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Programming : Where to Start

renchy_is_sketchy

So im about to finish 9th grade , i dont know what that is in America but from what i found im a senior right now...? And when i finish 9th grade i would like to go on further to study programming.

I thought it would be a good headstart to learn a couple of simple (or not so simple) languages from the web. Right now ive found a couple of youtube videos teaching python and i intend to watch them a couple of times and follow it step by step but i dont know if thats a good starting point. Thats why i made this post to ask if that is a good idea , and maybe you could also suggest me another starting language rather than python.

Heres one of the videos i intend to learn from , considering the good feedback in the comment section

I understand it might be really hard to suggest me new things since you cant just put all of the information in one sentence , so its fine if i dont get any suggestions.

 

Thank You!

 

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I started out with C# and then moved on to Java. Python is the start i was recomended but disregarded :P Python is a good place to start, it can do a lot of useful things and gets you into the programming thinking. Once you learn one language fairly well its pretty easy to move on as you understand the logic

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3 minutes ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

I started out with C# and then moved on to Java. Python is the start i was recomended but disregarded :P Python is a good place to start, it can do a lot of useful things and gets you into the programming thinking. Once you learn one language fairly well its pretty easy to move on as you understand the logic

 

Same here , this is what I learnt while i was back at college!

 

One place that i think is really good ( from my experience ) is a website called hackerrank. Its got a bunch of resources for you to read and a bunch of easy challenges that you can program right from your browser

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21 minutes ago, renchy_is_sketchy said:

Thank You!

If you want to be a programmer as a career, then stick with the professional languages, C/C++, Java (a terrible language really, but very popular), COBOL for all the mainframes still out there that won't die, Fortran  or R for scientific work.

 

If you are looking for "fun" languages for your own edification, then Ruby, Python, Rust.

NOTE: I no longer frequent this site. If you really need help, PM/DM me and my e.mail will alert me. 

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14 minutes ago, Quagmaire said:

 

Same here , this is what I learnt while i was back at college!

 

One place that i think is really good ( from my experience ) is a website called hackerrank. Its got a bunch of resources for you to read and a bunch of easy challenges that you can program right from your browser

 

20 minutes ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

I started out with C# and then moved on to Java. Python is the start i was recomended but disregarded :P Python is a good place to start, it can do a lot of useful things and gets you into the programming thinking. Once you learn one language fairly well its pretty easy to move on as you understand the logic

Thank you , ill consider a diffrent language and ill check that webpage out!

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1 minute ago, Radium_Angel said:

If you want to be a programmer as a career, then stick with the professional languages, C/C++, Java (a terrible language really, but very popular), COBOL for all the mainframes still out there that won't die, Fortran  or R for scientific work.

 

If you are looking for "fun" languages for your own edification, then Ruby, Python, Rust.

Yeah , thats what i was thinking , but people said its hard starting out with C++ , so i want to learn the basics first and then ill definetly look into the proffesional languages. Thanks!

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Python is great. Many universities teach it. 

 

As a real life example, my friend is really smart and is studying physics. He took a Java course & was completely lost. Now he’s taking python ONLINE and he’s loving programming. 

 

Its simple, easy, cross platform, powerful & used professionally. You can get a job using python. 

Theres a difference between 2.7 and 3 which are the 2 standards at the moment. 

 

Definitely stick with it! If you want to learn a second language, go ahead and learn a bit when you understand functions, objects, arrays & dynamic arrays. That’s the level I think one should be at before saying “maybe I want to just try a second language.” 

 

C, C++ (there’s a difference), C#, Java & HTML/CSS/JavaScript/PHP suit are great “upgrade” languages. They’re not objectively better though. 

 

They all do different things so depending on what you want to do, you may use different languages. 

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Just now, fpo said:

Python is great. Many universities teach it. 

 

As a real life example, my friend is really smart and is studying physics. He took a Java course & was completely lost. Now he’s taking python ONLINE and he’s loving programming. 

 

Its simple, easy, cross platform, powerful & used professionally. You can get a job using python. 

Theres a difference between 2.7 and 3 which are the 2 standards at the moment. 

 

Definitely stick with it! If you want to learn a second language, go ahead and learn a bit when you understand functions, objects, arrays & dynamic arrays. That’s the level I think one should be at before saying “maybe I want to just try a second language.” 

 

C, C++ (there’s a difference), C#, Java & HTML/CSS/JavaScript/PHP suit are great “upgrade” languages. They’re not objectively better though. 

 

They all do different things so depending on what you want to do, you may use different languages. 

Wow , thank you! 

Do you know from where your friend learned programming online?

Thanks again for the info.

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35 minutes ago, renchy_is_sketchy said:

Yeah , thats what i was thinking , but people said its hard starting out with C++ , so i want to learn the basics first and then ill definetly look into the proffesional languages. Thanks!

C++ is tough if you know nothing about programing. It's hard for beginner.

 

Java, C#, Python, Javascript are written much closer to the written english and feel more natural for beginners format wise plus a lot less overhead as most things like memory management are already handle for you.

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Start with HTML, expand with CSS, after that go te PHP and JavaScript route, then learn Ajax, Node, Bootstrap, XML. And then add some simple and advanced SQL.

That way you'll know the stuff to get a job a lot easier than anyone else in IT. Web application development is the most widespread requirement.

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36 minutes ago, renchy_is_sketchy said:

Wow , thank you! 

Do you know from where your friend learned programming online?

Thanks again for the info.

His university. 

 

Though codecademy.com is another great free starting place. However you’re good with YouTube videos if you get the concepts. 

 

Username @Erik Sieghart Gave me this list of coding challenges which may give you some guidance in “now what?”

Spoiler

1) Hello, world!
2) Print out your name and age which if you feed to the program.

3) Monty Hall Simulator. Should store statistics.

4) Create a dice roller program. Input should be in the format like 2d6, where 2 is the number of dice, and 6 is how many sides it has.

5) User can write into a file and save it through the console.

6) Tic-tac-toe (GUI required) game. Should store statistics.

7) Create a SQL database for storing inventory, say computer parts.

? Create a GUI for interacting with the database. Should be able to add new inventory items, delete actual inventory, and move inventory from one location to another. Make sure to use DataAdapters.

 

I’d ask how to install an IDE or run python as personally I never did it & I had trouble when I first tried as i didn’t understand it. But if you’ve already got it running you’re fine. I don’t want the install to block your entry as it did me. One reason I use C# XD

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1 hour ago, renchy_is_sketchy said:

Yeah , thats what i was thinking , but people said its hard starting out with C++ , so i want to learn the basics first and then ill definetly look into the proffesional languages. Thanks!

If you want to *really* start with the err...basics...start with BASIC (I believe there is a free version called Visual Basic) and get your core programming concepts down. Then move to Pascal (although no longer used, it forces proper programming techniques) and go from there. Of course, you could go all out and learn Assembly, the language of the machine itself, like I did, but it takes many decades of therapy to expunge it from your brain?

NOTE: I no longer frequent this site. If you really need help, PM/DM me and my e.mail will alert me. 

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I'm in the camp that if you're just starting off with programming, don't get so hung up on what language to learn, but rather learn the basic concepts of programming itself.

 

I also advise reading about how to write readable code. The art of writing code isn't so much how to describe what you want the computer to do, it's how to describe what you want the computer to do to other people, including yourself. If you have $20 to spare, I'd recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/Art-Readable-Code-Practical-Techniques/dp/0596802293

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1 hour ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

I'm in the camp that if you're just starting off with programming, don't get so hung up on what language to learn, but rather learn the basic concepts of programming itself.

 

I also advise reading about how to write readable code. The art of writing code isn't so much how to describe what you want the computer to do, it's how to describe what you want the computer to do to other people, including yourself. If you have $20 to spare, I'd recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/Art-Readable-Code-Practical-Techniques/dp/0596802293

I'll check it out!

Thank you.

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I learned from youtube myself. It is totally fine. Although afterward, you should get yourself a programming book for good mastery. 

Sudo make me a sandwich 

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12 hours ago, renchy_is_sketchy said:

So im about to finish 9th grade , i dont know what that is in America but from what i found im a senior right now...? And when i finish 9th grade i would like to go on further to study programming. 

I recently tried CodeCademy's Computer Science with Python path. It's a pro course, so it's a little expensive, but if you make sure to put in a good 2 hours a day or so starting the day you sign up then you can get through it during the free trial.

It is about equivalent to what my Intro to Programming I and II courses in university were, so if you're brand new to programming, and just want to start with something easy that's also extremely usable in the real world, I would strongly recommend doing that course during the free trial.

ENCRYPTION IS NOT A CRIME

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I started with c++ and loved it, its functional, procedural, object oriented, etc. I have a lot of fun using c++ to learn right now. I also think c++ is very easy to read, especially if you done use namespaces all the time. 

 

Id rather type out and read out "std::cout" than "cout"

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21 hours ago, 191x7 said:

Start with HTML, expand with CSS, after that go te PHP and JavaScript route, then learn Ajax, Node, Bootstrap, XML. And then add some simple and advanced SQL.

That way you'll know the stuff to get a job a lot easier than anyone else in IT. Web application development is the most widespread requirement.

HTML and CSS isn't really programming. It's more front-end design. 

And you won't get a job easier than anyone else because it really depends on the kind of job. If you want to do complex back-end coding then none if this stuff is usefull (Except SQL) because most of them use C#, Java, C++, etc. 

 

For the OP: It really depends what kind of knowledge you already have.

If you already can think logically (if, else, etc) then I would advise to go with C# or Java.

If you are really new to it then you could start with Python.

I would advise you to stay away from C++ in the beginning because it's quite hard to begin with. C# is a bit like C++ but with C# a lot of things are already programmed for you. 

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16 hours ago, wasab said:

I learned from youtube myself. It is totally fine. Although afterward, you should get yourself a programming book for good mastery. 

Thank you , thats really good info since thats what im thinking about

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15 hours ago, straight_stewie said:

I recently tried CodeCademy's Computer Science with Python path. It's a pro course, so it's a little expensive, but if you make sure to put in a good 2 hours a day or so starting the day you sign up then you can get through it during the free trial.

It is about equivalent to what my Intro to Programming I and II courses in university were, so if you're brand new to programming, and just want to start with something easy that's also extremely usable in the real world, I would strongly recommend doing that course during the free trial.

Wow , this looks like really good... My top 1 right now probably the 2nd being youtube. 

Thank you so much ! 

Edit : Just checking if i understood you right. Youre telling me that i can get through this course with just the free trial? If so im going straight for it.

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6 hours ago, duncannah said:

Don't stick with python for too long 

Will do , its like a foundation to me , if that makes sense. 

Thank you

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4 hours ago, LUUD18 said:

HTML and CSS isn't really programming. It's more front-end design. 

And you won't get a job easier than anyone else because it really depends on the kind of job. If you want to do complex back-end coding then none if this stuff is usefull (Except SQL) because most of them use C#, Java, C++, etc. 

 

For the OP: It really depends what kind of knowledge you already have.

If you already can think logically (if, else, etc) then I would advise to go with C# or Java.

If you are really new to it then you could start with Python.

I would advise you to stay away from C++ in the beginning because it's quite hard to begin with. C# is a bit like C++ but with C# a lot of things are already programmed for you. 

Thank you , ill keep that in mind!

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47 minutes ago, renchy_is_sketchy said:

Edit : Just checking if i understood you right. Youre telling me that i can get through this course with just the free trial? If so im going straight for it.

The free trial is 7 days long. There are 14 sections. Each section should take 30 minutes to an hour to complete. I averaged about one hour, 45 minutes per day (two sections per day) and was able to complete it on the last day of the trial. However, I already had some python experience that just hadn't been exercised in a few years, so YMMV. In either case, if you can complete two sections per day then you can do it during the free trial.

ENCRYPTION IS NOT A CRIME

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2 hours ago, straight_stewie said:

The free trial is 7 days long. There are 14 sections. Each section should take 30 minutes to an hour to complete. I averaged about one hour, 45 minutes per day (two sections per day) and was able to complete it on the last day of the trial. However, I already had some python experience that just hadn't been exercised in a few years, so YMMV. In either case, if you can complete two sections per day then you can do it during the free trial.

wow thanks

About the going straight for it part , i think im gonna wait till spring break so theres no school , especially with exams coming up theres just too much going on at one time. 

But ill defiently do this course thank you.

 

 

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