Ask HN: Okay okay, I'll learn to program...now what? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Okay okay, I'll learn to program...now what?

#51

Post by jules » Tue, Aug 17, 2010, 5:04 PM UTC

jacoblyles wrote: post #20

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dr. Scheme might have made things easier. Especially because SICP uses Scheme and not Lisp. That said, the first term of my freshman year of college used SICP as the textbook. I banged my head against a wall for the first six weeks and had an epiphany in week 7. It's the best feeling in the world when functional programming finally makes sense.

Everything is hard in Scheme/LISP world. As a first programming project for an isolated person without collaborators or teachers, SICP is death. It will be months before the autodidact can accomplish something that he can feel proud of. Nothing will kill interest faster than beating your head against the wall in isolation for months in your spare time without any tangible progress. I believe people that say it's awes…

This is not at all what doing SICP was like for me. It was fun. There is an interesting idea on every page. The exercises are challenging and interesting.

Re: Ask HN: Okay okay, I'll learn to program...now what?

#52

Post by msg » Tue, Aug 17, 2010, 5:16 PM UTC

user24 wrote: post #34

Lots of great advice here. It's refreshing to see that, largely, people aren't just pushing their own language of choice, but are saying (quite rightly) that it doesn't matter. Like dpcan, I started on basic, then qbasic and moved up from there. You asked about breaking down the options. Something which I've only fairly recently realised, is that languages differ in more ways than just syntax and built-in modules. As…

I think of those as more like programming styles. You can program C in a functional style (although the language is not your friend). You can write FORTRAN in any language.

I found personally that event-driven programming (signals, triggers, listeners) is different enough to be considered another style. Synchronization, causal sequences of events, and a clock, used for GUIs or workflows, requires a different sort of thinking than functional, procedural, or OO.

Re: Ask HN: Okay okay, I'll learn to program...now what?

#53

Post by msg » Tue, Aug 17, 2010, 5:19 PM UTC

DarrenMills wrote: post #30

Thanks for so many replies! I'm going to spend the next few hours dissecting all of this information and then dive into research. The take away message I got from seemingly everyone was to first decide WHAT I want to build, then find the best language. Teach myself using fun, interesting examples, and keep plugging away no matter the difficulty. Also, I should take full advantage of the wealth of information that can…

If you're used to web stuff, you can go pretty far by really learning HTML/CSS/Javascript in a deep way, then adding in an extension library like jQuery.

You can program cool, fun programs in the browser with Processing.js, a simple, cool graphics drawing language. Check out the exhibitions and learning stuff.

http://processingjs.org/

Re: Ask HN: Okay okay, I'll learn to program...now what?

#54

Post by konad » Tue, Aug 17, 2010, 7:27 PM UTC

techiferous wrote: post #10

If you're looking to do a web startup, ditch your Windows computer. Get a Mac or a Linux machine.

Better still, use Google App Engine then it won't matter in the slightest.

Re: Ask HN: Okay okay, I'll learn to program...now what?

#55

Post by samratjp » Tue, Aug 17, 2010, 9:54 PM UTC

Google's python class actually would be right for you. You can go as slow or as fast you'd like. http://code.google.com/edu/languages/google-python-class/

Re: Ask HN: Okay okay, I'll learn to program...now what?

#56

Post by user24 » Wed, Aug 18, 2010, 8:08 AM UTC

msg wrote: post #52

user24 wrote: post #34

Lots of great advice here. It's refreshing to see that, largely, people aren't just pushing their own language of choice, but are saying (quite rightly) that it doesn't matter. Like dpcan, I started on basic, then qbasic and moved up from there. You asked about breaking down the options. Something which I've only fairly recently realised, is that languages differ in more ways than just syntax and built-in modules. As…

I think of those as more like programming styles. You can program C in a functional style (although the language is not your friend). You can write FORTRAN in any language. I found personally that event-driven programming (signals, triggers, listeners) is different enough to be considered another style. Synchronization, causal sequences of events, and a clock, used for GUIs or workflows, requires a different sort of…

I knew I'd miss one ;)