I remember to have carried a bunch of basic programming language cards (happy families card game style) as a kid - especially I remember two cards, GOTO and GOSUB - which sounded so similar, yet had quite different depictions :)
Ask HN: How did you learn programming?
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Re: Ask HN: How did you learn programming?
#12I am a 19 year old programmer, I began in 2009, learning PHP via debugging a broken PHP script for a friend. It took me a long time, days, as the script was 2,300 lines long and I was a complete beginner. w3cschools was a great help during this time, but I would say that my biggest help was trial and error. You have to get a lot of things wrong before your finally understand how to do them right. Once I learned PHP I…
So, what are you currently doing now?
Currently, waiting for the coursera cryptography course and I just began working for a web design company in Preston, England. Entry level wage, but good experience :)
Although, I'm also building a blog for my girlfriend, as she is "sick of tumblr" (lame, I know, but she begged me >.< ) and will likely pop it on here in a few days once it's finished.
Re: Ask HN: How did you learn programming?
#13I remember to have carried a bunch of basic programming language cards (happy families card game style) as a kid - especially I remember two cards, GOTO and GOSUB - which sounded so similar, yet had quite different depictions :)
I had them for my high school statistics exams, I remember having one which just said: "Hypothesis testing via the binomial tables of probabi" and then presumably they ran out of characters because it cut off there.
I never did find out what the last word was ^.^
Re: Ask HN: How did you learn programming?
#14I offered to work in exchange for a local dev consultancy (pybrew.com) in exchange for instruction. I had a basic understanding of procedural code (could figure out for loops and generally make things happen with very spaghetti-ish code) but didn't know what an object was.
At the time, I didn't really know how to solve code problems, how to effectively use docs, or how to use a debugger -- which they taught me. A lot of times they let me build the wrong thing then show me how I could do it better (doing research, learning how cookies work, and reinventing the wheel with web authentication, for example).
'Twas an odd, makeshift apprenticeship program, but it was perfect for me. At the time I didn't realize how lucky I was (I don't think they did either), but I am very grateful to have stumbled upon the opportunity.
Re: Ask HN: How did you learn programming?
#15In middle school I took a computer science class because it had "science" in the name. Computers were still very expensive and I had practically never used a computer till that moment. One of the modules of the class was a walk through software engineering using the old waterfall model. We had to design, build and test a basic application in Pascal. Nice memories. From there onwards it was all self study.
Re: Ask HN: How did you learn programming?
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, what are you currently doing now?
Currently, waiting for the coursera cryptography course and I just began working for a web design company in Preston, England. Entry level wage, but good experience :) Although, I'm also building a blog for my girlfriend, as she is "sick of tumblr" (lame, I know, but she begged me >.< ) and will likely pop it on here in a few days once it's finished.
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Re: Ask HN: How did you learn programming?
#17I learned programming by looking for 0days at a young age. then fell in love with C and the rest is history.
Find a passion and play with your code ;).. A.
Re: Ask HN: How did you learn programming?
#18I started consulting instead of going to college and (almost) always said yes when asked if I knew how to do something, whether or not I knew that particular task yet. Once I said I could do something, I was locked in and forced myself to learn it.
Re: Ask HN: How did you learn programming?
#19Started to seriously learn programming about 2 years ago by joining a user group, reading lots of books and writing lots of code to practice. The only way to learn is by doing.
Re: Ask HN: How did you learn programming?
#20I took a few programming courses, then W3schools of course, and watching as many tutorials I can find online.
Then, I started offering help to friends and worked on some small projects. Practice, practice, practice...