Getting into Programming

[Lancer14711]

Recently I have been looking into programming, and would like to give it a crack.

 

Anyone out there have any suggestions as to the best one to learn for a beginner, or any tutorials?

 

 

Before anyone jumps in and says don't, it's waste of time etc, I would like to make that decision myself.

 

Cheers.

[Drown]

Before anyone jumps in and says don't, it's waste of time etc, I would like to make that decision myself.

 

Why would anyone say "don't"?

 

 

Anyone out there have any suggestions as to the best one to learn for a beginner, or any tutorials?

 

Best what, languages? It depends on what you want to do. Websites, web apps, standalone applications, scripts/mods for videogames, a complete videogame, etc.

I'm sure a lot of people will recommand you Python right away, but I'd like to know what you intend to do. There's no point recommanding languages (ex: C++) when what you want to do won't use that language. (ex:websites)

[Epis]

Codeacademy is a great place to start if you don't know anything about programming. Just keep in mind that different languages are used for different purposes, as Drown said.

[Lancer14711]

Why would anyone say "don't"?

 

 

 

Best what, languages? It depends on what you want to do. Websites, web apps, standalone applications, scripts/mods for videogames, a complete videogame, etc.

I'm sure a lot of people will recommand you Python right away, but I'd like to know what you intend to do. There's no point recommanding languages (ex: C++) when what you want to do won't use that language. (ex:websites)

 

A couple of mates have told me it's a waste of time.

 

But i would like to make scripts or something similar.

 

I learnt some HTML and CSS in my IT class a few years back but that isn't what I really want to do, plus I don't think using Dreamweaver was a great way to teach HTML or CSS.

[alpenwasser]

A couple of mates have told me it's a waste of time.

They're wrong.

But i would like to make scripts or something similar.

There are quite a few scripting languages around. Perl, Python, Ruby, PHP

and surely many more which escape my mind at the moment.

PHP is very popular for web development, and there are a ton of beginner-

friendly tutorials out there (try Youtube, for example). Python as well.

Ruby doesn't seem to have spread quite as far (yet), but I've heard good

things about it, so maybe it's worth a shot.

I really love Perl, but have found that beginner-friendly information is

a bit hard to come by, so if you start out with that, you'll probably

make slower progress.

In general, once you've picked up your first language, learning more languages

will be far easier than learning the first one was, unless we're talking

about some really exotic stuff, so if it turns out that you don't really

like your first language or that it's not suited for what you want to do,

switching to something else won't be that difficult (and if you're serious

about programming, in the long run you should learn several languages

anyway).

I learnt some HTML and CSS in my IT class a few years back but that isn't what I really want to do, plus I don't think using Dreamweaver was a great way to teach HTML or CSS.

Yeah, Dreamweaver is comfy and all that, but it hides a lot of the underlying

workings. Personally I stick to text editor + browser for making websites.

[AustinB]

Codeacademy is a great place to start if you don't know anything about programming. Just keep in mind that different languages are used for different purposes, as Drown said.

I disagree, everything on there has to be almost perfect.