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Looking to learn a bit about programming...


Guest Rob

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But I have no idea where to start. Two main questions:

 

What are good programming languages to learn?

How do I learn them?

 

I need something fairly basic to start out with. I've looked at tutorials for things like Perl and Python, but they all look like a good knowledge of coding is needed to be able to even use the tutorial.

I'm fairly experienced with computers, so I should be able to handle myself if I can get a hold of a decent learning guide. I just don't know where to start.

 

Oh, I usually use either Windows 7 or Linux.

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You can either buy a book, do an online tutorial, or just mess around with the code, Googling as necessary. I learned Visual Basic and a bit of Python from a book, so I'd recommend that route. I'm in a Java class atm without a book and it sucks.

 

That's an interesting comment about Python, since that language is designed to be "easy":

Python is a general-purpose' date=' high-level programming language[11] whose design philosophy emphasizes code readability.[12] Python claims to combine "remarkable power with very clear syntax",[13] and its standard library is large and comprehensive.

 

As for languages, I personally like VB (haters gunna hate). C is pretty useful, along with Java. Though really it depends on what you want to do.

Working on max and completionist capes.

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Moving this to the Programming subforum as it's probably a bit more suited there.

 

Personally I'd recommend Python to start with. It's simple for beginners but can do some really powerful stuff if you know how to use it.

 

I don't have any tutorials offhand but try and do some work with the following topics:

 

Variable Types

If Statements

While Loops

For Loops

Modules

Creating Functions

Lists

 

Once you get a good grasp of the fundamentals you can start looking into some more difficult stuff and a lot of the things you learn (loops, boolean algebra) can be applied to other languages.

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I had tried learning java before taking my first programming course, but had no luck getting anywhere. Now if someone had told me about IDE's, I could've had a better chance.

I've used Eclipse, it's simple to use and free:

http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/

 

Oracle has good tutorials on java:

http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/getStarted/intro/index.html

 

Best to start with Hello world, once you've got that working move on to slowly editing the code piece by piece into more complicated things.

variable types->a simple method->loops->arrays/ other containers-> getting input from keyboard-> etc etc

 

and you should get a book, for reference if not anything else. Most stuff you can find on the web, but it's nice to have something you can get your hands on.

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I personally started with Java, but I didn't really have much of a choice :P It seemed easy enough to grasp. Maybe a little daunting since I learned it extremely fast-paced and not in my own time, but I managed. Whichever language you start with, I think you probably just have to dig around a bit until you find a tutorial that's aimed at beginners.

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If you're looking for a good "learning language" you can always try doing web stuff. HTML isn't really a programming language, but it bridges into stuff like Javascript; it's really easy to learn, and there are tons of tutorials out there.

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"It's not a rest for me, it's a rest for the weights." - Dom Mazzetti

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Starting with web stuff is actually a great idea. Having that foundation helped me tremendously when I started learning Java. It's easy to see the similarities in syntax and logic.

 

Maybe you could start with HTML & CSS, move into JavaScript/jQuery, and then go into PHP (or something else like Perl, apparently PHP is pretty similar to Perl).

 

If you're having trouble jumping straight into programming languages, ^ that would be a good way to start. W3Schools has some pretty good information on all those languages for beginners.

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- 99 fletching | 99 thieving | 99 construction | 99 herblore | 99 smithing | 99 woodcutting -

- 99 runecrafting - 99 prayer - 125 combat - 95 farming -

- Blog - DeviantART - Book Reviews & Blog

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I've already learned a bit about HTML last year and I think I remember it fairly well. I'll probably start out with Java, and then possibly progress to another language over a bit of time. Thanks!

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Make sure to learn the basic stuff - variable types, lists, conditionals, loops, functions - really well; it's easy to learn a new programming language once you know the basics, as they all are pretty much the same.

 

And make sure to learn to use comments in your code, otherwise it gets unreadable easily. Learned this the hard way myself... <_<

 

Good luck!

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Honestly, I would recommend starting with a language like C. Learn it inside and outside. When you know it really well then progress to other languages. C is somewhat a hard language but if you master it and its concepts, programming in other languages will simple.

 

The main thing for you really though I guess is, the language doesnt really matter. Learn HOW to program first. Get the thought process into your head and learning any language will be simple.

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  • 8 months later...

I would recommend books, sample programs, tutorials.

 

You should check out the followings:

- http://stackoverflow.com/questions/194812/list-of-freely-available-programming-books (Here you can find a lot of programming books)

- http://www.voip-sip-sdk.com/p_267-c-net-softphone-voip.html (A sample program in Visual C++.Net but there are other ones as well)

- http://www.w3schools.com/ (Online Webtutorials)

 

Hope this information will help you.

 

Good luck for your future plans.

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I would recommend books, sample programs, tutorials.

 

You should check out the followings:

- http://stackoverflow.com/questions/194812/list-of-freely-available-programming-books (Here you can find a lot of programming books)

- http://www.voip-sip-sdk.com/p_267-c-net-softphone-voip.html (A sample program in Visual C++.Net but there are other ones as well)

- http://www.w3schools.com/ (Online Webtutorials)

 

Hope this information will help you.

 

Good luck for your future plans.

 

I'd caution against using w3schools: http://w3fools.com/

polvCwJ.gif
"It's not a rest for me, it's a rest for the weights." - Dom Mazzetti

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