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Decide on something relatively simple you want to do. Then decide on what you want to run it on. There are free development environments (IDE) for most platforms.
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That's like asking what you should have for supper (and we don't even know what you like).
"Programming" has enough paths that there is no general recommendation. You make some broad decisions then ask the question again.
e.g. What do I want to get involved in?
AI
Gaming
ERP
Mobile
VR
Big Data
SCADA
Quantum Computing
etc.
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it.
― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
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I would agree with OG mostly.
I would add that sometimes for a nominal fee(for me at least) you can use linkedin learning or udemy or another video/book/course site and learn a new language. This is quite often my preferred way to learn a new language. However I have more than a few languages under my belt and don't consider a new one all that cumbersome. At least with one of the paid sites you actually get fairly decent content. I agree with OG that youtube videos are a case of you get what you pay for.
with that being said. If you are completely new to coding. Take a class from someone that can be a mentor to you while you try to get the interface installed.
To err is human to really mess up you need a computer
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(Note: disclaimer is at the end)
There was a blip in reported covid cases in the UK as the system used to report the data to the government systems didn't work for a day so the results were rolled into the next batch of reported data. The cause of the blip was that the people collecting the results sent the data to the government systems using XLS files and due to the increasing number of cases the data exceeded the capacity for XLS files so they had to rejig the system to batch the data instead of putting it all in one file.
As software engineers we can all agree there are issues here but as we're not privy to the inners of the system we can only guess at why certain decisions were made. If I was sending raw data to a third party system with (presumably) no API then I'd choose CSV files. However if the data was intended for human consumption then Excel is probably a decent solution. Rather than just raw numbers in cells it can have descriptive meta info at the top such as the source of the data, date it was taken on and so on, then the data itself in rows below. Another reason they might use XLS files is that it's easier to handle quotes, commas and other funny data, letting the proprietary format handle those issues, and while there are existing CSV frameworks that support that data off the shelf you have to bear in mind the time pressures to get this system working and the potential red tape etc in using a project written by some random that they found on github in a government system.
Regardless of the reasons XLS files were used there were obvious failings in that no-one thought to test the capacity of the system so too many assumptions and no thinking about the long-game. So yeah there are flaws here obviously.
What is annoying me though is the way this has been reported and reacted to on places like twitter, where you normally find nothing but well-informed, intellectually honest, non-partisan debate. 99.99% of posts I have seen about this have been of the same ilk, obviously written by people who don't understand the tech. The prevailing narrative being pushed is that the data is stored in Excel files rather than a database. However if that was the case then the data that was missed on the fateful day would probably be lost forever. The fact that it was produced later on in multiple files rather than one demonstrates that the data is indeed stored elsewhere and simply packed in XLS files for distribution to interested parties. No developer, no matter how poor, would really suggest to store data in Excel.
The next most common argument you see is that they are using an "old" version of Excel due to the storage limits encountered. Again as developers I'm sure we can all agree that if we needed to generate an XLS file from data, using Excel to do this would be the last solution we'd use. It is far more likely another method was used such as Odbc drivers or one of the third-party solutions more suited to automation.
Other arguments are over the cost, as if using XLS files to send data has some kind of major effect on costs, the implication being that the whole system is just an Excel spreadsheet that someone maintains, ignoring the costs of everything else that will be involved, not just the cost of software and licenses but the salaries of the people who built in.
It's just maddening seeing so much speculation and ill-informed opinions posted as facts, it must be awful if you actually worked on that system, seeing so many people post so much wrong information and just having to sit there and do nothing, as one of the issues with twitter is that there is no single person or thread to respond to, it is just a wall of people all posting the same thing with nothing you can do to counter it.
Disclaimer: I hope this thread is ok to post in the lounge, I'm NOT looking to discuss tracing in general, if it is effective, how effective any government has been in handling this, good or bad, this is simply about a rather public failing in software system.
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F-ES Sitecore wrote: What is annoying me though is the way this has been reported and reacted to on places like twitter, where you normally find nothing but well-informed, intellectually honest, non-partisan debate.
Too good! 
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Quote: on places like twitter, where you normally find nothing but well-informed, intellectually honest, non-partisan debate.
I didn't know they had Twitter on planet Vulcan. Not sure why a species that is guided by logic would need Twitter or even know how to use it, given here on planet Earth Twitter is used for misinformation, lies, social engineering, manipulation and emotional outbursts, but what do I know.
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But ... but ... it's a World-Beating System! The government says so, and it wouldn't lie to us!
You will note however, that I haven't trusted the rapidly developed app enough to let it near my phone ... 
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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They could just share the Excel file with everyone and ask us to add our name to it if we get sick.
Our government is so incompetent I'm actually quite suprised they didn't do this.
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You mean you didn't get your copy? 
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Wastedtalent wrote: Our government is so incompetent
Yes blame the politicians. But we often forget that they don't do any of the actual work. The real numpties are the civil servants and the overpaid consultants.
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Yammered on and on for weeks about getting something like 40% of people to download and install it, were slippery with the privacy details, developed it with less skill and time than an intern making thickshakes at McDonalds and then wondered why we wouldn't bother..
Why can't our politicians be good 'nuff for government work? 
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The "funny" thing is that finding fifteen thousand plus new corona cases reduces mortality (from covid-19) in the UK. That is good, isn't it?
At least that is the way some people see it, not considering mortality by the number of people who die, or the how large percentage of the population that dies, but by the percentage of people who are registered as being infected that dies.
For a given death count, the more cases of infection that you register, the lower the percentage of people dying from it. Note that a country that doesn't count cases at all, zero reported cases, would have an infinite mortality rate even with a single corona death.
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Which is exactly why there was hysteria in the UK early on; because testing was for a while effectively only being done on the very sick, the mortality rate was vastly above other countries.
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Exactly.
Yet... Even looking at deaths/1M population UK is quite high. Not quite as high as six countries on the other side of the pond, yet twelve times as high as Norway, ten times that of Finland. So the UK is hit quite hard by the Corona virus, even though not as hard as "registered cases / deaths" seems to suggest.
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The population density of Norway / Finland is rather different to the UK though. 
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That is a valid point - but maybe not by the population density of the countries as a whole. Vast forests or high mountain plains where no one lives contribute little to make people respect social distancing. At the bus, in the shops and streets, they have little effect - and those are places where Corona easily spreads.
But: Norwegians/Finns are well known for favoring independence, bordering to being loners. "Everyone" not (yet) living in their own detached house wish they did, rather than cramming together in tiny flats in twenty floor towers. Each kid in the family having his/her own room is a must. Lots of people go on vacation to get away from other people, up in the mountain, or in a sailing boat. To be a true modern guy, you must have your own car; taking the bus is for the lower classes (and there is not much of that. There is no strong tradition for getting together after work in a crowded pub, or for huge all-neighborhood parties in the streets or gardens.
Essentially, we have practiced social distancing for fifty years. Much social activity takes place in more closed groups with people you know - not much mingling qwith strangers that might bring the infection into the group. Compared to many other countries, we practice very little embracing, hugging, kissing... (I guess that is more pronounced in countries such as Italy, Spain, and France; I believe UK is more at the 'shaking hands' level of social interaction.)
This goes even within the family. For the last thirty years Norway has been more Catholic than the Pope (the Pope here being US "morals"): Direct skin contact beyond shaking hands is not directly forbidden by law, but you might think so if you observe people. I think a mother hugging her own child is acceptable up to age five; for the father, it stops at age two, roughly speaking.
We have had a number of outbreaks lately, the majority were students moving out from home and using their newly won freedom to behave more like Italians than like Norwegians - that is an old tradition: When you go to universities, you let loose ... for a while. They soon enough revert to The Norwegian/Finish Style.
University freshmen aside, the Norwegian/Finish 'loner' style probably contributes far more to the low spreading of Corona, rater than vast forests and mountain plains.
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I know I've been on this soapbox before, but until the people in power realise that software development is not a science, these things will happen! They also need to realise that the vast majority of people involved in software development get an adrenalin rush whenever they are given an opportunity to work on shiny new stuff - and are nearly always hugely optimistic about the effort required and timescales.
I'm not blaming the software guys. That would be like 'blaming' your Jack Russell Terrier for enthusiastically fetching the ball back, every time you throw it!  The people at the top are the ones that should be taking the hit on this. Firing a few politicians and senior civil servants, may not completely solve the problem - but it would certainly improve the mood of the nation.
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5teveH wrote: Firing at a few politicians and senior civil servants, may not completely solve the problem - but it would certainly improve the mood of the nation.
FTFY!
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Might depend on how well you aim.
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
Never stop dreaming - Freddie Kruger
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Or how much ammo you have available!
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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I read somewhere that the Excel data was stored columnwise rather than rowwise so they hit the column limit of 16,384 instead of the row limit of 1,048,576.
But the real problem is everyone blaming a "computer glitch", rather than explaining that the people writing the code misread a QA answer.
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Richard MacCutchan wrote: But the real problem is everyone blaming a "computer glitch", rather than explaining that the people writing the code misread a QA answer.
I wish that was a joke ... 
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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According to arstechnica.com[^] they indeed hit the row limit - which was 65k, not 1M, because they used the old .xls format, rather than the newer (13 years old) .xlsx format.
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Richard MacCutchan wrote: I read somewhere that the Excel data was stored columnwise rather than rowwise
I also read that and considered including it in the OP. I think it's one of the clearer bits of misinformation, I mean who would seriously propose that as a solution? Even the worst of the worst in QA would suggest a new sheet per case rather than a new column.
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