Where to start with programming?

ImpossibleDuck

I'm planning on doing Comp. Sci and Software Eng. (CSSE) in college, (im in 4th year now) and i want to have some experience(even if it's very little/simple) with programming.

Where do i start?

but43r

Have a look at www.w3schools.com website. They are great for learning stuff. You should decide what you want to do more, Desktop application programming or Web application programming. I found TextPad --> www.textpad.com to be very good for writing code at the start. Later on once you kinda know the basic syntax you can go on to using something like Eclipse IDE.

alan89

Have a look at HTML and CSS starting off. That will cover your web development and move onto things like javascript etc

I would suggest looking at Java first. As most colleges teach you that first. Look at W3 schools or http://www.thenewboston.com/ --> This has tuts on everything!!

RealistSpy

Visual Basic. and youtube tutorials should get you started.

Anima

I'd say websites (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) are the way to go if you've never programmed before and you're doing it on your own. If you feel more adventurous then maybe do some C, Python or Java.

studiorat

Personally, and I'm just a code hacker really. I'd try make something you're interested in making. Whether it's in Java, C, html whatever. They all work pretty much the same when you're starting out.

Find something you'd like to be able to make first, then take it from there.

FirstHundred

HTML is not programming. It is a useful thing to know, but learning it won't get you any closer to being able to think like a programmer.

I would learn Python first. It is simple enough not to put off beginners and complicated enough to write real software. There is a free book called How to Think Like a Computer Scientist. Google it.

When you have gone through that get Core Python Programming by Wesley Chun. It introduces more advanced programming concepts like OOP and gets you using SQL, custom file formats, GUI toolkits, etc. In short it teaches you to write software at a professional level.

If you master the contents of those two books you will be able to pick up other languages with ease.

Recon

"Hello world"

t0mm13b

but43r wrote: »

Have a look at www.w3schools.com website. They are great for learning stuff. You should decide what you want to do more, Desktop application programming or Web application programming. I found TextPad --> www.textpad.com to be very good for writing code at the start. Later on once you kinda know the basic syntax you can go on to using something like Eclipse IDE.

Arguably, two good editors much better than TextPad comes to mind here...

• EditPad Lite, the pro is only $39.99
• UltraEdit, that is by far the best editor I ever have and yes I am a legitimate license holder, not a download from torrent sites sorry :P

Hang out on StackOverflow by registering there and just lurk and refresh the page every so often to see questions and how are they answered - that will be a big help!

Register on slideshare and you will find some excellent tutorials...

In essence, if you want to find out, this is not being smart, but if you were to post on forums for help on something, the response you will get is "Go Google it yourself", this is not personal and learn not to take it personally. Learn how to use Google properly to enable you to get the hits you want instead of getting a mixture of crap and irrelevant links intermixed....

FirstHundred

Notepad++ is a VERY nice text editor. If you're just starting out you don't want to bother with a full IDE. There's enough to wrap your head around as it is.

t0mm13b

FirstHundred wrote: »

Notepad++ is a VERY nice text editor. If you're just starting out you don't want to bother with a full IDE. There's enough to wrap your head around as it is.

I found that to be extremely crashy.... ahh well...might as well enter the vim vs emacs flamewar :pac:

FirstHundred

Ha yes. Each to their own. Notepad++ never crashed for me, but I don't use Windows that much so I haven't used it intensively. I assumed the guy is running Windows. In Linux, I am quite partial to GEdit with a bunch of plugins for code completion, etc.

t0mm13b

FirstHundred wrote: »

Ha yes. Each to their own. Notepad++ never crashed for me, but I don't use Windows that much so I haven't used it intensively. I assumed the guy is running Windows. In Linux, I am quite partial to GEdit with a bunch of plugins for code completion, etc.

use vim under linux combined with makefiles, scripts....
For windows, use UltraEdit (am a convert!), ANT + Java for android, C++ and Makefiles for bada, Nant + C# for .NET....

To be honest, am a born CLI junkie... :P

FirstHundred

Real programmers have one file that they sculpt into an endless array of programs using only awk and sed.