I am also in your shoes, and have started with http://learnpythonthehardway.org/ It seems to be one of the best ways to learn Python.
Ask HN: I want to learn how to code. Can anyone tell me how to start learning?
41–50 of 59 posts
Re: Ask HN: I want to learn how to code. Can anyone tell me how to start learning?
#42I wrote this: http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/ It's free. Do this: 1. Use your current computer. It doesn't matter if you have Linux, OSX, or Windows. What matters is that, right now, you want to learn to code, so you should go learn to code, not learn to setup a new OS. 2. Just use gedit. Don't use vim, vi, emacs, or any "hardcore" editor. On a Mac if you're using a non-English keyboard, use Textwrangler. Lear…
Zed, thanks for the book, I just got started with it.
I have heard that when done with the book, I still won't be able to program in Python. Can you elaborate on that?
Also, what do you recommend after completing your book? I'm interested in building web apps.
Re: Ask HN: I want to learn how to code. Can anyone tell me how to start learning?
#43I wrote this: http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/ It's free. Do this: 1. Use your current computer. It doesn't matter if you have Linux, OSX, or Windows. What matters is that, right now, you want to learn to code, so you should go learn to code, not learn to setup a new OS. 2. Just use gedit. Don't use vim, vi, emacs, or any "hardcore" editor. On a Mac if you're using a non-English keyboard, use Textwrangler. Lear…
Zed, thanks for the book, I just got started with it. I have heard that when done with the book, I still won't be able to program in Python. Can you elaborate on that? Also, what do you recommend after completing your book? I'm interested in building web apps.
In the 2nd Edition, I rewrote exercises 50, 51, and 52 to teach you to make a simple web app based on the game in exercise 41 and 42. I also rewrote 41 and 42 so that it's a little more complex and challenging.
When you're done with the book, I say you can't really code yet because you lack experience actually using Python. You have all the syntax and tools, you just don't really know how to apply them. What I recommend now is you go through the Django Book 2.0 and do all the code in that book. Once you do that you'll have enough to start building your own stuff.
I'd also say, whatever you make will probably suck for a while, but that's alright. Just keep making stuff, put it out there, get feedback from good coders, and improve.
Re: Ask HN: I want to learn how to code. Can anyone tell me how to start learning?
#44Dude, coding is alot easier than physics. Stop procrastinating on HN, get a Linux machine and start your first project. If you want to do web stuff, learn PHP, otherwise use python. For your project you would need a library to extract text from word documents and something like curl to query google.
Re: Ask HN: I want to learn how to code. Can anyone tell me how to start learning?
#45Lots of informative advice, I am very grateful to all of you. Thanks again. I think I will go with Python or Ruby after I check out the resources in the links that were posted. I plan to build my knowledge but as a person with a science background, I'm happiest when I'm solving a problem so I definitively see the merit in working on the project whist learning. I don't think I have any further questions - I got loads…
I would also suggest one more thing: http://mitpress.mit.edu/SICM/
Since you say you have dabbled with physics, you may find this sort of method useful.
Re: Ask HN: I want to learn how to code. Can anyone tell me how to start learning?
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
I like all of this advice. The key threads running through it at which I nodded my head in agreement were: 1) Free software/languages 2) Cut corners (disqus) 3) StackOverflow. This was a super life saver as I never had someone next to me while learning to just ask a quick question. The response time on it is often incredible. Focus less on your 'platform choice' or whatever, as that can actually be quite fluid. Progr…
Focus less on your 'platform choice' or whatever, as that can actually be quite fluid Yeah, but programming on Windows is a PITA so I found its simpler to just eliminate that from the equation :)
And this is why your advice is actually bad, op said nothing about his platform choice and you're recommending he should go run a marathon when he's never even jogged.
Windows programming is not a PITA, that's a flat out lie from you. It's total and utter nonsense, especially as Windows has arguably the best IDE of all the platforms.
In the end it's exactly the same as linux programming. And iPhone programming. And BBC Micro Programming. And Spectrum programming. It's just that you have some personal preferences.
Programming is just programming and that's what he wants to learn, not your dogmatic preferences.
Re: Ask HN: I want to learn how to code. Can anyone tell me how to start learning?
#47I wrote this: http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/ It's free. Do this: 1. Use your current computer. It doesn't matter if you have Linux, OSX, or Windows. What matters is that, right now, you want to learn to code, so you should go learn to code, not learn to setup a new OS. 2. Just use gedit. Don't use vim, vi, emacs, or any "hardcore" editor. On a Mac if you're using a non-English keyboard, use Textwrangler. Lear…
Zed, thanks for the book, I just got started with it. I have heard that when done with the book, I still won't be able to program in Python. Can you elaborate on that? Also, what do you recommend after completing your book? I'm interested in building web apps.
Zed's right start with a non-IDE solution such as using a basic editor..as it forces you to think and get at the object-oriented abstraction of the programming language you are attempting to learn.
Re: Ask HN: I want to learn how to code. Can anyone tell me how to start learning?
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
I like all of this advice. The key threads running through it at which I nodded my head in agreement were: 1) Free software/languages 2) Cut corners (disqus) 3) StackOverflow. This was a super life saver as I never had someone next to me while learning to just ask a quick question. The response time on it is often incredible. Focus less on your 'platform choice' or whatever, as that can actually be quite fluid. Progr…
Focus less on your 'platform choice' or whatever, as that can actually be quite fluid Yeah, but programming on Windows is a PITA so I found its simpler to just eliminate that from the equation :)
Why do you feel Windows a PITA to program in?
Re: Ask HN: I want to learn how to code. Can anyone tell me how to start learning?
#49Hi. Most of the advice in the comments already posted is sound, but none of them seemed to address HPC. Working on a cluster invites an entirely different bundle of conceptual and practical hurdles (e.g. parallelism, working remotely, industrial-strength shell scripting &c.) Even though I had been programming since I was a kid, I found my crash-course in HPC to be quite challenging; confronted with a new programming…
Do you think that learning about parallelism would help a beginner to learn how to program, or to understand code better? I consider myself an intermediate programmer, with about five years of experience, but have never explored HPC. Not sure it would have helped me more to have done so as a beginner.
Re: Ask HN: I want to learn how to code. Can anyone tell me how to start learning?
#50interesting problems to solve which increase in order of difficulty.
Project Euler. Though the difficulty tends to sort of spike all over.