0 to 100: Learning to Code with Kotlin

Hi folks 👋!

In the past, I often struggled to recommend good resources for people learning to code from scratch. Many courses focus on “How to learn programming language X” or “Data Structures and Algorithms” but leave people wondering “What now?” after finishing them.

If you are willing to take the leap and get into programming. Regardless of it being a part of your studies, or to automate tedious parts of your everyday job, or to make a career as a Software Engineer and choose the Software Developer Lifestyle, you have come to the right place.

I want to start the 0 to 100-series, which will focus to bring you from zero to hero. From a programmer rookie to somebody able to get a job as a Junior Developer or from a Professional to a Professional who uses code to advance his business.

But first things first: In any of the previously described scenarios, you need to learn to code. I created this series to teach thinking like a Programmer and coding - not to master a specific programming language.

Why Kotlin?

If you ask developers to name a good language for starters, I think you will get a lot of different answers. Developers can not seem to agree on this question 🙂. What I think all developers can agree on is that once you learned on language others are much easier to learn.

That is why I think as a beginner it is not so important which language you learn, you should pick on which allows you to experience multiple paradigms and not waste your brainpower by requiring a lot of excessive, repetitive or complicated code to get you started.

I chose Kotlin since I think that the Kotlin Language hits all the right notes and is a well rounded language, especially for beginners.

It is a good language with a nice learning curve and has a huge potential. I don’t want to go beyond the scope of this initial article and annoy you with too much technical jargon.

Beyond Coding

I already talked about how this series should be more than your average “Learn to Code”-Tutorial, still you need to learn to code first. 0 to 100: Learning to Code with Kotlin is your foundation for more learning.

Once you finish the course there will be a lot of possible directions you can take:

• Learn a web framework and develop Web Applications
• Become an Android Developer and develop Apps (for yourself or as a job). Google made Kotlin the modern language for creating Android Apps.
• Deepen your Knowledge to improve or automate your workflows

I will try to provide additional courses to also cover these more detailed topics.

About 0 to 100: Learning to Code with Kotlin Course

Since I am a visual learner myself, I figured it would be a good idea to create videos to follow along. Let’s talk about what you can expect from this Course or better said: “What you can expect to be able to do after finishing the course”.

After finishing all the topics you should be well prepared to write your own programs. You also should be able to understand other people’s code. Understanding other people’s code is one of the most important coding skills you can acquire.

I expect myself to create a paid variant of this course soon. The paid variant will cover the same topics just with more exercises, practical coding challenges and the opportunity to get personalized help.

You are not alone!

Learning is hard. Especially learning to code can be really frustrating. But you are not alone. I created a Chat Community where you can share your progress, your success stories or get help in case you are struggling.

Learning together makes it so much more bearable fun 😊.

Course Overview

For reference here is the list of all articles we will cover together. This list is a work in progress and will be extended in the future:

• What is Kotlin?
• Setting up your local environment and IDE (Integrated Development Environment) including “Hello World!” Application
• Variables, Data Types, Immutability and User Input with Kotlin
• Data Structures: Collections and Data Classes
• Conditionals
• Loops
• Challenge: Rock Paper Scissors - Walkthrough Youtube Video
• Functions and Methods

• Classes and Object-Oriented-Programming (OOP)

  • Overloading
  • Initializing Classess