Learning Programming

Garth

Hi

I'm in my thirties and looking at programming as a possible 2nd career. As it stands it's at least 2 years before I'm looking at being able to change jobs anyway so I'm looking at retraining, part time.

I'm not in a position to drop employment and take up full time education, I need something I can study either part time or by distance learning. My current job is fairly undemanding.

In my teens I played with BASIC a little bit but that's as far as it went. I got distracted :cool:

I pick up things quickly, am critical, pedantic and precise. I enjoy problem solving and am fairly mathematically inclined. (where's the geek smilie?)

So what do you guys think? Do I stand a chance? What should I study and where? Are the microsoft certs the way to go?

Binomate

Can't go wrong with a bit of C.

marcphisto

C How to Program by Deitel and Deitel is one of the best programming books you could get.

Have a look at http://www.deitel.com/

Evil Phil

Where are you based? Night classes may be an option.

Civilian_Target

Two choices:
If you're really commited and want to learn a useful language right, learn C.
If you're really not sure and want to muck around and get results fast, start with PHP - it's an easy introduction and will teach you many of the important concepts if you want to move on

Alternatively, if you want a sweeping, broad introduction to logical programming and a lifetime of good code technique - start with PROLOG or lisp - but I'd better warn you it's not for the faint hearted! In this case, I'd recommend you purchase a copy of The Little Schemer

Endurance Man

Java baby, im told its where the money is in the future.

gamblingIRE

java all the way for me.

cyberwit

I would agree java is probably the best language to study and from a personal opinion it is very enjoyable to learn I have also done some C++ in the past but I would suggest that you start with java once you learn the ropes with one language is very easy to learn another

Endurance Man

cyberwit wrote:

I would agree java is probably the best language to study and from a personal opinion it is very enjoyable to learn I have also done some C++ in the past but I would suggest that you start with java once you learn the ropes with one language is very easy to learn another

Ye, i did a little pascal and C++ and didnt really take to it. Im doing java at college know and im loving it, its a lot more user friendly.

TempestSabre

IMO Java is the best to start with.

Evil Phil

I would say C to start with then move onto Java or C#.

Elfman

Imo Option C++ should be your start off point as it allows you to start with sequntial programs and then will also allow you to experiemnt with OO projects. Also the sytax is very similar to java so it's easy to adapt to java.

As afr as OO and java go I highly (really highly) recoomend head first java . Second edition out now it explains Java and oo concept in a very easy to understand way. The people who wrote are not just java buffins but huge in the field of learning methoids. Way up there !! in fact java = BUT HEAD FIRST

-Elfman

joe_chicken

I was taught C first...

It put me off programming for a while (until I got pointers, which took a a while, I love it now )

If you want a good idea of where programming is these days, all the basic concepts(like loops and conditional statements... which you probably have a fairly good idea about anyway) and some solid understanding of complex issues (i.e. networking, OO, web development) without the hassle of rewriting everything....... then Java is your only man

(I haven't read it but the Deitel book for Java is supposed to be fairly good, and costs around 70 euro)

Then you could go look at C/C++ and mess around with memory to your hearts content

p.s. I still love C

Ziycon

Most colleges do night courses, Crumlin college do very good night courses and so do IT Tallaght Dublin.

Garth

I'm in the midlands. I looked at Athlone but all their courses seem to be for people already employed in IT.

Do you think an employer would consider someone who was "self-taught" using books? Are there tests one can take that certify you to a certain level when you've learned enough?

Java certainly sounds good, but being the pedant I find myself tempted to Lisp, and wonder how faint hearted am I? I know years ago when I asked some programmer friends the same questions they said VB, which nobody here has mentionned.

joe_chicken

Garth wrote:

I'm in the midlands. I looked at Athlone but all their courses seem to be for people already employed in IT.

Do you think an employer would consider someone who was "self-taught" using books? Are there tests one can take that certify you to a certain level when you've learned enough?

Java certainly sounds good, but being the pedant I find myself tempted to Lisp, and wonder how faint hearted am I? I know years ago when I asked some programmer friends the same questions they said VB, which nobody here has mentionned.

You can take a SUN certified JAVA course
SUN

(I'm sure there's other's for other languages, I've just never heard of em)

As long as you have the passion for programming, then you should find it fairly simple to learn and hopefully get a job.

The hard part is staying motivated (for me anyway)

And as for VB, it's good for small programmes (if you try writing something big, it gets messy, quickly) and maybe teaching people something about the basics (if/elses, loops... etc) but if you want something you can start off small with and build up to big applications, then I'd stick with Java... but that's just me

amen

And as for VB, it's good for small programmes (if you try writing something big, it gets messy, quickly)

not true I work on a system written in VB using com that supports 10,000 of users every day and is deliver via a IE browser. It scales very well and handles 1000's of transaction a minute

no matter what language you use you can make your code messy
I've seen some C applications that were unreadable with hundreds of conditional loops and crappy logic
problem with most of the messy code is messy programmer who don't know what they are doing

TempestSabre

Too true.

I've seen some awful Java and C++ apps, and some really well written VB apps.

joe_chicken

amen wrote:

not true I work on a system written in VB using com that supports 10,000 of users every day and is deliver via a IE browser. It scales very well and handles 1000's of transaction a minute

I suppose I've just seen more bad VB code than any other language, and this is probably because people who know relatively little about programming can pick it up easily. So maybe you should go for VB. I wouldn't.

Bottom line though is that there's a much larger percentage of people using C/C++ or Java, so the earlier you get your hands on them the better

monkey tennis

I would guess that most new development is being done with Java, C# and PHP, a lot of maintenance is done on C++ and VB, and there's always the banks etc that are still running COBOL, FORTRAN and assembly programs that need someone to maintain them (note: GUESS! maybe someone with more professional programming experience can give a better insight into what's going on in the industry currently).

I'd personally recommend starting with C if you want to do things properly. Programming in C will force you to learn about how things work at a level that can be abstracted away by higher-level languages such as Java. It's easier to diagnose a problem with a car if you know what's going on under the bonnet. From C, you'll have a good base from which to go to other popular languages.

Civilian_Target

Garth wrote:

Java certainly sounds good, but being the pedant I find myself tempted to Lisp, and wonder how faint hearted am I?

http://www.amazon.com/Little-Schemer-Daniel-P-Friedman/dp/0262560992

Definitely worth owning if you take this route. Find yourself a common lisp compiler and see what you can do. It teachs you a lot about How computers work, particularly tests (if/else) and loops, as well as how to structure your data.
Lisp is quite unforgiving because you have to think of exactly how you're going to implement your program before you can start writing (not less because your solution is usually done in about 4 lines).
Some interesting implementations of Lisp are underway at the moment, Croma http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croma looked promising but seems to have disappeared

TempestSabre

Is there much of a market for C or Lisp?

Hobbes

TempestSabre wrote:

Is there much of a market for C or Lisp?

http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/jobs/uk/lisp.do

UK job listings according to that site is currently at 0.04% for Lisp (favoured more by C++ programmers).

No C listing but C++ is at around 21%. Javas at 38%.

Garth

I think CT meant that learning LISP would help develop good habits otherwise -- as opposed to an end unto itself... similar to learning Latin to improve your (english) writing.

I think I've decided (for now) the important part is keeping myself interested and motivated and ensuring this is something I want to do. I've ordered "head first java".

Once I get through that I'll pick up something more challenging!

Thanks guys for the advice it was really helpful, I have bookmarked ALL the recommended books.

Theta

We were started off with C for a year to give us a good basic grounding in programming and programming concepts. Then it was C++/C# for a year and finally Java for another year. We touched on others such as haskell. By far I prefered C++ and C# is tasty if you want to do mobile programming. C was a good place to start I thought though.

Civilian_Target

Exactly Garth. LISP isn't really directly useful - but it's invaluable as a training language.

In the Imperial College, London, the top computing school in English-speaking Europe, where you need a 1st class honours in Computer Science from another university just to get into their Advanced Computing course, the first language they teach everyone is PROLOG, a recurisve lisp-style language - and that's all the programming they teach for the first six months. The theory, I'm told, is that in the first programming language people learn they develop terribly bad habits, better do it in a language that teaches you the concepts best, because once you can understand one language, others can be picked up in a few months.

Good luck with the programming!

TempestSabre

Well I guess if you've got the luxury of time, like those full time courses, you can go the long way around to get marketable skills.

TempestSabre

Hobbes wrote:

http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/jobs/uk/lisp.do

UK job listings according to that site is currently at 0.04% for Lisp (favoured more by C++ programmers).

No C listing but C++ is at around 21%. Javas at 38%.

Very interesting stats there!

joe_chicken

These will be your friends for the next few months

java.lang.NullPointerException
         at blah blah blah blah blah

java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException
         at yadda yadda yadda

Good Luck!

Hobbes

no no.. this is everyones friend the first time.

java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError

Garth

I'll let you all know when I've discovered how funny (or unfunny) that is!