Beginning Programming

[Nothxkbi]

My brother wants to start programming and is asking me about it, to be honest I have absolutely no idea where to point him. I started years ago on VB/SQL and now working as .net web developer/sql data admin, most of what I know I've learned along the way. I'm so tempted to tell him to start studying vb.net or databases but is this a bit heavy for a newbie? Whats a reallly bottom of the range place to start off?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Flojo]

Do yourself a favour and research the archives of the GLUG and CLUG mailing lists. As this question has been asked MANY times.

From my point of view, everyone's mileage varies, as well as, it depends in which market you in or want to get into. For example, if you working for financial, you pretty much will be doing Java. More retail / corporate you looking at .NET. With these types, you inclined to earn pretty good cash, but I think too and feel you will be stumped in growth. If you work for a tech inclined company, I think you more inclined to play and learn more (for example where I am, we doing Ruby (which is the language I recommend to anyone)) and the cash is ok too.

Many years ago, for when I looked for guidance, I looked on careerjunction, and looked at what is the most sort after programmer. At that time, and I think still today, the answer was PHP. Think PHP still is today, but I personally think its crap. and with that I recommend stay from that. If you want your brother to be a PROGRAMMER, then look at Ruby, Python, (sad to say this ), Java and C#.

my 2c and all the best.

 

[froot]

As above, yes, it depends exactly what he wants to go into.
Currently the best paying and most requested programming jobs are C# and Java. C# both for Windows Forms and Web development.
I'm currently working in a PHP/mysql environment but am slowly picking up my C# .NET bits again to move to that, but PHP is still a much sough-after and well paid direction.

 

[HavocXphere]

Tell him to download the express edition of visual studio of the MS website. Free & you can download it over local cap.

C# is nice, especially the newer versions. 2008 and 2010. Its also a mainstream IDE...so the chances of it being dead by the time he enters the job market are slim.

 

[froot]

Tell him to download the express edition of visual studio of the MS website. Free & you can download it over local cap.

C# is nice, especially the newer versions. 2008 and 2010. Its also a mainstream IDE...so the chances of it being dead by the time he enters the job market are slim.

Hmm true that. The technologies are killed-off about every 10 years or so (.NET 3.5 started ~2yrs ago, will be retired in about 8 years).

 

[guest2013-1]

Any course he can take in .net or databases will be for n00bs... so if he doesn't have the drive to learn (and teach) himself, and find a junior position to further his work experience and knowledge, it's a good idea to give some money to some people who would most likely teach him some basics and leave him with the false sense of "I can like to program nowz"

 

[guest2013-1]

Hmm true that. The technologies are killed-off about every 10 years or so (.NET 3.5 started ~2yrs ago, will be retired in about 8 years).

I know several companies still maintaining VB5/6 applications, only recently starting to rewrite them as the ROI of the initial programs have reached their respective points. There's also a lot of folk who do classic ASP still and have API calls to their applications happen through Web Services and AJAX etc. Not everything or all technologies get killed-off every 10 years or so. There will always be room for well-written well-executed well-planned code, regardless of what technology it's written in.

 

[cybersect [clone of Skeptik]]

Double post. Shows how good your "code" must be. Oh, that's right, you only pretend to code. There is no real evidence on acidrazor.com, every link points to 3 or 4 copy pasted articles.

Oh well.

I know several companies still maintaining VB5/6 applications, only recently starting to rewrite them as the ROI of the initial programs have reached their respective points. There's also a lot of folk who do classic ASP still and have API calls to their applications happen through Web Services and AJAX etc. Not everything or all technologies get killed-off every 10 years or so. There will always be room for well-written well-executed well-planned code, regardless of what technology it's written in.

 

[Sylas]

Double post. Shows how good your "code" must be. Oh, that's right, you only pretend to code. There is no real evidence on acidrazor.com, every link points to 3 or 4 copy pasted articles.

Oh well.

That right there is probably the most malicious post I have ever read on these boards. And that's saying a lot, seeing as I troll the PD section regularly.

 

[froot]

Double post. Shows how good your "code" must be. Oh, that's right, you only pretend to code. There is no real evidence on acidrazor.com, every link points to 3 or 4 copy pasted articles.

Oh well.

Evidently you don't know mister AcidRaZor


True, not everything gets killed-off, but then again I was referring to the technology name or whatever a more suitable name might be - the new one simply adds on new advances to the previous ones.

 

[semaphore]

Any course he can take in .net or databases will be for n00bs... so if he doesn't have the drive to learn (and teach) himself, and find a junior position to further his work experience and knowledge, it's a good idea to give some money to some people who would most likely teach him some basics and leave him with the false sense of "I can like to program nowz"

Im pretty sure thats what the OP is asking acid, he is beginner or as you refer to them as "noobs",so any sort of formal training would be advantageous.

Noth, it depends on the individual and how they want to learn, it also depends on his age. If he is young he can then take it as a core into varsity if he is past that stage. A training place would be good, they wont teach him hardcore programming, but will lay the foundations for him to understand the tools at hand. That is where most people fail, they load up the environment and **** there pants with all the buttons and layouts,so my suggestion would be determine what he seems interested in,

Flojo, PHP is not crap its actually extremely powerful. Granted there is not a huge demand in this country, but overseas its extremely popular and always good to have on a resume, if at any point you decided to jump ship. I would choose php over asp.net for web development any day, and i did asp.net web dev for 6 years. PHP is so much faster than asp.net will ever be.

Ruby is awesome, but almost zero use in this country, python is also extremely limited, so i wouldnt go near those. Java,C#,VB.net are your best bets.

 

[guest2013-1]

Im pretty sure thats what the OP is asking acid, he is beginner or as you refer to them as "noobs",so any sort of formal training would be advantageous.

Yep, that and "If he has the drive to" was where I was getting at. However, with the latter he'd probably have taught himself a little by now already, as there are many free GUI's on the net that can get him going. Petrolhead was advertising for a n00b to join his team, only matric required, and I reckon that might be the best way to learn *if* he has the drive

Double post. Shows how good your "code" must be. Oh, that's right, you only pretend to code. There is no real evidence on acidrazor.com, every link points to 3 or 4 copy pasted articles.

Oh well.

Huh? Where is the evidence you know anything you do? However, you prove to me on an almost daily basis that you're a moron... but other than that. Where is YOUR proof?

Like I told your moronic meandering in another post-reply when you felt you had to attack me for no reason... I don't need to prove anything to you, nor do I want to and I even if you're some kind of prospective client or employer, I'd tell you to "Go **** yourself" to your face. So seeing as though the internet gave you this false sense of "I can do and say whatever I want becaus he can't hurt me". I'd have to settle for typing this to you: Go **** yourself

 

[Raithlin]

Double post. Shows how good your "code" must be. Oh, that's right, you only pretend to code. There is no real evidence on acidrazor.com, every link points to 3 or 4 copy pasted articles.

Oh well.

That's quite enough of that, Cybersect. Not the first time you're attacking AcidRaZor - who has built up a good reputation in this forum. If you think his site is bad, you should look at mine. :erm: The old adage of a plumber's own pipes always leaking holds true.

Back to the topic at hand: I agree that either C# of Java will work - but C# is easier on the beginner. YMMV indeed - I work in C# in the financial sector, while I've seen Java (and SAP :spit: ) being used in the manufacturing sector. PHP is also a good language, but you need to have a passion for the web to make that work - you don't just learn PHP, but also Javascript, HTML, CSS etc. to make it really work.

 

[froot]

That's quite enough of that, Cybersect. Not the first time you're attacking AcidRaZor - who has built up a good reputation in this forum. If you think his site is bad, you should look at mine. :erm: The old adage of a plumber's own pipes always leaking holds true.

Back to the topic at hand: I agree that either C# of Java will work - but C# is easier on the beginner. YMMV indeed - I work in C# in the financial sector, while I've seen Java (and SAP :spit being used in the manufacturing sector. PHP is also a good language, but you need to have a passion for the web to make that work - you don't just learn PHP, but also Javascript, HTML, CSS etc. to make it really work.

+1 on the php stuff. I have found that knowing PHP but not the rest of the crew is completely useless on its own.
I would, if I were you, definitely take a look at doing C#. A very very good start, from a principles perspective, is to take a brief look at C++..... yes it's tough, but being the most stable programming language out there, and the most versatile, you also learn a lot about the gritty stuff such as memory management and writing both reusable and clean code.

 

[HavocXphere]

Shows how good your "code" must be. Oh, that's right, you only pretend to code. There is no real evidence on acidrazor.com, every link points to 3 or 4 copy pasted articles.

lol. Baseless insults by noob vs Rep of forum regular. You do realize that 90% of the people reading that will think you're an idiot, right?