Programming Language Path

blinghound

blinghound

blinghound

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142
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England
Hey all,

I was wondering if you guys could help. When I was 18, I had to quit school just before my A-level finals due to illness, rendering those two years worthless in terms of qualifications. I've been housebound for approximately 2 years (I'll be 20 in January) and I have no idea when I'll be fit enough to carry on with education/get a job.

Since I'm interested in computers, and I have a lot of spare time (when I'm not asleep), I've decided that I will try to learn as much about programming as I can before eventually getting better and persuing a career/uni course.

My questions are, as a complete beginner in programming, where do I start? Which languages should I learn first? Are there any good resources for complete beginners online?

I'm hoping to eventually get to uni to complete a computer science degree, so any help at all is appreciated.

Thanks again,

Blinghound
 
That's a tough one to answer, if I am honest. Do you have any programming background/past experience? How "beginner" are we talking? :)

I really don't think there is one language to choose over the others - you will no doubt get a load of posts claiming that "language x" is the best - but even they will be personal preference, or based on things like "you're more likely to get a job with it" which, at this (your) stage are pretty much irrelevant if you simply just need to get hold of the basics. :)

However, on that note something open would be best (i.e. zero-cost) which still leaves you with a large choice.

Have you any preference in what area of programming you wish to enter? Web? Application? Other?

There will no doubt be a lot of tutorials at the whim of a Google search, but most of these will assume you have some programming background.
 
By Beginner, I'm talking 'Hello World' with C or C++ :)

I was thinking going into application based, but I think a basic grasp all round would be beneficial, since a mate doing computer science talks about Java, C, and all sorts :)

What do you mean by open? stuff like python?

Thanks for your answer
 
I would start with Python as it has a very simple syntax compared most complicated languages. Then when you have learned programming fundamentals I would move on to an Object Orientated language such as Java/C++.
 
I started learning to program with Visual Basic. It's basically 'C' then once you learn that you can quickly move on to C# and C++ and others like PHP and HTML start to become easier to understand.

Download Microsoft Visual Basic 2010 Express and when you first load up the software there are many tutorials in Microsoft MSDN library to get 'Extreme Beginners' into action.

Plus for Visual Basic and C there are tutorials all over the internet. The good thing about Visual Basic is that it is pretty much application based.

There are tutorials like on how to make a quiz game, and your first web browser, image viewer like 'windows picture gallary' and what not.

http://www.microsoft.com/express/Downloads/
 
I'd start with something like Pascal, it teaches you good foundations of Procedural programming. Once you are comfortable with that, pick up Ruby. Much as I like Python, it's a bit weird syntactically. A bit of assembly never hurts.
 
Garee said:
I would start with Python as it has a very simple syntax compared most complicated languages. Then when you have learned programming fundamentals I would move on to an Object Orientated language such as Java/C++.
Click to expand...

Umm, Python is OOP. Far more than Java/C++
 
When I started teaching myself I chose VB.NET, but even though the syntax is more self explanitry I wouldn't recommend it as a first language and it just feels clunky and messy. I moved on from VB.NET into c#, and I suddenly found the code to be a lot neater and easier to manage. The great thing about c# is that it's used in loads of different things like the XNA games framework, windows phone 7 and ASP.NET.

So because of that I would say c# is probably your best bet as it has quite a few different platforms it can be used on, it's not a terribly hard language to learn and you will be able to use many of the skills you learn in c# in many other languages if and when you choose another one.

At the end of the day it's your choice, read though the recommendations people make and decide by what you feel is best for you.
 
I haven't done any programming in ages so times might have changed but If I was a beginner I would start with a procedural language first.

I would recommend the following books -

"Starting out with Programming logic and Design"
(kinda pricey see if you can get it used)

This is language agnostic and uses psudo code to teach basic programming principles.


"C programming A Modern Approach" or "C Primer Plus"

Good beginner books on C programming.

After that I would get some books on algorithms then you can look into object oriented languages.
 
Dj_Jestar said:
In what way is it "far more than Java/C++" ? I'm genuinely curious, having never used Python. :)
Click to expand...

From my experience of Python (about 2+ years ago!), you don't necessarily need to follow the OOP paradigm to be able to use it. e.g. you just have a list of commands, with functions, but no classes. A bit like writing a script using bash for example. However you can go down the OOP route if you wanted and create classes with methods, etc.

Whereas with Java/C# everything has to be defined inside of a class (as far as I'm aware anyway!).
 
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