[ShikhaTan]

Tell how you started and some good tips for beginners!

This is how I started:

I started two years ago after I found the book: “Headfirst Java”. I read that book 3 times and started making simple programs (calculators, organizing tools, etc). After that I started in game development, and made Tetris, Space Invaders, and am currently working on a top down game engine. After about a year in Java, I took a class at my high school that taught Visual Basic, C, and Javascript. I studied those for about 2 months and went back to Java.

I read a book 3 times, now I’m pretty good at java.

My tips would be:

1. READ BOOKS! They are a GREAT learning tool. (If you are interested in Programming, check out the HeadFirst books)
2. Try and stay away from TheNewBoston. He doesn’t teach very well…
3. Don’t be afraid to ask questions!
4. Look around at other peoples code and study it!

[Adelaid]

i first got interested in programming. I asked my parents for a a book that will teach me visual basic.
I really cannot recall why I chose visual basic as I am now 25. Since then Ive learnt java and c.

I would recommend starting with java. there are great tutorials that will help you to learn it from scratch.

[Adelaid]

I wouldn’t call myself a full blown programmer, more just a dabbler. These days however, web programming more than low level programming. I first learnt DOS because if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be able to reformat the hard drive and reinstall Windows again after I screwed it up (and it was many, many times). Fortunately the process wasn’t as streamlined like it is today, so it enabled me to get really acquainted with commands and configuring the O/S in the command line as opposed to the GUI. Absolutely fundamental. Probably wouldn’t be running linux servers today if I hadn’t delved into the “black hole” back then.

Technology is fantastic and especially when it makes things easier. I just hope children of today can continue to help it advance with logic behind it…

[Fierro]

My first ‘programming’ experience was writing mIRC scripts to connect to MSN Chat in 1999 (?), after that I worked with PHP for a few years, then as a C++ game developer for 6-7 years which was fun but stressful and required you to work long long hours, now working as a web developer with a range of languages/frameworks and enjoying it (C# / ASP.NET MVC, Ruby / Ruby on Rails, Javascript / Node.js).

Tips:

1. Read some books
2. Don’t read too many books, while understanding the concepts are extremely important if you spend more time reading than you do actually programming you’re unlikely to get very far (I fell into this trap for the 1st year)
3. Set yourself achievable goals/targets while learning, build small but useful projects

[Adan]

I learnt VB C++ just to make cheats for online games. Since then Ive not tried Java etc as its not needed for me. WPE pro is nice too.

[Ganesh]

I agree with you about TheNewBoston channel. He teaching isn’t that good. But for basics and to get an idea of it, it’s a good place to start.

I am still very new to programming. I was gonna learn it this year but I changed to Business.

I plan to learn it myself at home by buying good books.

[GloriaFine]

Grew up in family owned business’s. When old enough was managing other people. No matter what fail safe, backups you had in place constantly being thrown a curve because of factors outside of your control. Father saw the frustration and introduced me to another world. Still in the family business. Now all curves, failures, success are on my terms. Ones & Zeros management better than people for me.

BASIC / C / Assembly / C++ / PHP / Ruby / NodeJS / Python has been the progression with a few in between. I make no claim to be an expert at any, can hold my own in a couple.

[Adelaid]

Studies C and Java at school! Mini programs and then Created a game server ( Game A3 ) with lots of hex editing.. and now on..

[Adelaid]

I started a year ago at my college. I barely knew how to use a computer and even less with what I wanted to do with my life. Started by building a small graphics package in Java based on swing with which I built doodle jump, tetris, pacman. Was then interested in mac development so learnt objective-c and built a mac application (really recommend the bignerdranch books btw). This last semester I’ve been coding a lot of different algorithms and implementing ADTs in python and java like the seamcarve algorithm (dynamic picture resizing).

My advice would be to find any way you can take classes and learn from other people in a live environment, because at least personally, that’s the way to go. Make your own projects and go out and do them. Something cool to check out is Hacker School NY, it’s free so has an application process.

Reading books is great to learn new stuff but as somebody said, don’t waste too much time on them. Go out and play.

[Adelaid]

I went back to college for the second time in 1980 after a decade of playing drums. I got interested in Computer Graphics class (then it was in its infancy) and started taking Computer Science classes.

I used to have the janitors lock me into the CS Lab building so I could slave away all night. It didn’t take long for the Director of the CS program to put a stop to finding me asleep on the floor. He hired me to be the director of the student labs. And this when I was in my very first semester.

So, I got paid for doing what I loved to do.

The best advice is to learn some good techniques and then practice, practice and practice some more.

Programming is about solving problems, then applying those solutions with code in a development environment and language.

The hardest part is learning how to create the algorithms or solutions (breaking apart the problems) once you figure out how to dissect a problem it becomes easier to do that.

Once to solve a problem and code it in one language, doing the same problem in another language is a little easier and by the time you’ve done it on your fifth language you start to get the BIG picture.

Here is a FANTASTIC series offered for free by MIT on doing just that.

If you complete this series and do the exercises you will learn Python in the process and also become a very good problem solver and programmer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX3jvD7XFPs

[GloriaFine]

its my first time I’m writing on how I start programming.
I was 14 years old, playing Lineage2.At the christmas period I made a query on google for ‘L2 server’ and I found a team named L2Jserver, it was an Emulator for Lineage2 Servers .
I was so happy that I began to understand how the ‘thing’ with L2 works, I downloaded the code, I was studying them and after 7 days ( &7 nights) I created my first L2 server. I bought books for Java and VB.NET and I wasn’t care about the school. I was taken my books into classroom and I read them every second, I was so excited and happy ! From that time I was learning much languages like C#(one of my favourites), SQL,HTML,CSS,Javascript,ASPNET(C#),VB.NET,PHP… , I’m 21 years old now.
After many many tests on what I really love to do, this year (2013) I started again programming and developing at JAVA (my biggest love) .
It was difficult to choose between WEB and SOFTWARE developing, I choose the second and now I am Core Manager at L2 Server team Smile

Tips from me…

• #1 READ BOOKS – (NORMAL books with papers, pdf are good but you can’t read much hours)
• #2 GO OUT TAKE AIR and DRINK ( You come to home ‘tired’ but ideas are running in your head)
• #3 STUDY other’s developer code ( I preffer to download open source code and study them LINE by LINE)
• #4 MAKE some breaks for eat, chigarete or whatever you like to do except programming Smile
• #5 DO for-loops, the REPETITION is good way to ‘always’ remember things
• #6 GOOD names and FANTASY on your variables inside the code
• #7 LOVE it and have FUN!

[Ganesh]

I started programming because my thesis subject was to develop a tool for engineers. I used Visual Basic .NET and what really helped me was the Book “Teach yourself VB. BET 2010 in 24 hours” by James Foxall (Sams publishing) and the website TheNewBoston.org. Until then I didn’t have any programming background, except for a class we did in Matlab during my engineering studies.

Ok I am not a guru now, I’ m still in the very beginning, but I did what I wanted to do for my thesis and it turned out to be great!

I am sure there are hundreds of great resources out there for learning programming, but I think that the learning process is up to the individual. Whatever floats your boat.

[Adan]

I learned back in the early 1990s on VAX, mainframe & PC platforms learning to develop in Visual Basic, COBOL & BAL/HLASM (mainframe assembler) along with these systems’ internals & utilities. I guess I’m dating myself here. Smile I used to spend hours in the college computer lab just for the love of it with my nose buried in manuals learning as much as I could about those systems. Becoming a lab fixture led to them asking me to run the lab. I eventually was able to hack into the State Department of Higher Education to poke around and see student loan info and other personal info on people–good times! This is what lead me to pursue jobs (not a career) in software development.

As another poster observed above, programming is really about problem solving, learning syntax being only a small part of it. The real skill is in being able to visualize the abstract, to break down problems into their logical elements. If you can do that, and can internalize the constructs & limitations of different programming languages, then you’ll be able to figure out how to solve those problems for varying platforms in different languages without much difficulty.

[Fierro]

I had been using my dad’s PC mostly for gaming as a kid from 1990-2001. I only knew then how to install/uninstall/format pc etc… (starting from ms-dos)
Then completely by chance I became a student at a university (in Computer Science) and in 2002 I could already write my own programs in assembly 80×86, C++ and java. I studied everything I could find online and in books about computers and programming. I graduated quite easily since it turns out I really liked computer science.
Now, it’s been more than 10 years of programming and working in IT
– I wrote my first mobile game (a space invaders kind) on a sony-ericsson with J2me (a java for mobile devices) back when the only apps you could download on your phone were java apps. Since then I have created small apps for Windows Mobile, Android and iPhone.
– I learned Flash, ActionScript and Flex (developed online apps and widgets for websites). Flash is long dead and now HTML5 is my new love! (I was always fond of javascript anyway)
– I’ve used .Net with C# to create programs as well as Java (have used sqlite, ms sql server and mysql as databases).
– My main interest and work is done with internet services though (php, apache, mysql/postgresql, html, css, javascript, a little python, java)… and security/pentesting
– I have set-up a few linux servers from scratch too (dns, email, apache, mysql, iptables etc)
– I reversed engineered/keygened my first program in 2002 (I don’t make releases though, I am too lazy and too slow for that.)
– The nature of my job was such that I constantly had to learn and use new languages and technologies (I guess that’s true for many software engineers out there).

Anyway there is so much knowledge online now that you wouldn’t know where to begin if you were starting now. Also, truth is you can never learn everything. Computer science has evolved so much and keeps evolving that you may meet colleagues in Information Technology that you have no idea what they do even if they try to explain you.

[Adelaid]

I started with QBasic a those were the days. The days where the code was fast and the machines where slow. Nowadays most coding is slow and just to looks cool on a 2GB IDE full of plugins but the machines are so fast people think nobody needs to care about performance anymore. Computers were so expensive back then you were either regarded as “rich and wasteful with money” or “mad scientist wannabe” if you had one. There was assembly of course but you needed to optimize so much to get program without major bug i haven’t made money out of that venue or anything of professional quality. Of course assembly high level compared to the “punched” cards my mother had to work with on a mainframe at her university.

Sorry if you didn’t like me remembering the old times, i just grew reminisced of them for a second.

[Ganesh]

I basically started back in the day with batch scripting and VBScript. Now I mostly use C# and PowerShell now.

I found with programming it’s best to just find something you want to do and try it. You will fail again and again and then you’ll start getting it a little bit at of time. Once you learn a little bit, you’ll want to learn more and try new things. Along the way use books as reference and don’t pick up any bad habits. My boss is always giving me projects to do and if I can create a script over doing something manually, I will do it even if it may take longer to figure it out, because once you learn the technique you can apply it again and again.

Also, post your questions on the forums. So many people are willing to help. Stackoverflow and MSDN forums are great. I usually post something once a week, because there is always something new to learn. We all get stuck.

[Adelaid]

I started with QBASIC almost 16 years ago and then moved on to VisualBasic, DarkBASIC, Blitz3D and BlitzMax. I then learnt C, C++, Java and C#. More recently I learnt Python and Objective-C. Once you know one language it is much easier to pick up a new one over a weekend or free evenings. The early days I sought help from online communities asking questions and best approaches and then once my ability grew I was able to apply my knowledge to new languages with the aid of books allowing me to learn the syntax and any important quirks of the language.

[Adelaid]

To all the expert programmers posting in this thread, why don’t you link your github profiles so we can see your code? Words are just air blowing, facts stand in a totally different ground.
The programming language is merely a tool: what is the human language for a philosopher? The answer is all languages, some have precise words in others you must use more words. Programming is not about choosing between “for x in range(x, y)” and “for (x=0; x

[Fierro]

I started programming in 1968 with Assembler for the IBM 360. That was a great start. Have since programmed in over 20 languages including Cobol, Fortran, Wang Basic (old computer made by Dr. Wang), many additional basic languages as well. Probably none of you have heard of Wang Basic but I can tell you it beats all the other basic languages that followed. It used MATRIX statements. How many of you have heard of this? Haven’t programmed in quite a few years now but have been thinking about trying some other language some time. Anyone have any good suggestions? Thanks. kerestesh