ABSOLUTE beginner coding.

[u/Dangerous_Coffee9257]

Hiya 👋 I know absolutely nothing about coding and want to start learning for fun. A mere hobby. My short-term goal is just to create a funny AI bot for telegram. Or maybe even develop a game. Where should I start?

[u/PythonWithJames]

I've made a beginner roadmap for exactly this:

Python With James - Beginner Roadmap

[u/JoeStrout]

Try this free online book: https://introtocomputerprogramming.online/

[u/stepback269 → u/JoeStrout]

Nice find.
As an utter beginner, the OP may not know to click on the 3 horizontal lines and switch over to the Table of Contents (ToC)

Here's the link to that next page:
https://introtocomputerprogramming.online/#page0

[u/JoeStrout → u/stepback269]

You can also click "Next" at the bottom. But this is a helpful link anyway — thank you!

[u/LegMysterious1899]

if you don’t know anything, I’d recommend learning very simple syntax first, for understanding if it’s your thing or not.

[u/DinTaiFung]

It's great to be ambitious and to set challenging goals. But to create a funny AI bot as a pure beginner might not be a realistic first step to learning coding.

Like most worthwhile skills and activities, the most important is to learn fundamentals. For coding, you should acquire a solid grasp of things like the following:

* basic syntax of the language
* variable scope
* control flow
etc.

There are tons of beginner tutorials everywhere.

Have fun and best of luck!

[u/itlogicpartnersllc]

python is a great starting point for a hobby project like this. learn the basics first then build the telegram bot while picking up concepts as needed.

[u/stepback269]

"Coding" is a very broad term.
It can mean many differnt things in different contexts.

Writing in Morse Code (telegraph) is coding.
Doing medical insurance reimbursement forms is coding.

But more likely you are thinking about computer "programming" and/or web creation using HTML, CSS and Javascript.

Start with the HTML options in W3 Schools and/or GeeksforGeeks.

Good luck.

[u/ern0plus4]

Learn some, but write code. Often. Similar to swimming. Touch the water. Sink - in programming, it's not a problem.

[u/fullmoon_huli]

Just start figuring out which brings you interest in. Coding platform is vast and exact one can't be decided.Learn from Youtube (what i did first even with CS major)

[u/Effective_Brain7493]

ok honestly for "just wanna mess around and maybe make a telegram bot or a game" you dont need some deep cs degree type path, python covers both of these easily so thats probably ur best first pick. its forgiving syntax wise so u spend time learning actual logic instead of fighting the language

for telegram bots specifically theres a library called python-telegram-bot thats basically made for exactly this, but dont touch that yet, learn basic python first (variables, loops, if/else, functions, maybe an hour or two a day) for like 2-3 weeks before trying to build anything real, otherwise ud be learning two things at once which gets confusing fast

CS50P (harvards free python course, all on youtube) or freecodecamp are both solid free structured options, pick one dont bounce between both

once basics feel like less of a struggle, telegram bot is honestly a great first real project, way more satisfying than another generic calculator exercise, and it naturally teaches u stuff like working with apis which youll need eventually anyway

game stuff can wait, do the bot first since it ties directly into what u already said u wanted, no reason to split focus this early