the same spirit. Whether that data comes from a configuration file or a file a user creates, processing data on a storage device is common for coders. Alan's comparison article provides insight into different approaches taken by several popular programming languages such as C, Java, Groovy, and others.

Learning a new programming language

Whether you want to pick up a new programming language or want to explore an existing one, check out the great articles below about learning programming.

How to write 'Hello World' in WebAssembly

WebAssembly is a bytecode format that virtually every browser can compile to its host system's machine code. Alongside JavaScript and WebGL, WebAssembly fulfills the demand for porting applications for platform-independent use in the web browser. Stephan explains how to create the classic Hello World program in WASM-text.

Cross-compiling made easy with Golang

Gaurav wrote about learning Go's cross-compilation support by converting a script into a Go program. You can write your program once and compile it for another environment with cross-compilation.

Why I use the D programming language for scripting

The D programming language is often thought of as a system programming language due to its static typing and metaprogramming capabilities. However, it's also a very productive scripting language. Lawrence wrote about how to leverage the D programming language for common scripting.

With the power of open source, programming can be accessible to anyone. Find a project you want to work on, and let that be your first entry to programming.

What to read next
photo of Jim Hall
Jim Hall is an open source software advocate and developer, best known for usability testing in GNOME and as the founder + project coordinator of FreeDOS.

2 Comments

What I like to do is to find some small script or program that does something of interest to me, then try modifying various aspects of it. You also learn a lot from breaking a script, then repairing it.

That last line about finding a project works for me. I learned "C" in the 1970's by porting the Crowther/Woods "Adventure" to BDS C. I learned C++ (Borland) and Windows GUI coding writing my IBM 1410 cycle level simulator. I learned C# by using to write my IBM SMS Automated Logic Diagram capture application / VHDL generator. Finally, I had to learn some Python (yrrch) to debug some issues in the weewx weather software I use.

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