How did you learn to code?

When I was learning HTML i did it all from reading on the net and practise using notepad and testing using IE.
Ever since then, every code I have looked at I either just tried to work things out myself and by looking at how others did it from their code, then I was able to work out how to do most things for myself.
I think practising something yourself is the best way to do it rather than reading, I know it helps me a lot more than just reading from a book or page on the net.

I learned HTML when I was 9 to current (17) and PHP been doing it for a couple years now, just play around with it and look at some tutorials for harder things, still learning.

Most of what I know I learned from books published by O'Reilly. They usually write very well. I never much liked the dummies series though.

I started learning Perl in 1997 from EveryAuction.com then in 2001 I read a PHP book over the weekend and well, PHP is very easy with a Perl background. I now perfer PHP over Perl any day.

I cut my teeth on HTML from ole faithful (HTMLGoodies), about 30 months ago. After getting the basics embedded in the ole nogan, I just started viewing the source on sites and loading it in DW to see how bad/quickly I could break the page and put it back together.

Since then, I've become interested in the linux movement also, but still use windows for apps such as DW and PS.

I've not really delved into any real programming languages yet, other than php include function. I really need to move on now though and start with perl or python, before going full on into php.

As a fluent HTML coder and aspiring designer, it isn't really a necessity to know other languages, but it sure is a huge benefit if you do!

Personally, I got a very very late start with computers. Never owned one until I was 31 but have been making up for lost time every since then... sometimes so much I just wanna the daurn thing.

:cheers:

Weclome aboard Southernman

I think what Southernman is trying to say is once he picked up the basics, he learned from example. Which is, I think, the best way to learn most languages

Use to design hardware and prog in machine code and it just sort of went from there, anyone remember the 8080 CPU

Just a sort of natural progression I s'pose.

I jsut read through the help a little to get to grips with the layout, then read through examples and other peoples code and try to imagine what each line does. Then experiment with it and add new features, then eventually I learn the language fully.

I stated with HTML. Just look at the code for a built website and stated changing things around seeing what it did.

I started with BASIC on my old Atari ST. Those were the good days