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Ask HN: Zero programming experience and badly want to learn. Where to start?

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Re: Ask HN: Zero programming experience and badly want to learn. Where to start?

#31

Post by agentultra »

You can probably hack something out from tutorials, books, etc... but it won't be good. It'll work and seem impressive, but you might be surprised by security holes or server outages. Dealing with those issues will teach you other things... but it takes a certain amount of thick skin to learn in such a "trial by fire."

If it's your own time/money -- go for it.

However, mastery of anything demands sacrifice and dedication. If you want to go beyond practical application and become really good at something where you can create and contribute new ideas; it will take you years of work and study. You will have to crack open text books, take notes, read source code to old operating systems, review the important academic papers, constantly hack on new projects, and spend a lot of time developing poor vision, lower back pain, and RSI. Learn to fear the outdoors and make sure you find a partner who'll remind you to take care of yourself and stop sitting in front of the computer so much.

Re: Ask HN: Zero programming experience and badly want to learn. Where to start?

#32

Post by spiffworks »

ezl wrote: post #12

Was it weeks/months/years until you felt comfortable writing an entire Web app with basic functionality? Comfortable? I don't know. Capable? a few months. Starting to flesh out your ideas? Within 1 month of starting an EARNEST effort to learn what it takes to write web apps. I was in your shoes about 15 months ago (roughly). I had ideas and wanted to be at least "sort of" able to flesh them out on my own. I had more…

I want to say thank you for the list before I ask my stupid questions. How and where did you learn about object-orientation, etc? I find myself in a very sticky situation where I've been programming micro-controllers in C and assembly for years and using Matlab for high-level simulations with a giant chasm in my knowledge in between. Every resource that I have read so far seems to assume a student who has formally studied CS. Is there an accessible guide to object-orientation?

Re: Ask HN: Zero programming experience and badly want to learn. Where to start?

#33

Post by cleshmd »

I've written a very basic introduction to Django, no programming experience is required, or assumed:

http://www.instantdjango.com

It also includes a standalone Django development environment for Windows, so you don't need to waste time learning how to install and configure everyting. Give it a shot, and see if you can follow along. If you like it, there are plenty of great free Python and Django resources out there.

As an aside, I'm also writing an iPhone game programming tutorial for complete beginners:

http://coconutcollege.net

It's not done yet, but the first four courses should get you up and running with Cocos2d for iPhone. I should have the next two courses finished and posted within the next two weeks.

Re: Ask HN: Zero programming experience and badly want to learn. Where to start?

#34

Post by grayrest »

ezl wrote: post #12

Was it weeks/months/years until you felt comfortable writing an entire Web app with basic functionality? Comfortable? I don't know. Capable? a few months. Starting to flesh out your ideas? Within 1 month of starting an EARNEST effort to learn what it takes to write web apps. I was in your shoes about 15 months ago (roughly). I had ideas and wanted to be at least "sort of" able to flesh them out on my own. I had more…

> still awful at CSS

I recommend you look into SASS/Compass. You have to learn the abstractions on top of CSS but from there you can leverage other people's knowledge of the tricks/hacks involved in putting together a good CSS layout.

I've recommended this to a number of people in roughly your position with good success. The biggest problem they've run into is with the SCSS syntax and once I got them converted over to sass (-x SASS) they all did fine. SASS won't teach you design and the designs have all been terrible, but generating the stylesheets ceases to be the problem.

On the other hand, I've had a terrible track record trying to do the same with designers.

> This is a good sign (I think?).

The revulsion tends to go away after you've been doing it a few years. You never stop learning, so there's usually a sigh when you see something you could have done better.

Re: Ask HN: Zero programming experience and badly want to learn. Where to start?

#35

Post by [deleted] »

leif wrote: post #29
rezrovs wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

University will teach you the underlying principles of computing and give you the foundation and knowledge to be a better programmer, but it won't necessarily teach you how to be a programmer. It doesn't teach you a variety of languages or the language that you hope to work with professionally. It doesn't teach you about version control or how to work with legacy code. I decided to get a degree because it would make…

At a good university, with the intent of putting in lots of extra effort on your own and going beyond the scope of the classes. I contest that the vast majority cannot program effectively without the foundation you get at a university, nor without learning what knowledge is out there that you don't have yet. Also, my university had a class all about version control, legacy code, and portability. [so, suck it, other u…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Zero programming experience and badly want to learn. Where to start?

#36

Post by turbofail »

spiffworks wrote: post #32
ezl wrote: post #12

Was it weeks/months/years until you felt comfortable writing an entire Web app with basic functionality? Comfortable? I don't know. Capable? a few months. Starting to flesh out your ideas? Within 1 month of starting an EARNEST effort to learn what it takes to write web apps. I was in your shoes about 15 months ago (roughly). I had ideas and wanted to be at least "sort of" able to flesh them out on my own. I had more…

I want to say thank you for the list before I ask my stupid questions. How and where did you learn about object-orientation, etc? I find myself in a very sticky situation where I've been programming micro-controllers in C and assembly for years and using Matlab for high-level simulations with a giant chasm in my knowledge in between. Every resource that I have read so far seems to assume a student who has formally st…

If what you're comfortable with is lower level stuff, one possibility is to look at an implementation of an object system in C. In particular, I found reading the Python source code to be helpful when learning about object orientation.

Re: Ask HN: Zero programming experience and badly want to learn. Where to start?

#37

Post by gruseom »

leif wrote: post #27

At a university. I can't tell you how sick I am of laypeople thinking they can just pick up one or two programming languages in a couple hours a week and get a job. These people end up with a very small skillset and no knowledge of what things they don't know or where they might learn those things, and therefore they're of negative worth to a programming team. You need the experience and breadth of at least topical e…

The issue here isn't the not getting a degree part, it's the "couple hours a week" part. To become a good programmer takes aptitude and practice, probably in roughly equal measure. A CS degree is relevant, but optional: many good programmers don't have one and many degree holders suck.

Re: Ask HN: Zero programming experience and badly want to learn. Where to start?

#38

Post by sushi »

dpavlenkov wrote: post #14

I've been programming for probably 17 years, since high school, and just recently I appreciated JavaScript. For all its shortcomings, it's beautiful. If you'd just understand it, you would be able to easily understand other languages, dynamic or otherwise.

If you'd just understand it, you would be able to easily understand other languages, dynamic or otherwise.

I am genuinely curious to know why you think so.

Re: Ask HN: Zero programming experience and badly want to learn. Where to start?

#39

Post by nadam »

spiffworks wrote: post #32
ezl wrote: post #12

Was it weeks/months/years until you felt comfortable writing an entire Web app with basic functionality? Comfortable? I don't know. Capable? a few months. Starting to flesh out your ideas? Within 1 month of starting an EARNEST effort to learn what it takes to write web apps. I was in your shoes about 15 months ago (roughly). I had ideas and wanted to be at least "sort of" able to flesh them out on my own. I had more…

I want to say thank you for the list before I ask my stupid questions. How and where did you learn about object-orientation, etc? I find myself in a very sticky situation where I've been programming micro-controllers in C and assembly for years and using Matlab for high-level simulations with a giant chasm in my knowledge in between. Every resource that I have read so far seems to assume a student who has formally st…

Probably I would not suggest this book otherwise, but if you are an experienced C programmer then Bruce Eckel's 'Thinking in C++' book might be for you. It explains to C programmers why object orientation is a good thing. It gradually shifts from C to C++. (If I remember correctly; I've read that book long years ago.)

You can freely download the book:

http://www.mindview.net/Books/TICPP/ThinkingInCPP2e.html

Re: Ask HN: Zero programming experience and badly want to learn. Where to start?

#40

Post by efedorenko »

I'm trying to learn programming with zero experience too, and highly recommend book "Learn to Program" (http://pine.fm/LearnToProgram/). It was worth every hour even while my goal is to learn JS and book based on Ruby. Now I'm reading JS book with much better understanding of basic things.

Also, "Ship It!: A Practical Guide to Successful Software Projects" (http://www.pragprog.com/titles/prj/ship-it) gave me a good understanding of development process. I think it's worth to read even if you are going to work on project alone.

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