You Need To Learn How To Program

Slate ^ | Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2012, at 4:48 PM ET | Farhad Manjoo

[Sonny M]

If you’re looking for a New Year’s resolution, let me suggest an idea that you might not have considered: You should learn computer programming. Specifically, you should sign up for Code Year, a new project that aims to teach neophytes the basics of programming over the course of 2012. Code Year was put together by Codecademy,* a startup that designs clever, interactive online tutorials. Codecademy’s founders, Zach Sims and Ryan Bubinski, argue that everyone should know how to program—that learning to code is becoming as important as knowing how to read and write. I concur. So if you don’t know how to program, why not get started this week? Come on, it’ll be fun!

Code Year’s minimum commitment is one new lesson every week. The company says that it will take a person of average technical skill about five hours to complete a lesson, so you’re looking at about an hour of training every weekday. That’s not so bad, considering that the lessons are free, and the reward could be huge: If you’re looking to make yourself more employable (or more immune from getting sacked), if you’d like to become more creative at work and in the rest of your life, and if you can’t resist a good intellectual challenge, there are few endeavors that will pay off as handsomely as learning to code.

[Betis70]

Maybe most jobs, but on a flip-side, he’d be competing with hordes of programmers from here, India and China. Sometimes it helps to learn those older languages to get a niche job.

For example, my brother works with hardware engineers and the firmware group. They have a very difficult time finding young programmers with C knowledge or experience. There will likely be a long-term need for firmware programming in C because it is so efficient.

[HeartlandOfAmerica]

I'd think that Assembly/Machine Code is beyond the hobby limits.

Now, C. That could be quite useful.

If someone knows C, then they know javascript for browsers, C Sharp/C++ (except for OOP) for stand alone programs, etc.

If they can master the fundamental structures of C, all the For, while, do, if, variables etc, then they got it made as far as any other language goes. Small leap from there.

[Bobalu]

You may be right. Assembly might make it too geeky for a hobbyist.

The ATtiny85 has 8k of flash, enough for a rather large amount of compiled C code.

I’m trying to think up a good name for a blog.

[Fire_on_High]

Yes! Yes! You said it! Trying to solve a particular problem is KEY!

I ended up having to pick up SQL because a project I wanted desperately to get working required it. It came with about half the stuff the full thing would have, and was missing several zones I desperately wanted. I *did* have access to some of the data, from a previous database...in an older format!

Cue the crash course in SQL...all it took was being angry and aggravated enough and sick of the fact no one else seemed to prioritize the things I wanted, and I just sat down and taught myself how to do it.

[nathanbedford]

ping

[Paul Moss]

Please keep Assembly. If some think it is too geeky, they can just stick with C. I think having a blog will be a great, painless way to learn Assembly. And we need Assembly because there may be a project someone wants to do where that extra little optimization from Assembly may make the difference between the project working properly or not.

Thanks again for the blog. I'm looking forward to it.

How will we know when it is set up and how to get to it?

[perplyone]

marked

[Mycroft Holmes]

I'd be happy to talk about assembly and the interface between assembler and C which is fairly interesting if you are interested in how C actually works. Also, there is the issue of the optimization level set on the C compiler which can fool you by removing code that you really want in your program without explicitly informing you.

For example, sometime you might want to insert instructions purely for timing purposes that don't do any actual computation. The compiler (thinking it is doing you the favor of improving your code) will remove the instructions that it thinks are "useless" but which are actually providing a critical timing function.

An understanding of assembly allows you to detect when this happens, and other weirdness. There is always other weirdness.

[antiRepublicrat]

What’s your purpose? FORTRAN and COBOL are mainly banks and scientists these days, so probably not. VB? Really, it sucks. C++ is good, but can turn many beginners off programming. JavaScript is pretty good and easy, and is useful for web pages.

Then there’s C#, a pretty easy and elegant language, mainly used for the Windows platform. It’s been my personal favorite for years.

Or you can learn ObjectiveC, not easy, but you’ll be programming for the iPad, iPhone and Mac.

Many people love Ruby, you might want to check that out.

[jonrick46]

Thanks for the info. I have written in C, machine language, FORTRAN and Visual Basic. The only one I liked was Visual Basic. It’s good to know that C# has your approval. I might play with it just to dust off my skills.

[thecodont]

NOW a coder needs to know OOP, i.e., everything is a class, and all things belong within their class. It is when the objects of a particular class become instantiated with values that they take on the essence of becoming. Once they are no longer necessary, they no longer are; everything is ethereal.

Sounds like Java. That class stuff is weird.

[Bobalu]

If anyone else is interested in following a simple blog for C beginners just private message me and I will send the address for the blog when I get it started up.

It will be a programming the ATtiny85 in C blog.... very simplified for newcomers to embedded programming.

[antiRepublicrat]

I’m pretty anal retentive when programming, so C# appeals to me. Just write a program using the standard formatting (Visual Studio will even format for you) and it is very clean and readable. Contrast Perl, ugly, hard to read no matter what, although a very powerful language for its purpose. You can’t do everything in C#, like low-level stuff. You’re running in a managed environment so you can’t play fast and loose with pointers and other such things. OTOH, all that’s taken care of in the environment, and you don’t really need pointers.

I still like machine language though, at least old 8-bit.

[huskerjim]

Great point! Focus on C# or Java!