Programming idea

[Antoon45]

Hey everyone!

 

I want to start programming, any tips or or ideas for what language I could start learning? And what are some good ways to learn like short and easy programs? Or simple games maybe?

 

Side question: What language did you guys start learning when you started? 

 

 

 

[Rohime]

Pascal - always been the best first language to learn ... 

 

But seriously ... 

What "Language" to learn first depends mostly on what you are planning to do / programme.

 

There are no many different flavours of "programming" i doubt i could describe where to start?

COBOL vs Ruby on Rails? - depends on use case.

CLIST vs Python?

ISPF vs CSS?

SOAP vs json?

blah vs blah blah ... 

 

Short answer ... There will never be only one !

 

For a more sensible answer - What is it that you want to do / create / achieve from programming?

[jj9987]

I would suggest starting out in Python, which is really easy to learn and is quite widely used. You can also use different additional tools like Tkinter for GUI and Pygame for games.

[Antoon45]

9 minutes ago, Rohime said:

Pascal - always been the best first language to learn ... 

 

But seriously ... 

What "Language" to learn first depends mostly on what you are planning to do / programme.

 

There are no many different flavours of "programming" i doubt i could describe where to start?

COBOL vs Ruby on Rails? - depends on use case.

CLIST vs Python?

ISPF vs CSS?

SOAP vs json?

blah vs blah blah ... 

 

Short answer ... There will never be only one !

 

For a more sensible answer - What is it that you want to do / create / achieve from programming?

Thanks for the informative answer I'll keep that in mind!

And I would like to get into app developing is Java a recommended language for that? Or should I consider any other language? 

[Antoon45]

3 minutes ago, jj9987 said:

I would suggest starting out in Python, which is really easy to learn and is quite widely used. You can also use different additional tools like Tkinter for GUI and Pygame for games.

I've heard that Python is a good starting language I have never just looked in to it. Thanks for the answer.

[vorticalbox]

9 minutes ago, jj9987 said:

I would suggest starting out in Python, which is really easy to learn and is quite widely used. You can also use different additional tools like Tkinter for GUI and Pygame for games.

 

 

4 minutes ago, Antoon45 said:

I've heard that Python is a good starting language I have never just looked in to it. Thanks for the answer.

Python is a good language for two main reasons. It's syntax is almost english for example

#for loop in python
for i in range(10):
	#code is here
	print(i)

#csharpd for loop
for(int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
{
   console.writeline(i);
}

and that it is an Object Orientated language.

[Antoon45]

I will take a better look into Python I might give it a try, thank you! 

[Rohime]

4 hours ago, Antoon45 said:

I will take a better look into Python I might give it a try, thank you! 

As good as any ... but potentially limiting to scripting type outcomes.

Also learn all about git (and github maybe) as quickly as you can.

Also learn all about "Integrated Development Environments (IDE's)" as quickly as you can.

 

As you learn the coding structure and capability of Python you will then (probably) want to add knowledge of Data management (XML structures and SQL queries) and also Presentation capabilities PHP, CSS, html, etc.

 

Being able to deploy the developed applications (which is actually a completely separate skill set) will soon lead you to LAMP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAMP_(software_bundle) and tools like Jenkins - with additional language requirements.

 

Have fun.   There is so much more in being able to get an application running than just the coding ... 

[straight_stewie]

5 hours ago, Antoon45 said:

I want to start programming, any tips or or ideas for what language I could start learning? And what are some good ways to learn like short and easy programs? Or simple games maybe?

I hate to be that guy, but your signature says: "Huge passion for coding and gaming."

In either case, there a few good first languages for what you want to do (each has specific use cases for your scenario):

• Java - cross platform app development
• C# - Windows app development
• Python - cross platform app development
• C++ - Slightly difficult cross platform app development
• C - Very difficult cross platform app development.

Out of all of these languages, C# by far has the best online support and documentation (in my opinion). Microsoft goes to great lengths to provide such things. That being said, out of all of these languages, python is probably the easiest to use (and it is actually somewhat common in the professional world).

My official recommendation is python.

[AlTech]

1 hour ago, Rohime said:

As good as any ... but potentially limiting to scripting type outcomes.

Also learn all about git (and github maybe) as quickly as you can.

Also learn all about "Integrated Development Environments (IDE's)" as quickly as you can.

 

As you learn the coding structure and capability of Python you will then (probably) want to add knowledge of Data management (XML structures and SQL queries) and also Presentation capabilities PHP, CSS, html, etc.

 

Being able to deploy the developed applications (which is actually a completely separate skill set) will soon lead you to LAMP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAMP_(software_bundle) and tools like Jenkins - with additional language requirements.

 

Have fun.   There is so much more in being able to get an application running than just the coding ... 

Just my observations -> With programmers, there's 2 types.  The Web Devs and the App/Program devs for lack of a better word. There are developers who love web technology and then there are those that hate it and love native applications. They usually don't mix......

 

I'm more of the App/Program dev....

 

13 minutes ago, straight_stewie said:

I hate to be that guy, but your signature says: "Huge passion for coding and gaming."

In either case, there a few good first languages for what you want to do (each has specific use cases for your scenario):

• Java - cross platform app development
• C# - Windows app development
• Python - cross platform app development
• C++ - Slightly difficult cross platform app development
• C - Very difficult cross platform app development.

Out of all of these languages, C# by far has the best online support and documentation (in my opinion). Microsoft goes to great lengths to provide such things. That being said, out of all of these languages, python is probably the easiest to use (and it is actually somewhat common in the professional world).

My official recommendation is python.

I don't think anybody should consider C at this point.

[MatazaNZ]

4 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

Just my observations -> With programmers, there's 2 types.  The Web Devs and the App/Program devs for lack of a better word. There are developers who love web technology and then there are those that hate it and love native applications. They usually don't mix......

 

I'm more of the App/Program dev....

 

I don't think anybody should consider C at this point.

Except those who are seriously looking into things like OS development, driver development, etc

[toxicandy]

29 minutes ago, MatazaNZ said:

Except those who are seriously looking into things like OS development, driver development, etc

This is pretty much true, I also agree python is fairly intuitive to start with but there are a lot of "better" languages out there to start working with after you are comfortable with the basic concepts of programming.

 

Most languages tend to be similar, their syntax may not be identical but the concepts are usually fairly similar. If you learn Python first you'll still learn topics such as variables, functions, arrays, loops and many more ideas that are shared between a wide array of languages. Languages like C give more tools to the developer as far as low level programming goes, the ability to use assembly in your code or pointers but it proves to be harder to learn as a first language unless you just start with fundamentals. I started with C a good while ago but didn't go too far into it, just enough to get an idea of how basic programs work and then went to Java and C# for awhile before going to C++ and finally returning to C but using C for more advanced projects. You can choose to do any language as your first language but try and pick one that you can find lots of documentation to as documentation saves lives.

[MatazaNZ]

Basically, fit what language you use to the application you're using it for. If you want cross platform desktop applications, Java, Python and C++ are all viable. C++ would be more difficult, and you have to compile it on each platform you want it on. Java is compile once, run anywhere, as long as it had a jvm/jre installed. Not sure about Python though, as I've never dealt with it. For cross platform, I personally prefer Java. For Windows only, I prefer C#