Your most ideal platform to learn about OS's and programming from.

gugleguy

So if u wanted to learn programming and operating systems from dot, what system would you start off on?

White Heart Loon

gugleguy wrote: »

So if u wanted to learn programming and operating systems from dot, what system would you start off on?

Linux, windows would then come natural

maki

Honestly, it really doesn't matter.

If you want to learn programming, pick a language and go for it. That being said you're going to have a far easier time on Windows due to the amount of tools and resources out there for it.

If you want to learn about operating systems, it depends on how deep you want to go. Sure you could learn about low level stuff in Linux by messing about in kernel programming, but it's definitely not a good place to start. Frankly if you want low level OS concepts then get a book on the subject. You're not going to learn much about how the operating system works on a kernel level by just clicking around in Linux.

PrzemoF

Linux.

With windows sooner or later you'll hit a bug ("feature") in a closed library and you'll start to learn how to make workarounds instead of programming. You'll have to buy some tools or use cut-to-bare-bone software asking you every 30 minutes if you want to upgrade to full version for $$$ or if you want to buy an add on that will enable a feature. It might be easier to make a "window with hello world" program in VB IDE under windows, but that is as close to programming as lego blocks are to mechanical stress calculations.

Of course, I'm exaggerating the problems, but if you're really starting from scratch go linux.

P.S. Start from SCRATCH - it's prefect for beginners:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scratch_%28programming_language%29

FSL

If you really want to learn programming then the language is irrelevant.

"I want to learn programming what language should I learn?" is equivalent to "I want to write adventure novels what language should I use?"

When you say learning from dot do you mean understanding exactly what an OS does and how or how best to use an OS to perform specific tasks?

If it's the former then you need to start with something far simpler than Linux or Windows.

maki

PrzemoF wrote: »

With windows sooner or later you'll hit a bug ("feature") in a closed library and you'll start to learn how to make workarounds instead of programming. You'll have to buy some tools or use cut-to-bare-bone software asking you every 30 minutes if you want to upgrade to full version for $$$ or if you want to buy an add on that will enable a feature.

This has literally never happened to anyone learning programming ever. You can sit quite happily in Visual Studio, Eclipse, or whatever you want to use without ever needing anything else.

PrzemoF wrote: »

It might be easier to make a "window with hello world" program in VB IDE under windows, but that is as close to programming as lego blocks are to mechanical stress calculations.

Are you taking an axe to VB in particular, or all hello world programs? Because there's not much of a difference between MsgBox "Hello, World!", printf ("Hello, World!"), and System.out.println("Hello, World!").
Just because hello world is trivial doesn't mean the rest of the language is. And again, they're mostly platform independent, and learning any particular language isn't going to be easier just because they're on Linux.

PrzemoF wrote: »

P.S. Start from SCRATCH - it's prefect for beginners:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scratch_%28programming_language%29

Scratch really is lego block stuff. It's for kids really, and would probably be far too basic as a starting point.

Mr.Torrent

gugleguy wrote: »

So if u wanted to learn programming and operating systems from dot, what system would you start off on?

I'd start off with this, then work your way up!

yawhat!

Command Prompt and Linux Shell area a good place to start. Learn how to navigate them. Then lookup basic networking commands like Ipconfig, netstat and learn what they mean. Have a look at some windows server then if you are into networking.

I'd probably start with Java or C++ as your first language to learn and make simple programs like an tax calculator or a phone book with just the standard GUI like command prompt. BlueJ is a great application for beginners learning Java.

Maybe then create a music library(just text) with multiple classes and add songs that you have added to a playlist using an Array.

After a while when you get more comfortable look at creating proper graphical user interfaces for the applications you have wrote.

gugleguy

C++ hmmm. bit hard for a newbie. C# might be slightly more digestible at the start, but it has'nt come really mainstream up to now although there is no reason why not sooner rather than later. Java's also good to kick off with.

PrzemoF

maki wrote: »

This has literally never happened to anyone learning programming ever. You can sit quite happily in Visual Studio, Eclipse, or whatever you want to use without ever needing anything else.

Are you taking an axe to VB in particular, or all hello world programs? Because there's not much of a difference between MsgBox "Hello, World!", printf ("Hello, World!"), and System.out.println("Hello, World!").
Just because hello world is trivial doesn't mean the rest of the language is. And again, they're mostly platform independent, and learning any particular language isn't going to be easier just because they're on Linux.

Scratch really is lego block stuff. It's for kids really, and would probably be far too basic as a starting point.

I use VBA and it's great (OK, it's not great, I just don't have anything better that works with excel & autocad, python would be perfect), but my point is that you won't learn how things work if the IDE does too much for you. I prefer to keep thing very simple to understand the whole setup. For example: a simple c program, compilation with gcc and result is a one executable file. It's very easy to analyse, add a line to the code, recompile, run and learn. It's low level stuff, but that IDE wont magically add:

Private Sub AcadDocument_BeginSave(ByVal FileName As String)

End Sub

or something similar, just when you open the editor!

Scratch is perfect to get basic ideas of programming, i.e. things like a "for" loop or "if", but I'm not claiming that it's good to learn about memory management or pointers