adameye Posted March 10, 2010 Posted March 10, 2010 Hello Forum, Ok so I have decided that I want to begin programming and as I am a beginner I'm intrested to know how other people started out?, what language? software, ect.. Your responces will be greatly thanked!
powdarrmonkey Posted March 10, 2010 Posted March 10, 2010 Tricky. Basic and its variations will teach you bad habits, the C-type languages will teach you better habits but the learning curve is steep. Perl is strong on data and expressions but is full of mnemonics. Python is a good general-purpose, easy to pick up language that will give you a strong grounding, and then I'd progress to C# personally - but it abstracts everything a *long* way from the hardware, so make sure you get some C/C++ background along the way. 1
danrhodes Posted March 10, 2010 Posted March 10, 2010 I started out many years ago when I was just a small fry programming in QBasic and Pascal! I now do a bit of everything, not amazing in any, very good at php, but can get by with most. D 1
featured_spectre Posted March 10, 2010 Posted March 10, 2010 php is a good foundation to start with, then build up from there to C, or pascal... 1
danrhodes Posted March 10, 2010 Posted March 10, 2010 php is a good foundation to start with, then build up from there to C, or pascal... PHP is pretty good I think. Pascal is getting a little old now. As @PowdarMonkey said C based languages are the way to go nowdays. 1
ICT_GUY Posted March 10, 2010 Posted March 10, 2010 Visual basic free edition is a fun place to start. Easy to start making useful programs without too many restrictions. I started with zx81 basic, BBC basic, BBC assembly, then skipped a decade and started with scripting and visual basic. I can read PHP just about but find it awkward to program, though only because I have not spent hours coding stuff in it.
danrhodes Posted March 10, 2010 Posted March 10, 2010 VB is a wonderfull tool to have in your arsenal! PHP is hard to write if your not used to it. Myself i hae spent tooooo many hours sweating over a PHP screen. D
adameye Posted March 10, 2010 Author Posted March 10, 2010 thanks guys, I downloaded Visual Basic 2008 Express Edition (Good move?) it seems to be friendly to someone like me who has only ever had experience with HTML and CSS.
danrhodes Posted March 10, 2010 Posted March 10, 2010 Good move I'd say it has a friendly GUI and is rather simple to grasp, you should get some results pretty quickly. Consider [ame=http://www.amazon.co.uk/Teach-Yourself-Visual-Basic-Hours/dp/0672329840/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268230894&sr=8-7]Sams Teach Yourself Visual Basic 2008 in 24 Hours: Complete Starter Kit: Amazon.co.uk: James Foxall: Books[/ame] maybe??
adameye Posted March 10, 2010 Author Posted March 10, 2010 Thanks dan, have you a copy of this book already? what do you think of it? It would be at the bottom of my list as i'm currently studying for my CCNA.
danrhodes Posted March 10, 2010 Posted March 10, 2010 I have the older version of this book for VB6, if its of the same qulity then it will be good. Eeeeee CCNA, that's a usefull one :-) D
garethEds Posted March 10, 2010 Posted March 10, 2010 We use C# here to teach the kids basic programming. I follow the course at: C# for Sharp Kids Pupils love it. Gareth 3
srochford Posted March 10, 2010 Posted March 10, 2010 BASIC used to be a nasty language - everything was GOTO statements and line numbers. It's not really been like that for a long time. As you've made a start with VB.Net then I'd stick with that - make sure you're using procedures and subroutines. Find out about objects, properties and methods and you'll be making a good start. Pick a small project that you can understand (eg "delete all .log files from the windows directory which are older than 1 month") and write it. Doesn't matter that it may never be used - it's just something to get you going. Have fun but be warned - it can be addictive :-) 1
apeo Posted March 10, 2010 Posted March 10, 2010 Not that im a programmer (more a scripter) but i think a better question is why do you want to learn programming? That is, for work/career you should think about the industry you want to get into and if its personal then what do you want to be able to do?
adameye Posted March 10, 2010 Author Posted March 10, 2010 thanks again, i've got to say i'm completely taken in on this, whenever i used to think about starting programing in the past i was thinking about the learning process and how hard it will be, and will it really be 'interesting!'. so ive been playing around with VB for about two hours now and i LOVE it! especially loving the XAML!
BTCC_Fan Posted March 10, 2010 Posted March 10, 2010 I'm a first year Uni student, doing Computing, and they currently teach us Python in the first year. Its a really easy language to learn, some good books about as well as online help. I've found it useful for learning the basic programming techniques such as if statements, loops, data types, object orientated programming. You can do some nice stuff with it, I've used it to create a basic pac-man style game and for my current coursework I'm working on creating a program to upload photos to Google Piccassa. For more info see Python Programming Language -- Official Website 1
adameye Posted March 10, 2010 Author Posted March 10, 2010 Not that im a programmer (more a scripter) but i think a better question is why do you want to learn programming? That is, for work/career you should think about the industry you want to get into and if its personal then what do you want to be able to do? I'm thinking about Education, but at the minute I'm happy to use it for personal, something on the side for me to play around with.
SimpleSi Posted March 10, 2010 Posted March 10, 2010 If a complete beginner - try Scratch At least you'll have some fun and its impossible to make a syntax error regards Simon 1
adameye Posted March 10, 2010 Author Posted March 10, 2010 I'm a first year Uni student, doing Computing, and they currently teach us Python in the first year. Looks interesting! Is this the first step you have ever taken into programming?
browolf Posted March 10, 2010 Posted March 10, 2010 Not that im a programmer (more a scripter) but i think a better question is why do you want to learn programming? That is, for work/career you should think about the industry you want to get into and if its personal then what do you want to be able to do? I prefer scripting too. Mainly because its super handy in work and being able to do clever things with webpages is always useful. like when you know Active Server Pages (an extension of vbscript) you can make webpages that interface with microsoft products/active directory, exchange, isa server etc. I have an internet management site that talks to ISAserver and one that talks to AD that makes banning kids from the net easier. 1
BTCC_Fan Posted March 10, 2010 Posted March 10, 2010 Yup it is, previous to this I'd never done any programming.
adameye Posted March 10, 2010 Author Posted March 10, 2010 If a complete beginner - try Scratch At least you'll have some fun and its impossible to make a syntax error regards Simon thanks simon, i have seen this being used by students in a few primary schools i visited, looks really fun but its not to my taste as i'm looking into windows software development.
mac_shinobi Posted March 10, 2010 Posted March 10, 2010 (edited) I prefer scripting too. Mainly because its super handy in work and being able to do clever things with webpages is always useful. like when you know Active Server Pages (an extension of vbscript) you can make webpages that interface with microsoft products/active directory, exchange, isa server etc. I have an internet management site that talks to ISAserver and one that talks to AD that makes banning kids from the net easier. hta might be a good one to add and seeing as he has done html and css - maybe use either java or vbscript - make a nice gui and be able to do useful things. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee692768.aspx http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/scriptcenter/dd742317.aspx I started out with vba and then to vb6 and then to scripting and mixed in some php and classic asp ( which is now on asp.net ) Edited March 10, 2010 by mac_shinobi 1
Soulfish Posted March 10, 2010 Posted March 10, 2010 I'm a first year Uni student, doing Computing, and they currently teach us Python in the first year. Its a really easy language to learn, some good books about as well as online help. I've found it useful for learning the basic programming techniques such as if statements, loops, data types, object orientated programming. You can do some nice stuff with it, I've used it to create a basic pac-man style game and for my current coursework I'm working on creating a program to upload photos to Google Piccassa. For more info see Python Programming Language -- Official Website In my first year we got taught Scheme (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheme_(programming_language)) and then Ada95 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_(programming_language)). Scheme was chosen as they expected a number of people to already have programming experience and wanted to start from scratch to get rid of as many bad habits as possible Python is a great first language though. 1
Lee_K_81 Posted March 10, 2010 Posted March 10, 2010 I learnt: VB (version 5 i think), C/C++, Pascal, Ada, Java, Eiffel, C#. What are you wanting to program? Desktop applications or web applications? I'd recommend learning Java, or C#. But i know VB.NET is quite popular with beginners (and more experienced) programmers. In all honesty once you've learnt one language they all have fairly similar syntax and semantics. Lee 1
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