What kind of PC do i need to start programming

[Smajke22]

Well,recently i found interest in programming,i want to learn python and java.I was wondering if these specs could be used until i get something better.

I5.3470

1050 ti

8gb DDR3

240GB SSD

Thanks in advance i appreciate it.

[Slottr]

Starting out you won't make anything that uses more than a gigabyte of memory- probably no where even close to that. 

 

You could be on a raspberry pi and you'd be fine 

[RadiatingLight]

Totally fine. You can program on a raspbery pi.

Unless you get into huge intensive projects or android studio, you don't need anything powerful.

[Smajke22]

Thank you guys,any tips for a beginner?

How much should i spend a day,should i start with python...etc..

[nonsense42]

18 minutes ago, Smajke22 said:

Thank you guys,any tips for a beginner?

How much should i spend a day,should i start with python...etc..

python is recommended as the first language most of the time mostly because it has a lot of tools to help you out in the beginning  and it's a bit more intuitive than java.

 

i just recommend watching MIT open course ware, it gets the ball rolling pretty well 

[DevBlox]

Anything newer than 2007, that's with speed considerations. You can do something like C or Pascal (who even uses that anymore) basically on an even more ancient potato. Python will also work. Buy a cheap thing and go with it. You won't need anything faster any time soon.

[fringie]

On 3/13/2020 at 11:59 PM, Smajke22 said:

Thank you guys,any tips for a beginner?

How much should i spend a day,should i start with python...etc..

Consistency is what matters most imo. Good ethic to learn and a genuine interest in taking things to the next step (i.e. you learn something new so you decide to try it out in a different way, it might not work but you'll have learned something new). That being said everyone learns differently, just put in the effort and you'll be rewarded (Eventually).

[straight_stewie]

Strictly speaking the specs that you should target for a software development machine depend on exactly what type of project(s) you like to work on.

But I suspect that for your purposes right now anything with video output and a keyboard will work.

 

As for how much time you should spend programming each day, that's up to you and your schedule. A first or second semester university level intensity would be something like:

• One to two hours studying every other day, with breaks on weekends
• One to two individual hands on projects a week
• One group hands on project a week (if the course were to have a lab)
• One to three "large" individual projects every six months

As a hobby it's most likely that you'll learn the math, logic, and other tangential subjects as and when you need the specific knowledge you're looking for. Though you should, of course, feel free to study those subjects whenever and however you like.

 

Don't forget to study the history of computers once you're sufficiently interested in the field. The answers to many common questions are hidden directly in history.

On 3/13/2020 at 6:50 PM, Smajke22 said:

i want to learn python and java

I would, however, strongly recommend focusing on one language at first. Once you get a deep understanding of one language, it becomes significantly easier to learn a second language. That's because, and this is especially true of your first programming language, when you learn a language deeply you aren't really learning the language, you're learning how "programming" works, which takes away a good bit of the workload of learning a second language.

[KNG_HOLDY]

your build should be fine unless you want to programm something that might need emulation like android application for example

but even that could work

 

i used to have a i5 3750k with 8gb RAM and i was able to write games in unity and write & emulate android apps

so you should be fine

 

as @Slottr already pointed out - most of the stuff you do early one is so basic that you could run it on almost everything that supports the language you want to write in

 

i started learning programming in python and afterwards learned java then c then c ++ in university

if i would have to start again from zero i would prop tell myself to start with java

 

in java you can write procedural or object orianted just like in python

you should/could start simple and write prodcedural "scripts" to learn the basics (variables, functions, basic operation) and afterwards learn about object orianted (classes, structs)

 

i didnt learn coding because i wanted to learn it - i learned it because there where little thing i was annoyed off and i wanted to improve - like automatic some processes i didnt want to do every day. and that is what i would recommand for you aswell. my first programm for example was a bhop script for cs:s back in the days, then i wrote a script that coud turn off my routers wifi because i had shit internet back in the days and i didnt want to login and turn it off by hand every time i wanted to play games

and so on and so on

 

finding a project you like and just trying to implement it is way more fun then just learning to code because you see results that maybe impact your day to day processes and the whole process of learning doesnt feel like learning at all

 

"code to learn, dont learn to code"

[Guest]

I don’t like python but you can learn with that system. 

 

Spend as much time as you need with a good learning resource. 

[Smajke22]

Wow i didnt expect this much support and advice.

Blown away rly,my plan for 2020 is to at least learn 1 program and start with that,

Thank you so much guys i really appreciate it.

[jdfthetech]

I suggest you take this course.

This is an MIT course done by Eric Grissom.

It is an absolute banger for new students.

You can take the course for free, ungraded and without a cert.

You can elect to take it later and pay for a cert as well.

https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-to-computer-science-and-programming-7
 

[RocketJump]

On 3/13/2020 at 8:20 PM, nonsense42 said:

python is recommended as the first language most of the time mostly because it has a lot of tools to help you out in the beginning  and it's a bit more intuitive than java.

 

i just recommend watching MIT open course ware, it gets the ball rolling pretty well 

This is where I started back into 2015. Did a few months of Python then moved to Java for 6 months and finally ended up settling on Android Development.

[v3rtico]

The machine doesn't matter. You could start programming on pretty much anything. I got myself a nice gaming laptop when I started my computer sciences studies and through I noticed it's just totally overkill to carry that around all the time and now I use a Pixel C tablet (with the keyboard attached) ever since. 

[Dat Guy]

Java is annoyingly resource-hungry. Python is slow as well, but it works fine on low-resource computers.

[Franck]

40 minutes ago, Dat Guy said:

Java is annoyingly resource-hungry. Python is slow as well, but it works fine on low-resource computers.

Java itself is not resource hungry. The different IDE (Eclipse, Netbeans. etc) that i agree that they are insanely resource hungry.

[KNG_HOLDY]

3 hours ago, Dat Guy said:

Java is annoyingly resource-hungry. Python is slow as well, but it works fine on low-resource computers.

python is NOT slow theres some dude that tested c / c++ / c# / java / python / kotlin and python was one of the fastest languages

 

if i find it i will edit my post

 

and like franck already pointed out java is not resource hungry

[Dat Guy]

You cannot really control Java’s resource usage.

[Smajke22]

Who ever suggested MIT courses.Thank you for that.It has been really helpful in the beginning.

[Blade of Grass]

On 3/18/2020 at 12:50 PM, Dat Guy said:

You cannot really control Java’s resource usage.

In what way? You can tune the VM, GC, etc to perform exactly how you want.

[Pa1yn]

On 3/13/2020 at 11:50 PM, Smajke22 said:

Well,recently i found interest in programming,i want to learn python and java.I was wondering if these specs could be used until i get something better.

I5.3470

1050 ti

8gb DDR3

240GB SSD

Thanks in advance i appreciate it.

You really only need a computer that runs,  i learnt python on a raspberry pi zero

[lal12]

On 3/18/2020 at 5:48 PM, KNG_HOLDY said:

python is NOT slow theres some dude that tested c / c++ / c# / java / python / kotlin and python was one of the fastest languages

 

if i find it i will edit my post

No definitely not. The standard Python interpreter is pretty slow. If you found a benchmark where it was faster, this wasn't probably actual python code being executed. Instead for heavy computations Python just works as a glue language while the actual task is performed in native code (mostly written in C or C++).

 

Which does not mean Python is TOO slow for your project, in most cases you won't program CPU heavy applications (like e.g. image processing) anyway.

 

On 3/18/2020 at 3:01 PM, Franck said:

Java itself is not resource hungry. The different IDE (Eclipse, Netbeans. etc) that i agree that they are insanely resource hungry.

Well I mean it is always a relative question, but compared to e.g. python or especially a native program at least for small programs it will use like 5-100x more memory.

[lal12]

What language you should start with depends on what you want to learn. If you want to learn basic programming blocks and methods a higher level language is probably the better choice because you don't have to care about memory management or "complicated" ways of working with strings. Besides since higher level languages usually have much larger standard lib archieving something "great" and "fancy" is more easily and faster.

 

However some people make the argument that you don't really get to know what the computer actually does underneath. Knowing those basics is even important for a high level language if you want to do professional applications. Those things you will learn much better by starting with C. I personal think that in general starting off with a more high level language is a better choice and going more low level afterwards. But it might be even harder (for some people) to understand a low level language if they got used to a high level one, while the other way around will definitely be less of a hassle.

 

So if you have a good perseverance it could be worth it starting off with C. If you the type who wants to see some awesome result as soon as possible start off with a higher level language. Maybe even start with web development (and focus on the javascript part), since you will be able to get visual results even faster than with Python.

 

I am not really a fan of python and I don't really see why it recommend as a learner language, since there are many ways to doing something, which sometime it is hard to chose the best way from. (E.G. there are a dozend ways of working with arrays in python: array, lists, dictionary, tuples). I would recommend Javascript as a starting point. It has many concepts and things which will be confusing for other languages if not fully understood (event loop, async, closures...), however those are irrelevant for easy "getting started" programs anyway.

[Franck]

On 4/4/2020 at 8:45 PM, lal12 said:

I am not really a fan of python and I don't really see why it recommend as a learner language, since there are many ways to doing something, which sometime it is hard to chose the best way from. (E.G. there are a dozend ways of working with arrays in python: array, lists, dictionary, tuples). I would recommend Javascript as a starting point. It has many concepts and things which will be confusing for other languages if not fully understood (event loop, async, closures...), however those are irrelevant for easy "getting started" programs anyway.

The main reasons to start with Python over Javascript would be that Python syntax is safe. You can't type the same variable 5 ways and point to the same variable. You cannot (without knowing how to) change the type of the variable on the fly as a beginner. It's has an easier entry point into UI programming if you want to dip into it a little bit. To me it's just due to advantage of forcing better coding habits at least logic and syntax wise.

[lal12]

1 minute ago, Franck said:

The main reasons to start with Python over Javascript would be that Python syntax is safe. You can't type the same variable 5 ways and point to the same variable. You cannot (without knowing how to) change the type of the variable on the fly as a beginner. It's has an easier entry point into UI programming if you want to dip into it a little bit. To me it's just due to advantage of forcing better coding habits at least logic and syntax wise.

I am not 100% sure, but I think it not possible if you enable strict mode, which I would recommend in any case.