How did you start out a programmer? Advice for a beginner?

There are the bugs in the compilers sometimes.

 

The Turing machine can execute any algorithm,
the question is whether it would be optimal?

 

You should read the good books, but not just any books,
there are a must read books for every computer language.

http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/cbook/

 

Several years of hard work every day.

 

Thanks for all the info.

By the way, I don't think you should post 4 times in a row, maybe put it all together in 1 post.

 

It is a good style in programming to separate all logical units.

 

Not to start a flame, but a forum isn't a programming language. Next time you should just edit your previous post, otherwise it looks like you're post count spamming.

 

Any book on those topic would be a good start. Also, there are tons of resources for PHP & MYSQL on the internet.

Another option is to go to the microsoft website and download the FREE visual studio express. Its a great development tool that will actually help you along in your learning. There are alot of webcast tutorials on microsoft.com to help. I recently learned c#.NET and I really like it. Its alot like JAVA except it is microsoft's version. Whats cool about learning .NET is that once you learn it, you can build Web Applications and Windows Applications.

.NET is VERY hot in the job market right now!

 

Well I am not thinking about being a programmer as a job, but perhaps developing software.

Anyways, what is this Visual Studio Express? I heard people saying that I have my development tool on another computer, etc. etc. What are they used for?

 

Visual Studio is what's called an Integrated Development Environment (or IDE...if you really want to get into programming, get used to seeing TLA's). That phrase hearkens back to the old days.

Used to, when people developed software, they'd write the (human-readable) code in a text editor, exit the editor, run the compiler to convert the human-readable code into machine-readable 1's and 0's, then run a debugging program to step through that just like the computer does (only much slower) to see what's going wrong. (And there's *always* something wrong).

People finally [mostly] got tired of all those different tools. They figured it would be more efficient to roll everything up in one package. So somebody invented the IDE. That let them edit the code, click a button (or, back then, more likely, choosing some special key combination on the keyboard) to compile it, then hit some other special key to start debugging, looking at the copy of the source code they just got finished editing.

Visual Studio is Microsoft's IDE for its family of .NET languages. It does a lot more than just edit, compile, and debug. Many people (mainly .NET developers, oddly enough) insist that Visual Studio 2005 (the latest version) is the best IDE in the history of the world. That's open to debate, of course, but it is pretty slick.

Visual Studio Express is the free edition.

Whew.

Now, just so I don't get accused of post-spamming, I'm going to shift gears a little bit to the "How-To"

I'm not going to repeat it here, but here's a ridiculously long thread about learning how to be a programmer. I have a post about 3/4 of the way down with the subject "(continued) My Actual Thoughts and Advice" that sums up my opinions pretty well.

I've learned a few things since then. I was talking about old-school VB. VB.NET is a different kettle of fish (though the C# guys still tend to look down their noses at the VB guys). Iron Python has come out (that's a version of python for .NET), and it's pretty awesome. And I've found out that C# is definitely worth learning. I think I'd recommend learning it before C++. (Basically, anywhere in that post where I mention Java, you can put C#. They're pretty much exactly the same language.

Okay, one more topic change. I recommend sticking with marketing. Marketing people don't necessarily make as much money as programmers, but their jobs tend to be a lot more fun. (That is, if you enjoy things like free cruises and things like that).

 

Take a course and start a personal project. You will learn much more with a personal project then with 100 books. Use the books and internet as reference.

 

Taking a course vs. learning from a book...that depends on your own personal learning style. But the personal project(s) is(are) excellent suggestions. Programming really is something that you learn by doing.

Oh, and periodically go back and tweak your old projects to do something just a little better...just so you also get that experience.

 

I jumped straight in the deep end, tryed to make an online game... it did work but very badly!

I then read some books, and a ton of tutorials and over time i got to the level of knowledge i am at now

 

My hat's off to anyone whose first project was an online game, and they actually managed to make it work. No matter how badly. I'm impressed!

 

Hi, I am a programmer since 1984 and professionally since 1992. Basically I got started programming because I wanted to get infinate lives when playing games on my (!) Commodore 64... so I learned how to reset the computer so that the program was still in memory (Soft reset) and then I learned how to PEEK amongst the memory addresses which contained 3 (Three lives). Once I found the correct memory address I would POKE FF (Hexidecimal for 255) and then restart the game with 255 lives ... ah memories lol

Anyway, you have shown an interest which is a good start.

Here's some info from my experience:

You do not have to be a maths of physics genius (Unless you are doing doing full on game programming for ID Software).

Learn to think like a programmer then you will be able to program anything; Don't get too tied up on Syntax, obviously you will need to know the syntax of the languages you are using but learn the *concepts* behind programing (Specifically Object Orientated Programing, N-Tier and Descign Patterns <- Gang Of Four)

When you sit down to program ask yourself this question "Will I need to resuse this functionality again??" If so, place it into a seperate class library so you can reuse it again and again.

Do not re-invent the wheel, first see if there is some code you can appropriate for any given task (There might even be a nice library somewhere)

Unit tests are good, global variables bad

Do not learn to program using Visual Basic and drag and drop environments; that is not programming that is drag and drop. Once you know what is going on behind the scenes then by all means if you need to do a "quick and dirty" then drag and drop away.

There is more than one way to accomplish a given task so don't let your ego dictate your code and expect feedback from other programmers. Think of the poor sod who is going to have to maintain your code after you have left and write some *meaningful* comments. You do not have incorporate every algorithm you learnt at University when coding... KISS; Keep It Simple Stupid

If you can; follow this path re languages;

C --> C++ --> Java

then do whatever you want.. PHP/ C#

University does help but it's not all playing Quake and drinking coke. I probably gained more from University being in an environment where everyone was coding/ talking about code every waking hour than I did from my lectures. On that note, try and get a mentor or a traineeship/ internship somewhere even if it means working for free. Nothing like the commercial "We want it done yesterday" to cut your teeth

I hope this is of some help
Good luck
Markus

 

Hi, I am a college student (Computer Science major) and I have been interested in programming for so long. The thing is, that with the university programs it is a LOT more extensive than just programming languages. You learn about hardware and how to play with memory and stuff blah blah blah and all that before you get into coding. I didn't care too much for that. Just the programming itself

Just as stated above the syntax or language itself is secondary. Programming logic (thinking like a coder) is by far more important then the language itself.

I haven't taken any formal programming languages at my university yet (Except for Visual Basic), but I have learned some on my own.


I learned it in this order:
Visual basic ----> PHP

I take my first programming class next semester in the fall (but I, just like you wanted to learn a language IMMEDIATELY) and it goes like this:

Java -----> Next up is C++

I have programming videos for (let me know if you need them):

Visual Basic, Visual Basic.NET, C++, Visual C++, PHP/MYSQL, Javascript, ASP, Ruby on Rails, AJAX, HTML...

Once you learn one language, it is easier to pick up another. Especially C, C#, C++, and java. They are so similar.

Hence the username I am black and I am a coder lol


EDIT: Also, you will ALWAYS be learning new things with your chosen language as new versions and functions and syntax changes come out.

 

try to give more time to web languages like html , php and many more and also give your time to dp forum here u will get so much knowledge

 

i'm not a professional programmer but i m writing all me and my partners valuable scripts.
You can learn it yourself just read read read and read.analyse open source programs source codes and if you decided to learn c i suggest you to use linux like me.it helps so much to learn and also it has compilers of major programing languages.
You should learn c first , c is a system programing language and then try objet programming languages like c++ .
If you interested on database programming try delphi.
When you learn c it takes only a few days to learn php.
and java is so popular nowadays because its multi-os language, it works both linux and windows.
i hope you dont give up programing and try developing yourself ,this is the key don't give up the fight.

Cheers
~Bugra

 

Thanks for all the help. So for a beginner with little html/php knowledge what is the best language to start out with. I have a 25$ barnes and noble gift card waiting to be used. I heard most of you said to start out with C.

 

C is a good language to start with because it's simple enough for a beginner while at the same time it allows you to get a better sense of how things work at a lower level in regards to the computer. Most languages have similar syntax to C so when I was ready to move on to something different, I found it easier to pick up new languages. The lack of newer programming features in C means you will have to do a lot more work (especially with strings), but this gives you a better sense of how all the new stuff is done behind scenes. The advantage of this is that you don't just learn how to code, but you learn how to code efficiently.