Dummies Guide For Programming

[Hassam]

Hi Guys,

 

I'm new to the forum and I need pointing in the right direction. I want to start programming as hobby and learn along the way. My knowledge is extremely limited and you're talking to a total beginner.

 

What language should I start with, from my brief research it looks like Ruby is the way forward. I want a small project to carry out. I'll have plenty more questions but for now what language do you guys think is the best and how do I get started, for example what do I need to Install?

 

Thanks Guys

[leonfagan71]

12 minutes ago, Hassam said:

Hi Guys,

 

I'm new to the forum and I need pointing in the right direction. I want to start programming as hobby and learn along the way. My knowledge is extremely limited and you're talking to a total beginner.

 

What language should I start with, from my brief research it looks like Ruby is the way forward. I want a small project to carry out. I'll have plenty more questions but for now what language do you guys think is the best and how do I get started, for example what do I need to Install?

 

Thanks Guys

Personally, I stated learning in the following order:

• HTML
• PHP
• CSS
• Python (Not a fan)
• JavaScript (Including some of the JQuery Library)
• MySQL
• Java
• C# <currently on this one
• Android Java < currently on this one.

[AlTech]

4 minutes ago, Hassam said:

Hi Guys,

 

I'm new to the forum and I need pointing in the right direction. I want to start programming as hobby and learn along the way. My knowledge is extremely limited and you're talking to a total beginner.

 

What language should I start with, from my brief research it looks like Ruby is the way forward. I want a small project to carry out. I'll have plenty more questions but for now what language do you guys think is the best and how do I get started, for example what do I need to Install?

 

Thanks Guys

What do you want to make?

 

Once I know that, then I can recommend different languages.

[Nuluvius]

5 minutes ago, leonfagan71 said:

• JQuery

JQuery is not a language it is a library...

[leonfagan71]

1 minute ago, Nuluvius said:

JQuery is not a language it is a library...

Technically, yes.

I shall edit my response

[Hassam]

I'm not sure in terms of a project, I was thinking of building a simple calculator but I'm not sure if this would be complicated for a beginner. I would welcome any suggestions from you guys. Am I right in thinking that HTML is for building web pages so therefore you wouldn't be able to build a calculator ?

 

Thanks for the help.

[AlTech]

3 minutes ago, Hassam said:

I'm not sure in terms of a project, I was thinking of building a simple calculator but I'm not sure if this would be complicated for a beginner. I would welcome any suggestions from you guys. Am I right in thinking that HTML is for building web pages so therefore you wouldn't be able to build a calculator ?

 

Thanks for the help.

You can be creative. Sometimes you can use multiple programming languages to do the same thing.

 

If you really wanted, you could use HTML, CSS and JS to make a calculator although it would be more efficient to use Java, C# or C++.

[Hassam]

;-) thanks, I think I'll stick to using one as I'm totally new. leonfagan71 suggested starting with HTML first.

 

So if I could use HTML to build a calculator, do I just wright the program in notepad and how would I run the program ?

[vorticalbox]

43 minutes ago, Hassam said:

;-) thanks, I think I'll stick to using one as I'm totally new. leonfagan71 suggested starting with HTML first.

 

So if I could use HTML to build a calculator, do I just wright the program in notepad and how would I run the program ?

 

You would bee an actual language to do that. HTML is just a markup. You could use javascript to make a calculator. Before you even start learning anything thing about what you want to make.

 

"programming" covers such a wide range of categories that it is impossible to suggest a language without first knowing what you're wanting to create. Programming languages aren't important they are just tools to get a job done and you need the right one for the job.

 

If you want to make websites learn html*, css*, javascript, PHP, MySQL, python or c# (asp.net). * aren't programming languages.  

Want to make windows applications c#, c++, c, java 

want to make cross platform java or python

Want to make android applications java

Want to make command line application c# or python.

 

As you can languages have their place.

[Voze]

I basically started doing some programming in HTML, CSS and then moving over to Java. Once You know Java, you essentially know every object-oriented programming language (C#). Look up some tutorials on youtube and do some experimentation. That's the best way to learn.

TL : DR: Build up some knowledge with a programming language and everything else will go buttery smooth.

- Good Luck

 

[Voze]

14 hours ago, Erik Sieghart said:

That's not exactly true. Python has objects, but they are somewhat different than C#/Java. C++ has objects, but it's unmanaged code.

More meant as a joke.

 

[SecGuy]

Learn whatever you want and are interested in.  I suggest following a computer science course, and there are some great free ones, most of them use Java or Python so those are my recommendations.  Just start programming and focus on what you want to do.  Programming isn't some huge skill to conquer, I would consider myself a mediocre programmer but that is kind of what I think it's like a lot of the time.  Every time you write a new program you don't know how to write, the fun is having a problem that you need to solve but figuring out how to solve it and putting together puzzle peices.  

 

Programming is like building a house from scratch with building tools and materials.  You can use frameworks and libraries to make it easier, but in the end you are still building a house.  Building a house is hard at first.   Never give up, always push on.  You can do it.  I suck at life and everything and I can program.  So can you! 

 

Computer science courses are important too, learning how to develop algorythims and perform calculations is very important for programming.  A lot of the computer science courses I have done have included programs that are purely calculations. Which is what you want, you want to learn how to use tools to produce a result that is different from the one you started with by use of algorythims.  

 

[beanhubbleday]

You can code a calculator in Python

 

Also if you want help with HTML coding etc, then PM me

[vorticalbox]

22 hours ago, JackHubbleday said:

You can code a calculator in Python

 

Also if you want help with HTML coding etc, then PM me

 

You can make a calculator in a number of languages.

[beanhubbleday]

53 minutes ago, vorticalbox said:

You can make a calculator in a number of languages.

Its fairly straightforward in python though

[Nuluvius]

1 minute ago, JackHubbleday said:

Its fairly straightforward in python though

It's fairly straightforward in a number of languages...

[beanhubbleday]

4 hours ago, Nuluvius said:

It's fairly straightforward in a number of languages...

O, I don't doubt that. Python just seemed easiest for a lot of people to pick up on

[PocketNerd]

I would look up whichever language suits your fancy at this point and try out some beginner tutorials, though do be aware that HTML and CSS are not programming languages. They are markup for building webpages, or put another way, for building your UI whereas Javascript or PHP would be the actual programming language (there are of course other web languages).

The most important thing though, is code to learn, don't learn to code. By this I mean learn by actually writing programs, this can be something as simple as the standard "Hello World" program, a calculator, or the next Crisis for that matter. The important thing is that you spend more time writing code and less time looking at a book or video.

[Andy Cheese]

Hi all,

My first post on this forum, I joined to ask some questions however I would like to offer some input here if I can. Over the last ten years I’ve been playing with hobby web programming / sites (with a few commercial web sites) and some windows desktop applications (I released some not very good freeware many years ago).

One way to start is to have a goal. Are you a member of a sports team, in rock band or are you a DJ that needs a website? If so you could try HTML / CSS (for Web design) then move onto PHP / MySQL (for Web programming and Database).  You could install a web server on your local PC (search ‘WAMP’ for windows or ‘LAMP’ for Linux, both are free). There are lots of free HTML and PHP editors. If you have an older unused PC then you could turn it into your own Web server at no cost which is also a great project.

If desktop programming floats your boat, then I would like to recommend Microsoft’s Visual Studio community (which is also free) and Visual Basic .Net. Visual Studio is a great IDE and VB.net has a very easy learning curve. There are 100’s of hours of good video guides on their website. Plus, you can also use Visual Studio for web design.

 

For mobile apps then check out Android  

There are 100’s of different languages and they all have their good and bad points but once you learn the basics of any language you will find its common tracts to most i.e. objects, variables and functions.

Check out edx.org which offers free IT starter courses from mayor universities like MIT, Harvard and Cal tech.

Hope this helps

[Mira Yurizaki]

On 12/3/2016 at 7:06 AM, Nuluvius said:

JQuery is not a language it is a library...

You docked them for JQuery but not HTML?

 

While it's not really a pet-peeve but totally is, HTML and CSS are not programming languages. And while CSS is adopting programming language techniques, like classes and inheritance, that does not make it a programming language. They're markup language, or something that describes data, not programs.

 

Anyway, I'll leave some parting words for the OP.

 

It's a good idea to learn about how computers work in general and how programming works in general. Most programming languages follow the same basic concepts, rules, and such. Once you understand the fundamentals here, it's relatively easy to pick up another language. Starting with a language is good to get a grasp on those concepts, but I don't think it's worthwhile to learn the language just the learn the language and not understand what's going on.

[Nuluvius]

1 hour ago, M.Yurizaki said:

You docked them for JQuery but not HTML?

On 03/12/2016 at 2:59 PM, leonfagan71 said:

Personally, I stated learning in the following order

Unfortunately they didn't explicitly say that it was. Indeed I was going to but I considered that given the overall flavour of the statement that it might have been a bit of a stretch to do so... JQuery on the other hand was clearly the only library in that grouping.

1 hour ago, M.Yurizaki said:

While it's not really a pet-peeve but totally is

Indeed I find it quite frustrating as well...

[Gachr]

Well, HTML+CSS+JS is a very "functional" option, but it takes a while to learn all this stuff. If you want more classic programming, and you don't have a specific goal, my go-to is Ruby