"After the end of World War 2, the world was split into two. East and West. This marked the beginning of era called the Cold War." - Naked Snake (Voiced by David Hayter) in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater.

That's the opening line to one of my favorite video games of all time, Metal Gear Solid 3. So where's the connection with coding? Well I am just trying to let you know that my love for video games led me to that path of writing code.

I enjoy video games so much. In fact they are still motivate me to code.

The Drive, The Curious Max

My love for video games led to this question, "HOW ARE VIDEO GAMES MADE?🤔" Some of you might have asked yourself the same question at some point. That curiosity led to more curiosity and I got tired of asking myself the same question and I ended up googling stuff like, "how are video games made?", "how to make a video game", "is math a requirement for making video games?" and so on.

Now throughout my searches one word that kept coming up more often in the articles I read was, "programming" and that led to more curiosity and I no longer googled the same things as before. My google searches were now something like, "what is programming?", "how to start programming", "is coding similar to programming?"

In short. The more I googled the more I went further and further away from my first question. Little did I know that such curiosity would help me a long the way of this journey.

I still wanted to make video games and I was very determined on that. (I was so determined that I even thought of making my own Game Engine.) Nothing was going to stop me.

Programming For Dummies & C/C++

After enough reading and research of what I was putting myself into, I got hold of the book Beginning Programming For Dummies: All-In-One Desk Reference For Dummies by Wallace Wang and this might sound a bit cliche but it changed my life.

What I learned - In Summary

The book was amazing despite not understanding most of it, I still learned one or two things like "programming is all about solving problems or finding solutions to real life situations." That's what writing code should do.

That's why Bill Gates is what he is today because of Microsoft. That's why Mark Zuckerberg's or Jack Dorsey's platforms are so popular and useful to this day. They solved problems.

Despite solving problems, programming/coding has to be fun. I remember the excitement I had when my first line of code (followed from a tutorial) compiled and executed successfully. The feeling that I had at that moment is still the same feeling I have today when I solve a particular problem. It is priceless.

The Passionate Programmer

Prior to reading this book I was like someone left behind on a deserted island with tools at my disposal but not knowing how to use them. Jumping from language to language, combining language syntaxes. I was a mess.

The Passionate Programmer by Chad Fowler was the second book I read that made me love programming even more. It made everything I had read in the "Beginning Programming" make sense. Unlike the other books I read, this was the only one I could fully relate to.

Throughout the book, Chad explains how music and video games drove him to start programming. Apart from that, he tells his readers to have a road map. A goal. There's so much to learn under Computer Science and so much more in Programming alone.

It was after reading this part that I made a choice to pursue Web Development to the max. (See what I did there? Lol.)

I highly recommend this book to any aspiring programmer. Whether you are just getting started or you are still deciding, read the book. At least the first part.

There is a lot more I have left out and before I end this post you should know that it was never easy for me. It took me months to understand/know how to make a simple navigation menu with HTML and CSS. MONTHS!

To those who want to get started

This is my story. And we should always remember that everyone has a different story. If you want to learn how to code, just get started. Start now. It can be scary at first but once you get started you will realize that it is far from that. It's just difficult. Difficult yet doable. When you realize those 2 things, you will then wish that you had started earlier or sooner.