What a novice IT specialist needs to know. Learning to program from scratch - a step-by-step guide for beginners. Ten steps from a teapot to a professional programmer

You should start your path to a career as a programmer by answering the question, do you need programming at all? This question does not apply to those who are studying or have studied in a specialty close to programming. If you were better at math at school than the humanities, if you like to spend a lot of time on the computer, if you want to learn something new, then programming is for you.

Where to begin

There are several options for the development of events, as a result of which a person becomes a programmer. The first is parents-programmers who taught their children everything. These children don't even need to go to university. The second option is the fashionable profession of a programmer. After school, we had to choose where to go to study, and we chose the fashionable field of IT, which we seemed to like. And the last option is a hobby that has grown into work.

If none of the above happened to you, then you have a choice of four options:

Self-education. This option can be used either independently or in combination with other methods. The Internet is full of applications that help you learn various programming languages and technologies. But this is the most difficult path for beginners.
University. If you finish school and want to be a programmer, then go to university. If not for knowledge, then for crust. It can serve as a bonus when applying for a job. Although you will also gain some knowledge. But don't forget to educate yourself. Choosing a university should be approached very responsibly. Carefully study the training programs and choose the best technical universities.
Mentor. It will be very good if you find a person who agrees to help you and point you in the right direction. He will suggest suitable books and resources, check your code, and give useful advice. By the way, we have already written about where you can find a mentor. You can look for a mentor among familiar programmers, at IT parties and conferences, on online forums, and so on.
Specialized practical courses. Try looking for courses in your city that will teach you some programming language or technology. I was pleasantly surprised by the number of such courses in Kyiv, including free ones and with subsequent employment.

Which language, technology and direction to choose

When you become a programmer, after a year or two you will be free to choose any language you like. But when choosing a first programming language, a beginner should consider the following criteria:

Availability of vacancies on the market. The ultimate goal of this path is to find a job as a programmer. And this will be difficult to do if no one is looking for developers in your programming language on the job market. Check job sites, see who is most sought after, write down a dozen languages. And move on to the next criterion.
Low entry level. If you have to spend a long time learning a language, it may discourage you from programming at all. Read about the languages you selected above. Review the literature you will need to read to learn these languages. And choose those that are described as easy, or that seemed easy to you. Such languages may be PHP, Ruby, Python.
The thrill of the process. If you don't enjoy writing code in your chosen language, you won't enjoy the process, your work, or your life. Do you need it? Make the right choices.

You will also have to decide on the direction of programming. Mobile, desktop, games, web, low-level programming and so on. The most popular and relatively easy industries are development for web, mobile and desktop clients. One language may be suitable for each direction and not another at all. That is, when choosing a programming language, it is also worth starting from this factor.

Either way, learn web technologies. This is a markup language, styles and that will make your page dynamic. The next step is to learn a server-side language (Python, PHP, Ruby and others) and web frameworks suitable for it. Study the databases: almost every programmer vacancy mentions this.

How to get initial experience

Without experience you won't get a job. Without work you won't get experience. A vicious circle of real life. But it’s okay, we’ll get out of it.

First, don't wait until you've read every book on your chosen programming language. Start writing your first lines of code after the second chapter of the book. Complete all the tasks from the books, retype the examples, understand them. Complicate the examples and tasks from books with your own ideas. Create your own tasks for the material you have covered. Solve these problems.

Secondly, you need to find your first projects. This is probably the most difficult option, but it works. You will have to look for orders yourself, fulfill them, and bother with payment. For a beginner, this is extremely difficult, but then all other options will seem like a piece of cake. Completed projects can be recorded as experience and shown to your future employer. Real projects are a big plus on your resume.

If you know English, it is better to register on English-language exchanges. The market is bigger there. If you don't know English, learn it. In the meantime, Russian-language freelance exchanges are available to you. Look for small projects that are at or just above your skill level. Apply for a couple dozen of these jobs. And get ready to receive a sea of refusals. But if one or two applications work out, you'll have a chance to gain real experience.

Another good option for getting real experience is open source. Such projects always need new people, even beginners. You can search for bugs in the project or look in the bug tracker and suggest methods for solving them. You can easily find such projects on GitHub or . Feel free to ask questions there.

The fourth option for gaining experience is helping fellow programmers. Ask them to pass on small, simple tasks to you. If something doesn't work out, you will always have someone to turn to. And at the same time you will participate in a real project.

The last way is your own projects, various hackathons or working in a coworking space. It’s difficult to start your own projects on your own; it’s better to look for acquaintances or friends.

Why choose Python

Let's talk a little more about choosing your first programming language. The first language should be simple and popular in the market. Such a language is Python. I highly recommend choosing it as your first programming language.

The Python program code is readable. You don't even need to be a programmer to get a basic understanding of what's going on in a program. Due to Python's uncomplicated syntax, it will take you less time to write a program than, for example, in Java. A huge database of libraries that will save you a lot of effort, nerves and time. Python is a high-level language. This means you don’t have to think too much about memory cells and what to put there. Python is a general purpose language. And it's so simple that even children can learn it.

In fairness, it is worth mentioning other programming languages. Java could be a good choice for a beginner. This language is more popular than Python, but also a little more complex. But the development tools are much better developed. One has only to compare Eclipse and IDLE. After Java, it will be easier for you to move on to working with low-level programming languages.

PHP- another very popular language. And I think it's even simpler than Python. It is very easy to find a mentor or a solution to a problem on the forum. This is because there are a huge number of PHP programmers of different levels in the world. There is no normal import in PHP; there are many options for solving the same problem. And this complicates learning. And PHP is designed exclusively for the web.

Languages C And C# very difficult for a beginner. Ruby- a good choice as a second language, but not a first. JavaScript- a very simple language, but it won’t teach you anything good. But the task of the first programming language is still to teach you something correct, to set some kind of logic.

Is English important?

Important! Do not know? Teach. Do you know? Improve. Learn to read, write, listen and speak English. Focus on technical literature. Listen to English-language podcasts. Read English-language programming textbooks.

What you need to know besides the programming language

Of course, besides the programming language and English, you need to know something else. But what depends on the direction you choose. A web programmer must know HTML, CSS, JavaScript. A desktop programmer teaches operating system APIs and various frameworks. A mobile application developer learns Android, iOS or Windows Phone frameworks.

Everyone needs to learn algorithms. Try taking a course on Coursera or finding a book on algorithms that suits you. In addition, you need to know one of the databases, programming patterns, and data structures. It's also worth checking out code repositories. At least with one. Knowledge of version control systems is required. Choose Git, it's the most popular. You need to know the tools you're working with, the operating system, and the development environment. And the main skill of a programmer is to be able to Google. You won't live without this.

Last steps

You need to prepare a resume. Not just a resume, but a . You shouldn’t write there, but you also don’t need to remain silent about your skills. Once you are invited to an interview, you must prepare for it. Go through the material that is listed on your resume. You must be confident in your knowledge. Look through the projects you've worked on, think about the technologies you've used. And forward - to a bright future with a new profession as a programmer.

Do you know what a novice IT specialist needs to know? Please review each recommendation carefully. Reflect, be outraged, write down the arguments for and against. It doesn’t matter what specific IT specialty you have. Review everything and then step by step and start capturing these checkpoints.

1. The world benefits from idiots

This is an indisputable fact. In a global socio-economic sense, most people exist for the sake of money circulation. How else to explain the presence of mortgages, the prosperity of banks, the sale of pseudo-knowledge, the keys to the truth and the entertainment that fills the void. Educate yourself. Read, think, comprehend, question.

2 percent of people think, 3 percent think what they think, and 95 percent of people would rather die than think” (c) Bernard Shaw

2. Do not rely on education in schools and institutes

Programs have been drawn up and approved for so long that they are already hopelessly outdated when they are introduced and implemented. Do not expect that the knowledge acquired within the walls of the lecture hall will be enough for you.

People always need someone to look out for them. 95 percent of the people in the world need someone to tell them what to do and how to behave.” (c) Arnold Schwarzenegger.

3. Read as much as possible

Reduce to the maximum reading friend feeds, newspapers, watching news, do not trust the media. Read classics of world literature, scientific works, studies, textbooks. One or two books a week will be enough to keep your brain in working order, capable of thinking in abstract categories.

4. Communicate

Communication with other people is an active action with feedback. Here you need frankness and the ability to put your thoughts into words so that the interlocutor understands your thought in the most undistorted light. Words should not serve to deceive; learn not to hide your true intentions.

I believe that every person represents humanity. We differ in intelligence, health, talents. However, we are all one. We are all saints and sinners, adults and children, and no one is superior to anyone, no one is a judge of anyone.” (c) Erich Fromm.

5. Don't waste time on self-doubt.

While you are agonizing over whether to say or do something, others will do it for you, and most likely not in the best way.

If we are not respected, we are severely insulted; but deep down, no one truly respects himself” (c) Mark Twain.

6. If you don't like someone, don't communicate with that person.

And definitely don’t start a friendship or family with him.

7. Find yourself an older friend

Don't limit yourself to communicating with your peers. In the end, a person older than you can become not only a source of real experience (which you do not yet have due to your age), but also a future employer, a useful contact, a true friend.

If we could try everything again, everyone would be wise.” English proverb.

8. Look for people cooler than you

Know how to not only be surprised at their abilities: “Damn it, how does he do this?”, but actually find out how.

Do you know the hallmark of mediocrity? Resentment at another's success." Ayn Rand.

9. You will become more conservative as you age.

Therefore, right now, while you are young, do the craziest things. Then you simply won’t have the courage.

I envy the young people. The older a person gets, the more his horizons expand. And life's opportunities are becoming less and less. By the end, all that remains is one glance, one breath. At this moment, a person probably looks back at his entire life. For the first and last time." Franz Kafka.

10. Reduce costs

Seriously. If you know how not to waste material resources, you know how not to waste your spiritual ones. This is the only way you will have enough strength to realize your crazy, bold ideas.

11. Don't be a blind consumer

Instead of raising your status with things, raise it with new impressions and experiences. It's better to fly to, say, Bangkok than to buy new expensive designer jeans.

Not being greedy is already wealth, not being wasteful is income.” (c) Cicero.

12. Learn programming

Programming today is a race of software developers trying to write bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and a universe trying to create bigger and better idiots. As long as the universe wins.” (c) Rick Cook.

13. Get a six-pack on your stomach

Or just keep yourself in shape. While your hormones themselves help you, accustom yourself to sports and tone. Then it will be more difficult. An idle life is not at all an ideal of well-being.

14. Learn to cook

A person must first of all eat and drink, have a home and clothing, and only then engage in politics, science, art, religion, etc. The ability to provide for your basic needs will leave you a lot of time and energy for other priority things.

15. Learn to sleep

In youth, it seems that the body’s capabilities are inexhaustible, and that it will be possible to sleep in old age. In fact, sleep deprivation will make you a little less effective and a little more neurotic. You shouldn't live in insomnia mode.

16. Have a plan to take over the world

If you don’t set a goal for yourself, something will work out in your life, and if you set it, everything will work out.

No transport will be favorable if you don’t know where to go.” Edgar Allan Poe.

17. Choose your favorite thing

Try to spend several years doing one activity, don’t quit at the first difficulty. This is the only way to achieve mastery. When you reach the maximum, then switch.

18. Don't try to correct people.

Better look for those you don't want to correct.

PS

Article: 18 things growing specialists need to know, taken from IT Brain. Sometimes I collect cool articles.

“Cryptocurrency,” “blockchain,” and “artificial intelligence” have become words that we hear and use in our speech every day. Information technology has penetrated our lives so deeply that it is now impossible to imagine our life outside the IT world.

The IT industry is especially attractive to students who are ready for everything new and dream of building a successful career. However, most graduates, even by the end of their studies, cannot decide what exactly they would like to do in the future. But many of them know one thing for sure: they want to get into an IT company.

This is typical not only for students, but also for people who are ready to radically change their field of activity in order to try something new and increase their income. People with experience in one field are ready to leave their usual place in order to gain growth prospects and start earning more in an industry that is completely new to them.

Nowadays, to become an IT specialist, it is not necessary to have a technical education. An “IT specialist” is not only a developer with fundamental knowledge of one of the programming languages. There are other professions without which it is now difficult to imagine the global IT market.

Path 1. Programmer

This road to IT may turn out to be the most difficult and energy-consuming. In order to become a first-class programming specialist, you need a certain mindset and fundamental knowledge in the exact sciences. Students are often confident that after completing online courses, trainings, seminars, or reading several books for developers, they can easily become junior programming specialists. But, unfortunately, this is almost impossible in reality.

To become a truly sought-after developer, you will need a lot of time and desire to develop in programming. Today, senior specialists dominate the labor market; there are almost twice as many of them as junior programmers. Employers are willing to spend more money on a highly qualified specialist with 5+ years of experience than hiring a newcomer to the team, who will need to be taught everything virtually from scratch.

Path 2. Business analysis

If you are a humanist to the core, then perhaps business analysis will be the ideal chance for you to become an IT specialist.

A business analyst is a kind of intermediate link between the customer and the developer. His task is to find out the customer’s wishes, analyze and correlate them with the goals of the product, and subsequently provide them to developers in a form understandable to them.

A business analyst must be able to express his thoughts in a structured manner when writing documentation, since it is this that will serve as the fulcrum for product development.

Despite the fact that all IT analysts are most often called business analysts, they are one of the varieties of this specialty. So, there are business analysts, systems analysts and requirements analysts. Today in the labor market of Belarus, the majority of analysts are precisely requirements analysts. For a company, hiring a business analyst with a deep technical background and knowledge of any subject area is much more expensive than hiring a requirements analyst. In the picture below you can see the main differences between IT analysts.

However, no matter how attractive this IT specialty may sound, the following factors should be taken into account:

a small number of vacancies for specialists without experience - most employers require 2+ years of experience;
the need to speak English at a good level, starting from Upper-Intermediate.
deep knowledge in at least one subject area (for example, healthcare or banking).

Path 3. Tester (or QA engineer)

The path of a tester is a balance between in-demand work and a fairly easy entry into the IT field.

For a tester, technical knowledge is not mandatory, unlike a programmer. You don't have to be a "techie" to become a successful QA specialist. What sets a QA engineer apart is not technical knowledge or knowledge of a specific programming language, but curiosity, criticality and attention to detail, since often in work it will be necessary to look at familiar things with a fresh look.

When talking about gaining knowledge in the field of testing, most often people resort to one of the following methods: self-education or face-to-face courses.

Online learning and self-education are the least expensive ways to gain knowledge for those who do not know where to start in the IT field. However, these two roads can often be full of blind spots if you lack perseverance, self-discipline and self-motivation. In the graph below, you can see how low student completion rates are for online courses, according to a joint survey conducted by Harvard and MIT.

Full-time courses are a proven way to gain basic knowledge in any professional field. Testing is no exception. However, it is important to understand that the received certificate of completion of the courses is not a guarantee of employment, but rather a solid basis for further professional growth.

Also, people who are thinking about working as a tester often overestimate their level of PC user. Thus, most people believe that if they have the skills to use MS Office and use browsers and standard office programs every day, they can call themselves advanced PC users. Unfortunately, this is not enough to build a successful career in the testing profession.

A career as a tester is promising in the field of information technology. Speaking of the financial component, the salaries of experienced QA engineers tend to be similar to those of developers. QA engineers are in demand and can receive good compensation for their work. The graph below shows the salary ratio of IT specialists.

Path 4. Administrative positions

Even if none of the paths above suits you, then you still have a chance to get into IT without experience. Your specialized education can become the foundation for working in the IT field. So, if you are educated as a lawyer, then you can become a full-time lawyer in an IT company and draw up licensing agreements and NDAs with employees.

If you definitely decide to follow your humanitarian direction, then it is better to look for points of contact with the education you received. You can become, for example, an office manager or work in the marketing department. Also, if you know English perfectly, then you can simply improve your technical vocabulary and general knowledge of the IT industry to become, for example, a technical writer or copywriter.

However, it is worth understanding that salaries in such humanitarian fields are usually lower than average salaries in the IT industry. In addition, vacancies for such positions are opened much less often than for technical ones.

English opens up more roads

Most likely, you yourself understand perfectly well that without knowledge of the English language today you can hardly get anywhere. Of course, if you are not going to work exclusively with Russian-speaking customers.

In times of outsourcing, understanding foreign speech and the ability to clearly express your thoughts in English is a must-have. You can improve your knowledge, increase your active vocabulary and learn to speak with English-speaking clients without fear in express courses on. Such intensive courses contain only those rules, words and expressions that are suitable for use in correspondence, during online negotiations and in meetings with foreign colleagues.

Does age matter?

According to the report prepared by EY “IT Industry of Belarus”, we can talk about the “youth” of the IT sector. This is evidenced by the following facts:

57 percent of the staff of HTP resident companies are under 30 years of age.
A career path in the industry usually begins before the age of 25.
About 12 percent of those employed in the IT industry are students.

Of course, exceptions are possible when already experienced and qualified specialists from other business areas move to IT to radically change their activities. However, it should be recognized that the IT industry is the sphere of students, graduates and young people who are ready for innovative and high-tech solutions.

“It’s much easier to learn something new when you’re a student than when you’re 30 or 40 years old. But at the age of 20, in order to understand that a profession is not suitable for you or that you are not suitable for a given profession, you first need to master it. And then time passes, and you find yourself “banging your head against the wall.” This means the direction should be changed. Don't expect that when you reach 30 or 40 years old, the wall will become more pliable.

Often people do not see prospects for development and growth in one job, but are afraid to go to another industry because they know nothing about it. As Eastern wisdom says: “The horse is dead - get off.” The sooner you think about retraining and additional education, the greater your chances of “switching to another horse” and having time to make a successful career by 30,”– Yuri Anushkin, director of the QA Academy educational center, shares his thoughts on the age of IT specialists.

IT is truly a great opportunity to build a successful career, meet a lot of motivated people and be inspired by innovative ideas. All you have to do is choose which path is right for you!

In the article we will tell you what steps to take, where to start and how to build your training to become an IT specialist if you are far from IT.

Decide on a specialization

First of all, you need to decide why you are going into IT. Do you like making websites, creating programs for operating systems, thinking through design or testing? This decision will become the starting point in the learning process.

Depending on your choice, you will be able to determine a training program for yourself, prepare a plan and select the first sources: books, websites or online courses.

If your knowledge of the language is not enough for fluent reading, you should start with it. English will be needed not only for communications, you will have to read a lot and search the Internet in English. This could range from technical documentation or an answer to StackOverflow, to just an interesting feature article on Medium.

This is the second most important skill, after knowledge of a foreign language, which is vital when learning. It is important to learn how to formulate queries correctly and filter out unnecessary information on the search results page.

Master the basic concepts

First, learn the difference between a bit and a byte, learn basic computer science terms and concepts, and learn about conditions, loops, and interrupts. How a processor works, why a web server is needed, and what kind of ascii is - you need to know all this to start delving into the area that interests you.

Data structures and algorithms are fundamental concepts for development and IT. You won't be taught these things properly in applied programming courses, so learn these things on your own.

First, understand the terms stack, tree, queue, hash. To understand algorithms, it is not necessary to delve into graph theory, but at least understanding should be your goal.

It will be useful to become familiar with the concepts of object-oriented programming no matter what language you choose or how you plan to use it. OOP is one of the most popular development styles, so you need to not only know the definitions of the main concepts (inheritance, encapsulation, polymorphism), but also understand how they work and be able to implement them in the program code.

If you have confidently mastered the syntax of the programming language you are interested in, it is worth learning how it works with different types of databases, and at the same time learn about the types of databases and their differences.

Even if your language doesn't typically interact with the database directly (JavaScript, for example), you need to know what's going on in that area of development: you'll have a better understanding of how the program as a whole works.

So how to become an IT specialist?

You can always retrain and change your profession at any age. It is only important to remember that this is a very long and complex process. And the later you take up this, the more difficult it will be for you.

To become an IT specialist, you need to set yourself up for a long process of learning the basics and continuous self-training throughout your career. Be patient, because many months and even years may pass between the start of training.

Today, many people are interested in whether it is possible to learn to program from scratch.

We have all heard stories that people who are engaged in this business have huge incomes, go to Bali every weekend and in the first months of their work were able to buy apartments for all their relatives.

In principle, this is not far from the truth, but Such results require experience and reputation. And you need to start with the simplest. We will look at what steps a person who knows nothing about writing programs needs to follow in order to travel to Bali and buy real estate in the future.

Contents:

Step one. Preparation

Often, beginning programmers cannot achieve success for the simple reason that they initially failed to set priorities correctly.

They present this craft as something romantic, dynamic - just some kind of constant action.

In films, this process is shown completely different from what it really is.

Moreover, there is generally The writing of codes is not displayed, we are only shown events that revolve around it.

The films also show that anyone can become a programmer without knowledge, experience, or even gray matter in the brain. In this case, we can recall the film “Frames”.

So if you are simply saturated with the spirit of all kinds of films and want to start “coding” yourself, programming is clearly not for you.

Here's the truth about the craft in question - programming is:

hours and sometimes days of monotonous work, during which you cannot relax, you must always be focused;
endless learning in pursuit of the latest trends in this area;
similar projects with customers who themselves do not know what they want and what it should look like.

As for the latter, you must It’s worth watching a video about seven red lines of different colors, one of which is in the form of a kitten. In principle, this is close to the truth, since customers often demand the impossible. It also happens that they order something, but they are always not satisfied with the result.

If you understand all this and are ready to plunge into the wonderful world of programming, then proceed to the next step.

Step two. Selecting your first language

There are a huge number of programming languages. According to some estimates, their number has already reached several thousand.

In general, C is one of the simplest languages that provides the basis for everything else. Moreover, its elements are used in many other systems and programs.

But it is interesting that in good educational institutions, as well as During the courses, students study languages in the following order:

1 Pascal.

2 C++.

3 PHP and everything related to web programming, as well as SQL(this is a system designed to work with databases through queries).

Web(website development, online systems and everything connected with it) – html(although it cannot be called a full-fledged programming language), PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby, Java, Groovy, as well as ASP.NET technology.
Custom software(all kinds of programs like reference books, browsers, instant messengers, etc.) – Delphi, C, C++, C#.
Custom software for mobile devices– Java, Objective-C.
Machine developments(working with microprocessors and other devices, robotics design) – Assembler, modifications C.

Someone can also add so-called 1C programming to this list. Don't trust laymen and people who don't know anything! This is not programming at all.

Once you become familiar with the basics of the work in question, you will understand why this can be said.

Choose what you like best.

Advice: Make your choice right away! You must know exactly in which direction you will develop and what to study in the future.

Most specialists also It is recommended to start your learning with Pascal. This option will allow

You need to write the simplest programs and have a general idea of the craft in question as a whole.

We can say that Pascal is a kind of bridge. A person who simply knows mathematics well can move through it into the world of programming.

Attention! Whatever company you choose to work for after training, you will be retrained for yourself. Therefore, you just have to understand the very principle of writing programs. And for this there's nothing better than Pascal.

Step three. Studying Compilers

For reference: Compiler is a technical solution designed to translate input commands into machine instructions, roughly speaking, into ones and zeros, that is, into an interpretation in which the machine will understand what to do.

Actually, you will write and execute all your programs in compilers.

If you decide to follow our advice and start with Pascal, then you should download Free Pascal. This compiler is absolutely free and is distributed on the official website.

As you can see, it looks quite “old-fashioned”, but programming begins exactly with this. By the way, the C++ compiler looks almost the same.

It's called Turbo C++ (you can download it).

As for Pascal, there is also GNU Pascal, Turbo/Borland Pascal, TMT Pascal and Virtual Pascal. And for C++ you can use Borland C++, Visual C++, Dev C++, GCC and Eclipse.

But this, as we said above, is just the beginning. You can't stop there. Once you've made a choice about your direction, you can move on to more complex compilers.

Here is a list of the most popular compilers today depending on the areas of activity:

ConcerningDelphi, then that’s what the compiler is called there. There is also Embarcadero Delphi and some other modifications. Delphi 7 can be downloaded from many sites, for example. If you chose C, C++ or C#, then you need Microsoft Visual Studio. You can download it directly from the manufacturer’s official website.

If we talk aboutAssembler and other languages used in robotics, then you need to immediately download MASM if you are working on Windows. In general, depending on the field of activity you choose and the company for which you get a job, compilers can be very different. Some firms write their own code processing solutions. Therefore, if you have chosen robotics, it is better to study the relevant books and do everything as they say. We'll talk about this later.

There are also many online compilers. They are useful because they support many programming languages and do not require installation - very convenient!

Here are the most popular ones:

This is a unique service that allows you to create several virtual computers and do whatever you want on them, including compiling ciphers.

Virtual machines will run under . On them you can at least delete the system folder, install absolutely any program, and so on.

Now let's start writing your first cipher (code). This can be done even without books and long instructions.

Step four. First code

For the first code, we will use the first language and the first compiler, which we advised to choose above. These are Pascal and Free Pascal.

One of the simplest programs is written as follows:

1 Download Free Pascal follow the link above and run it on your computer.

2 Enter the following: “program [name];”. That is, if you want the program to be called “hello”, you must enter “program hello;”.

3 Enter the "begin" statement. This means that the code that will need to be executed later has begun.

4 We use one of the most common constructions in Pascal “writeln(‘[some text]’);”. It simply displays text on the screen. Which is contained in parentheses and quotation marks. We will introduce the combination "Hello, world!". This is usually where people start their journey into the big world of software development. So the next line would look like “writeln(‘Hello, world!’);”.

5 To complete the cipher being executed, enter "end."(necessarily with a period at the end).

6 Now press the button "F9" to run what you wrote. You will see the words appear on the screen "Hello, world!". This is what was required!

To get you started with other languages, books usually also provide instructions on how to write “Hello, world!” , that is, instructions that simply display such simple text on the screen.

So, you have mastered your first cipher! A start. Now move on to intensive training.

Step five. Take online training

The advantage of online lessons is that you see everything clearly, from start to finish.

Therefore, it is better for beginners to start their journey with online trainings. Here best courses in Russian:

Course “Programming Fundamentals” from the Educational IT portal GeekBrains. Everything is told here from the very beginning, from the very basics. You will be able to study the history, development of this industry, and then gradually become part of it. The same series of trainings can be downloaded from a torrent (here is the link).
Lessons from the School of Programmers. This course is suitable for those who don’t even know anything about mathematics, don’t know the nature of numbers, how information is represented in a computer, and other similar points. That is, if you consider yourself a complete layman, watch these video lessons.
"Programming Foundation" from EG Lab. Here they will talk about this craft in general, about the development of complex tasks and data types (three lessons in total). Watching these lessons will be a great help to start learning a specific language in the future.

After viewing these courses, you need to move on to lessons dedicated to a specific language or industry of your choice.

If you know English, it's a huge advantage, but only if you already know something.

For some reason, courses for those who are absolutely zero in this matter are not provided there (or they are impossible to find).

But there are courses for specific languages. For example, there is Learn Java Simply, C++ Programming Tutorial for Beginners, How to program in C# - BASICS and much more.

Choose training depending on the direction of your activity.

If you have watched at least a few lessons, you can move on to something more meaningful, studying books.