Programming
This can’t be stressed enough: Gain just a little bit of programming skills, and you can do so much more with data than if you were to stick only with out-of-the-box software. Programming skills give you the ability to be more flexible and more able to adapt to different types of data.
If you’ve ever been impressed by a data graphic that looked custom-made, most likely it was coded or designed in illustrative software. A lot of the time it’s both. The latter is covered a little later.
Code can look cryptic to beginners—I’ve been there. But think of it as a new language because that’s what it is. Each line of code tells the computer to do something. Your computer doesn’t understand the way you talk to your friends, so you have to talk to the computer in its own language or syntax.
Like any language, you can’t immediately start a conversation. Start with the basics first and then work your way up. Before you know it, you...
