Computer Programming - Where to start?

Cherry_Cola

Hi all,

I've always had an interest in getting into computer programming but have been wondering where is the best place to start.

Bear in mind that aside from some Visual Basic, I'd pretty much be starting from scratch so I was wondering what languages would be the best to start off with and also those which would be the most useful. Is there any particular books which are best for particular languages etc?


Any info at all would be greatly appreciated.

adocholiday

For what it's worth I'm doing a computer science course at the minute and we started with C and C++ programming. There are much better languages out there and much easier ones! but we were told that these were the best way to get into programming. There is a mountain of books out there and a very good website to get you started cprogramming

Everyone is going to have their own opinion on where to start with programming but that's mine

longhalloween

Doing Electronic Engineering and we started on C programming as apparently its easier to learn other languages once you have an understanding of C.

Loads of books out there. C for Dummies is a great book to get started, plenty of humour in it too

JonB

http://www.codecademy.com/ Great way to get started.

Cherry_Cola

Thanks for the advice guys. Will pick up the For Dummies book for sure and those sites look really good. Definitely enough to keep me busy for a while anyway.

FSL

Language is the least important part of programming.

longhalloween

FSL wrote: »

Language is the least important part of programming.

Care to elaborate o wise one?

LumpyGravy

FSL wrote: »

Language is the least important part of programming.

Wow what a helpful post. I guess it was too difficult or time consuming to add a second sentence.



But it is true that which language you choose isn't necessarily the most important part of learning programming, studying algorithms and patterns while learning to code will definitely help.


I'd say learn a language that has practical use for something you're interested in.

Limited list:

Java if you want to create an android app, good money in it but there's a lot of Java guys out there.

C/C++ - Steep learning curve, a lot to learn, bad choice if you're completely new to programming.

Visual Basic - Easy to learn but limited in what you can do.

Ruby on Rails - If you're interested in web development.

Python - Good for scripting, excellent for beginners as it is relatively easy to learn. Lots of free guides out there like 'dive into python' and 'learn python the hard way'


I guess bottom line is to pick one that will keep you motivated.

Cherry_Cola

Well I do have some interest in developing a database app for mobile devices but I'm not fully sure how ambitious such a project would be as of yet.

I have a prototype built in MS Access so have a fair idea of what I'd like it to do, it's just a matter of trying to achieve it using the appropriate programming language. As I'm completely new to this, I know it'll take a while but I'm willing to put in the effort for it anyway. At least I'll gain some new skills along the way hopefully.

Khannie

LumpyGravy wrote: »

C/C++ - Steep learning curve, a lot to learn, bad choice if you're completely new to programming.

While it does have a steep learning curve, I'd somewhat disagree with the bad choice bit. I like that it teaches you low level stuff like pointers and memory management. Having to deal with stuff like that stops you writing sloppy code when you can.

The two most useful languages I've learned have been c/c++ and ....brace yourselves now people..... assembler.

"WTF! Assember!" I hear you say. Well yes and here's why: Using assembler teaches you how processors work, teaches you how compilers are going to turn code into assembler / binary in the end anyway, teaches you good practice for writing threaded code (to avoid too much context switching for example), teaches you why it's a bad idea to write code like this:

for (int i = 0; i < getNonConstValue(); i++)
{
//do stuff
}

and so on.

Now I haven't used assembler since I left college, but I use the principles I learned from it nearly every day.

After all of that banging on I just did: I think Java's a good middle ground.

shanemangan

First languages I learned were Fortran, C/C++