Crucial Tasks to Tackle When Learning a new Programming Language

Remember the time when you first started learning a new programming language. You might have started with C, C++, Java, Python or any other language but the idea was to first learn the basics and try them out with different tasks.

I have tried my hands on a number of programming languages, tools and frameworks like java, objective C, swift, React etc. In most of the cases it was the requirement of the project rather than my personal initiative. When you learn something for your project work, generally it is expected that you learn the technology quickly and become productive as soon as possible. Many times you don’t have the liberty to go through all the features and documentations in detail but you specifically are required to pick up the components that are useful for the work at hand.

From that experience, I have listed down the most common tasks that you can complete that will give a pretty good idea of the language and its uses. Once you complete these, you should be good to do the day to day general work. Of course, certain specific work would require more in-depth knowledge and that is not the purpose of this post.

In this post, we will try to discuss all the fundamental tasks which you should try hands-on. Once you complete the following tasks in the language you are trying to learn, you have a great chance to get to a point where you can start being productive in real-time projects.

Print Hello World

It is not just about printing the ‘Hello World’ in the console but it means that you can create the project and make it up and running without any errors. This lets you get started with the project setup and run configurations.

Data Types and Structures

Going through the available data types and structure will greatly help you with how you will use the language. Knowing data types and structures will help you to choose the right component in the given situation while writing the code.

Conditions and Loops

Try to create small tasks covering all the conditional components and the loops available in that language. That will give you a fair idea of the basic building blocks of the language and you will be to make the decision when to use which component.

Making the API Calls

Create a small client program and call any free API from it using first the core code of the language and then using any popular library of that language. You must know how to make the API calls in the language you are learning. You should try both synchronous and asynchronous API calls.

Implement an API

If you are trying to learn a server-side language then write a program to implement the APIs. You should get used to of at least two APIs with GET and POST type HTTP methods. This would help you when you will work on any project.

JSON Parsing

Since JSON is widely used while dealing with APIs, this is the most common task that a developer has to do many times. It would be a good practice task to parse a complex JSON object to understand how the language supports parsing.

Working with Database

In one way or another, you will come across the use case where your application will be talking to the database. It would be a useful task to try with the implementation of database connection and transaction. You should try to write the code for both SQL and NoSQL database use cases.

Asynchronous Tasks

It is always useful to know how to execute a particular task asynchronously. You will come across such requirements sooner or later, so better get your hands on the implementation of at least one simple execution.

Scheduled Jobs

This is also a frequently required task in applications. Many times we have to repeatedly execute a task at a given frequency and hence it would be useful to know how the language or framework can support that implementation.

All the tasks mentioned above should help you to get the knowledge of basic components and you will have the hands-on experience of the most common tasks which are required in real-time projects.

Find the list of the tasks below for quick reference.

Please feel free to mention any task that should be added to the list.

• Hello World…
• Data Types and Structures
• Conditions and Loops
• API Call
• Implement an API
• JSON Parsing
• Working with Database
• Asynchronous Tasks
• Scheduled Jobs

In the last post we had discussed about Java Champions. You can read that post to know more about Java Champions and how to become one.

Happy Learning!