How to Learn any Programming Language

1. Learn language basics

• Variable Types
  
• Operators
  
• Basic input and output
  
• Print something on STDOUT
  
• Basic program structure

2. Learning out basic data structures / containers

• Dictionary
  
• Set
  
• List/Array
  

3. Learn basic file I/O

• How to read a file in
  
• How to write a file out
  
• Crazy mileage ( simple ­> complicated )
  
• This goes from simple reading of a text file to… DATABASE. Postgres, or mongodb (extremely complicated)

4. Learn networking basics

• Making HTTP requests with your language
  
  • Learn how to GET, POST, DELETE, etc. requests.
  • How to set your requests properly, how to handle responses and status codes
    
• Learn some basic socket programming your language.
  
• Overall, there are LIBRARIES out there to help you to do this.
  

5. How to build your project and language

• E.g. C++ you’ll have to learn how to build static libraries, shared libraries, how to link your applications properly.
  
• E.g. Python developer. You’ll have to figure out how to separate out your modules well.
  • Execution vs import style
  • How does this is all fit into your project?

6. Learn OO / functional programming paradigm tools

• E.g. for OO you need to learn how to use classes, how to use inheritance, how to use polymorphism, etc.
  
• E.g. functional. You’ll have to learn how your language uses blocks or lambdas, how function pointers or callbacks work.
  

7. EXTRA Goodies in any language

• Bag of trickies
  
• You can come back to here and learn the subtleties and nice stuff of any language
• E.g. Ruby has a lot of cool methods on enumerable types.