Starting programming, please help out guys.

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Robvd

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Hi Guys

Ok I really need some help, I am currently working as a tier to remote engineer for a IT outsource company. I studied IT but more in the field of server management, also completed the MCITP course... anyway.. I want to start learning to program.
Is self study possible? I have downloaded quite a few books but I have noooo idea with what language to start?? I have googled..but its like a maize out there lol..i do not know where to start.
Could someone point me in the right direction..?
 
Get a copy of Sharpdeveloper, and a manual on C# (C Sharp) or Vb.net. both run on the .Net Framework and both are easy to get into. I gues you can teach yourself, but having somebody with knoloadge on the subject always helps when u hit a wall. also your going to want to learn to get a idea of how SQL works
 
OP You will get two types of answers here.

Java or .NET really makes no difference, once you learn generic programming concepts it is easy to learn new languages. I dont advise you to go C/C++ from the start as it may be a bit more advanced.

My personal favourite for learning languages is Java or Python. BUT since youre doing an MCITP just go the .NET route.
 
The only way you really learn how to code, is to code. ie. start with hello world. try something new, make a mistake, google the solution, carry on. Do this over and over until you get the hang of the language. If you dont know OO (Object Orientation) Principles (classes, functions, inheritance, variable scope, etc...), you best start with that (it will be in those books you got) because its the backbone of most popular languages today.

And yes, since you are down the MS path already, go with .NET / VB.NET
 
Robvd said:
Hi Guys

Ok I really need some help, I am currently working as a tier to remote engineer for a IT outsource company. I studied IT but more in the field of server management, also completed the MCITP course... anyway.. I want to start learning to program.
Is self study possible? I have downloaded quite a few books but I have noooo idea with what language to start?? I have googled..but its like a maize out there lol..i do not know where to start.
Could someone point me in the right direction..?
Click to expand...

Yes. Self-study is possible.
Start with anything you want... after all, you WANT to learn to program, not learn a language... right? (tip, there's a difference)
 
AcidRaZor said:
Yes. Self-study is possible.
Start with anything you want... after all, you WANT to learn to program, not learn a language... right? (tip, there's a difference)
Click to expand...
+1

But remember, you learn by doing. dont read a mass of content talking about programming before trying programming out, take baby steps, then when the time comes you can use all those little steps you learnt in one application if need be. Programming is one of the easier things to teach yourself, although i do know someone who self-studied his way into becoming a CA(SA)

It does sound like to me that he hasnt picked up any language whatsoever which is usually what happens when you learn programming :>
 
Programming is the easiest to learn, but the hard part is convincing your first employer that you are worth the risk despite having zero work experience.
 
zippy said:
Programming is the easiest to learn, but the hard part is convincing your first employer that you are worth the risk despite having zero work experience.
Click to expand...

If you have a project that you have done yourself, for this purpose, you'll have a much better chance of convincing that person. Alternaticely, get involved in open source projects. Both will give you crucial experience.
 
Yo,
The first thing you need to know and understand is problem solving
Once you grasped those concepts you ready for the next step...

e.g
Write down detailed instructions on Baking a cake
What you will learn from this is
declaration, condition, iteration etc...
you will then end up having a pseudo program/code/algorythm

after few exercise like this, it all will make sense...

I recommend smalltalk to start you off with, you will have an easier time grasping it than most seasond programmers as you wont go `wtf is this $h!+` your nutter at the moment is a blank canvass, lets make an oil painting or you can start with a paint by numbers approach, he he

Oh, and languages are just tools, using the best tool for the job is my approach...

Play nice,
Igs
 
I started it as a little hobby but soon stopped.

WRT object oriented languages it was pretty easy to get to know how the syntax works and what goes where. But the absolute writers block came when I had to move on from there and apply libraries to what I wanted to do. I just felt as though I had no freedom anymore and that is where I did not know where to start.

Perhaps because as a kid I had become quite involved with procedural languages like basic, where you really felt like you were creating every colour and bit (peek and poke :D) step by step and then telling it what to do from there.

I ended up just going a bit into html, php, mysql as that made the most sense for me and I could use it to make web based databases and sessions with encrypted passwords and other useful little projects.... without that much fuss.

With Object Oriented languages (and forgive me if I am wrong) but the greatest challenge is knowing what to bluddy use to do what you want to do. And it didn't seem viable (practically possible?) to create it yourself from scratch like in the old days.

Or did I get the wrong impression?
 
Bobbin said:
I started it as a little hobby but soon stopped.

WRT object oriented languages it was pretty easy to get to know how the syntax works and what goes where. But the absolute writers block came when I had to move on from there and apply libraries to what I wanted to do. I just felt as though I had no freedom anymore and that is where I did not know where to start.

Perhaps because as a kid I had become quite involved with procedural languages like basic, where you really felt like you were creating every colour and bit (peek and poke :D) step by step and then telling it what to do from there.

I ended up just going a bit into html, php, mysql as that made the most sense for me and I could use it to make web based databases and sessions with encrypted passwords and other useful little projects.... without that much fuss.

With Object Oriented languages (and forgive me if I am wrong) but the greatest challenge is knowing what to bluddy use to do what you want to do. And it didn't seem viable (practically possible?) to create it yourself from scratch like in the old days.

Or did I get the wrong impression?
Click to expand...

You are both right and wrong imo,

Youre right because it is a challenge knowing what tools to use, but that comes as part of the territory, these days most of the low level stuff are done for you, you dont need to make code to calculate the length of a string, you even dont have to know how a binary search tree works, because in java, that abstract datatype is given to you. alot of these new frameworks give you more time to focus on solving a problem at hand and you end up spending less time doing low level stuff.

You're wrong because expirience can make you realise what tools to use and when, you can most certainly use garden scissors to cut grass and shrubs, but if youre going to cut grass, rather use a weedeater or a lawnmower, use the garden scissors to cut shrubs instead. I think thats the best analogy I can give you. there are many ways to skin a cat (as the saying goes). you're also wrong because it sounds like to me you're talking about doing everything from the ground up and thats not the case anymore, last year i had a project, to render some 3D image. I had no OpenGL expirience, I had no expirience in 3D modelling and the likes but I managed to get the job done, why? because the lower levels of abstraction which go beyond my scope of comprehension have alreaddy been solved by someone else/team of people.

In short what im trying to say is, these days you can do more things in 10 lines of code than you could have done in 10 lines of code, say 10 years ago.
 
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