Posted on 01/13/2012 1:08:17 AM PST by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
Beware of any advice from a computer geek that contains the phrase "it's easy, it'll only take you about an hour..."
Another phrase to look out for is "average technical skills..."
you will learn of pointers etc. which will help you when you work on languages that hide that complexity
starting on VB leads to bad habits
to start on Java means going through the entire list of jargons that are out there -- EJBs, beans, etc. etc. -- but to think in Java is something different from a structural, procedural language like Pascal or C --> Java and Smalltalk etc. are OOL -- Object-Oriented languages
so, recapping, I would say basically start with Pascal, move up to C (and go crazy) a bit and learn VB as well. After Pascal you can also chose to go down the path of Java, but I would suggest learning a bit of C to get good programming habits.
cobol is a different game as is SQL.
And, html is not programming.....
Bump to read later.
That could be interesting. I gave up after fortran, cobol, pascal, and a bit of c. I learned basic on an old vic20 hooked up to a 13" b&w television set - I thought I was an astronaut when I coupled it to a thermal okidata color printer and replaced the cassette drive with a floppy the size of a microwave.
Programming a controller in C is no harder than basic for an old VIC 20 :-)
It’s a LOT cheaper though.
You need a PC to run the free C compiler and IDE on and a <10.00 USB programmer to write data to the controller and that’s about it.
That Khan academy guy is brilliant :-)
Nope.
I get a really good vibe from the guy.
Smart and caring.
10 PRINT FUBO
20 GOTO 10
RUN
Bump for later
I was told by my first Java instructor when I aks for help that I must be some sort of coder. I was stuned. I aks whaut?
The teacher says not only that but I prolly be a pretty good coder. ‘Ceptin’ for one thing: my code was all sequential and totatlly wuthless because of that. I needed to be learnin’ object orientated stuff.
Now I know everything is in a class of one thing or ‘nother. Everyhthing is ethereal until instantiated with specific values to differentiate one Obama from ‘nother.
What be cool ‘bout OOP is you can just shovel the compiler your argument list and it’ll finger out which specific Obama procedure to use based on what the values of the particular arguments you shovel at the procedure.
Overloading is also very cool, in that I don’t have to re-invent the wheel every time I want to make a different kind of coffee. I just feed the “make coffee” procedure with Kopi Luwak beans and inherit the “French Press” sub-routine, but vary the process subtly; it all works out magically with so little effort that its amazing.
I could use the same code and brew coffee using stray-cat poop without much effort and it’d still come out good.
I’m thinkin’ I’m probably losing some of y’all here, but when you take into account not just inheritance, but simultaneously overloading classes, procedure (or methods), but actual operators of arithmetic, things get pretty interesting quickly.
I pity the people who don’t understand why that’s so damn funny!
I’m interested. I’ve been developing software since 1996 in c++, Java, SQL, etc. Even though I have some good experience there is always something to learn!
I learned BASIC back when I was a kid in the 80s.
I’m currently learning C#.
It is definitely worth it just to keep your logic skills sharp. And app writing can prove to be very profitable.
That would be great if you could pull it off... a blog-based tutorial on C / C++.
If you've got a Windows computer, I'd suggest starting with Powershell. It's based on .net, so it will teach you OOP. The syntax is very much like "C-like", and you don't need a compler - you can run code right from a command prompt if want.
If you've got Windows 7, it's already installed on your computer. If you've some other version, back to XP SP2, it's back-ported for that, and available as a free download.
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