noob programming

MNuTz

MNuTz

MNuTz

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Hi all,

Way back when i was 5 i used to copy programs from magazines onto my amiga, they never worked but it passed several hours :) It was good old Basic.

Ive bought myself books on VB and C++ but i always struggle to keep doing them, or the development program is so complicated with no instructions that i cant figure it out (Visual C++ 2005 express edition for instance) because i lack the experience.

What im after is a language thats easy to learn, has good development programs that are easy to use, has great online and book support and more importantly, is something that i can use to develop my own little apps.

So, suggestions please on where to start, and then more importantly, where to move onto as im looking to learn as many as possible.

thanks
 
To be honest you're going to struggle getting anything easier to learn than VB.

I would try getting to grips with the fundamentals of object oriented programming and start to apply it using Java or C#.

Maybe find a good introductory book (assuming you want to start at the very basics)
You can always ask questions here and on other forums, there are plenty of programming forums on the web.

Then I would get a good book teaching proper OO programming.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Head-First-...ef=sr_1_1/026-9540695-2757218?ie=UTF8&s=books

Is a good bet for the OO stuff, I've not read this book but the other head first series have been excellent.
 
I find the best way to learn is to set yourself a target of something to do or a program to make. If you just want to learn how to program, almost aimlessly, it's difficult to get the motivation.
 
I'd agree with that.

Coding "stuff" at random just to use the various bits of the language/framework isn't going to be rewarding or assist learning.

Set yourself a goal of something to code. Personally, I'd start with some sort of simple game (maybe hangman or something with a database of words, etc that sort of thing. Start with a score-based system, then move onto using graphics for the geezer being hanged, and so forth.)

That way you'll start with something relatively simple that you can expand and expand.
 
firstly, great to hear you've got a passion for it mate.

i'd suggest C# for practicality right now. it's a great language, will empower you as you learn .NET and has a good future.

wouldn't bother starting with C++. it's interesting in theory, good reading and figuring it out. but it's not an ideal start.

i'd personally steer clear of VB, i think the sytax is horrendous and is quite different from all the languages i've progressed through (pascal, c++, java, c#).

like these guys said, a game might be a good way. that's certainly how i taught myself to program. nothing insane. started with text based stuff, moved to some basic bitmap based games, then wrote a simple graphics library and did a tiny bit of 3d trig (did write my own engine which was extremely basic).

plenty of avenues, but the best way to learn is just to get stuck in. think of something you want to create, anything at all. something fun or practical, whatever you reckon. then use a good tool. c# (.net) , java or even old-school pascal (actually a decent place to start coding!).

if you are serious about it, i'd suggest you going out and getting a couple of books. learn through hands on experience, and also chilling with a book and letting the theory of computing sink in a bit.
 
n3crius said:
i'd suggest C# for practicality right now. it's a great language, will empower you as you learn .NET and has a good future.
Click to expand...

What he said. Great development tools, great resources on the web, great language and great features.
 
Haircut said:
To be honest you're going to struggle getting anything easier to learn than VB.

I would try getting to grips with the fundamentals of object oriented programming and start to apply it using Java or C#.
Click to expand...

I agree with haircut - VB.net is dead simple and quite powerful, it also leads nicely onto asp.net for web development. C# is supposed to be better than vb.net but i still stick with vb. Lots of examples on the net how to do stuff and loads of forums with help provided... not to mention loads of books on the subject.
 
I'm no programming guru and just started out myself. I worked hard at C# for a month and didn't really get that far. I then started on C++ and just found it....easier. I've only read beliefs to the contrary but there you go. The Visual Studio environment is too cluttered for my liking. I'm coding on Bloodshed Dev C++ and it's been excellent so far. I like the fact that it doesn't have intelli-sense and that forces me to learn all the key words.

It's more tedious learning C++ but I feel that rewards are so much better. I'm slowly starting to understand OO principles and how to make it work for me. C# and VS did everything for me and I didn't really learn all that much.

Quick example. When you start with C++ on bloodshed, I'm forced to include all the namespaces I want to use. With C# everything was already there for me and I just started coding in the Main(). Now I have to code all that myself. As silly as it my seem, it just feels better for me.
 
It depends what you want out of it at the end of the day. I find functional programming to be great fun at the moment and a whole different way of thinking to OO code, though its pretty much never used in industry outside of academia (with the exception of Erlang).

Java/C#/Python or Ruby would be good starting languages. Java/C# used more in industry at the moment. I would say Java is the better choice of the two being fully cross-platform and the latest version 6.0 is really quite quick compared to previous versions.

Python and Ruby are really simple to learn but don't have as much of a market share as Java/C# (at this time) so if your wanting to get a job as a programmer this is something to consider.

So all depends on what your goals are really.
 
Una said:
It depends what you want out of it at the end of the day. I find functional programming to be great fun at the moment and a whole different way of thinking to OO code, though its pretty much never used in industry outside of academia (with the exception of Erlang).
Click to expand...

Functional programming is the work of the devil. Do not speak of it again! :p
 
SiD the Turtle said:
Functional programming is the work of the devil. Do not speak of it again! :p
Click to expand...

It is a bit of a brain**** when you have been writing imperative languages all your life but I like the way you can write some amazingly terse code such as quicksort in two lines. :p

qsort [] = []
qsort (x:xs) = qsort (filter (< x) xs) ++ [x] ++ qsort (filter (>= x) xs)
 
Una said:
It is a bit of a brain**** when you have been writing imperative languages all your life but I like the way you can write some amazingly terse code such as quicksort in two lines. :p

qsort [] = []
qsort (x:xs) = qsort (filter (< x) xs) ++ [x] ++ qsort (filter (>= x) xs)
Click to expand...

*Brain explodes*
 
I've just started learning and so far I am finding PASCAL a lot easier than VB
just give free pascal a google.

it only executes stuff in a command window rather than a GUI but it makes learning the fundamentals of programming a lot easier to learn.
 
Pascal is an excellent teaching language (as it should be, that's what it was designed for!) as it keeps things simple and forces you into good programming habbits. It's a little long in the tooth now but for foundation level procedural programming (learning about data-types / control structures / etc) there isn't much better.

I would never advise someone to dive straight into OO because it's a lot to grasp when you don't even have the basics nailed down.
 
C# simply because it has the best community support available. With things like C++, Java et al there tends to be a sense of elitism in any community if you ask a beginner question. I may be generalising and I accept not everyone will agree but that was just my experience when learning these languages. C# was by the far the easiest language I've ever learnt. Took me about a week to know it inside out.
 
NathanE said:
C# simply because it has the best community support available. With things like C++, Java et al there tends to be a sense of elitism in any community if you ask a beginner question. I may be generalising and I accept not everyone will agree but that was just my experience when learning these languages. C# was by the far the easiest language I've ever learnt. Took me about a week to know it inside out.
Click to expand...

Not from scratch I suppose ??? :eek:
 
Yeah from scratch but I already knew 5 other languages and about 10 years Win32 API experience prior to learning it. I guess that may have some bearing on it :p
 
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