How to Start Learning Computer Programming

#1

Post by Gennavfo » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 10:33 AM UTC

How to Start Learning Computer Programming
jeremymorgan.com

Re: How to Start Learning Computer Programming

#2

Post by tragomaskhalos » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 10:51 AM UTC

Hmmm - advice for beginners that does not mention Python or Ruby but rather headlines with C++ (admittedly caveated)? Sorry, cannot endorse.

Re: How to Start Learning Computer Programming

#3

Post by wyclif » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 10:53 AM UTC

tragomaskhalos wrote: post #2

Hmmm - advice for beginners that does not mention Python or Ruby but rather headlines with C++ (admittedly caveated)? Sorry, cannot endorse.

It was written in 2008, so it's dated. But in point of fact, it does mention Python as an interpreted language.

Of far more concern than the datedness of it are the grammatical errors; this is a 5 year old blog post, so you'd think he'd have either noticed by now or a reader would have pointed them out (please, programmers— is it really so hard to learn the "its-it's" rule?). Now that's something that could have been done better.

Re: How to Start Learning Computer Programming

#4

Post by tweiss » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 11:07 AM UTC

It's amazing to see how little has changed over the last five years - the blog post is from 2008. I mean you would obviously pick Python or Ruby now, and use websites like Codecademy or Udacity. But the core message still applies: it's hard to learn to program and you will have to spend a lot of time on it. There are still no free rides. Makes be feel better about the long hours I've spent to learn to code.

Re: How to Start Learning Computer Programming

#5

Post by craftman » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 11:12 AM UTC

This is not about starting to learn computer programming, this is about starting to learn to get a "middle" job of programmer as proposed by persons who do not program themselves.

If you REALLY want to start learn computer programming look at Lisp or Smalltalk.

Re: How to Start Learning Computer Programming

#6

Post by jamin » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 11:37 AM UTC

To me this doesn't focus enough on why you should choose one language over the other. They all have their place depending on the type of applications you are going to be building.

Re: How to Start Learning Computer Programming

#7

Post by rahulroy » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 11:37 AM UTC

If you are going to use W3Schools, you're gonna have a bad time. http://w3fools.com/

Re: How to Start Learning Computer Programming

#8

Post by tluyben2 » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 12:29 PM UTC

I think he is mixing 'valuable/marketable skill' and 'programming' with his 90s comparison; it wasn't hard to learn programming in the 90s. It wasn't even hard in (most of) the 80s. There were BBSs which contained a wealth of information, there were tons of (disk based) magazines and there were free tools.

Most likely you wouldn't be learning something marketable perse, however you would learn programming in the same time as you do now. Actually I think maybe even more efficient as there weren't the HN post distractions :) Your computer would most likely not be connected (all the time) and multitasking wasn't very nicely implemented or even possible, so your computer meant either running games/software made by others or full focus on tinkering with Basic, assembly or some of the other languages out there at the time.

Re: How to Start Learning Computer Programming

#9

Post by marklit » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 12:42 PM UTC

The author of this probably grew up in an environment simular to mine in the 1990s. Among my peers and teachers, everything revolved around Microsoft. C$650 for Visual Basic Pro, Windows NT was the special platform that business used, 'real' databases cost a lot of money.

I really wish I could go back to those times and give the open source world more thought and attention. Free compilers, free databases and looking back at it, PERL would have been a lot more useful than Visual Basic.

I spent years developing OpenGL applications on WindowsNT. I wasn't very good at what I did and the market for my skills wasn't very broad.

Had I built a basic web app using HTML, Postgres and PERL I could have avoided a lot of time spent in jobs I did not enjoy very much.

In the summer of 2002 I was trying to focus on building my skills in C++ and OpenGL to a commercial-ready level. As a fun side project I built a mock airline ticket booking system in PHP. The side project got my a job in Germany and the rest is history.

Some languages and tools are more marketable than others.

Re: How to Start Learning Computer Programming

#10

Post by Kiro » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 1:19 PM UTC

rahulroy wrote: post #7

If you are going to use W3Schools, you're gonna have a bad time. http://w3fools.com/

The author mentions W3Schools in a footnote and you feel you have to refer to W3Fools. Give him a break.

FWIW I think the W3Schools PHP tutorial is one of the best out there. Straight to the point.