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Learning how to program?

K

Kamui

Senior member
Hi guys,

I am trying to improve my programming skills. I had one or two courses in college but was never too comfortable with it. I want to overcome by fear on it. Would you guys happen to know any good books or tutorials on how to create code (C++, VB, or even Matlab) creatively?

thanks

kamui
 
Actually, a better question would be... how to make your mind think the way a computer does? Like, you know there are people who can code with easy..and some others that struggle tons of time trying to figure out why the heck is the code not working. I am definitely the later one.

thanks

Kamui😱
 
well said. i think those are the two most important things a programmer should have.

for other elements add organization and planning. i've learned never to jump into any significant project without thinking about it and maybe drawing out a little sketch of what i want to do at least.
 
<<yes. but it is not something that you are born with. How can one acquire them?>>

You get a computer at age 8 😉

<<Would you guys happen to know any good books or tutorials on how to create code (C++, VB, or even Matlab) creatively?>>

No books I know of show you how to make code creatively, they just walk you through how to do stuff. You have to figure out to use it to do what you want. They way I learned was to get a book, and only read about the stuff I was interested in at the time (once I knew the basics of the language of course). Basically use a book as a reference for each project you want to do, if you don't know how to do something you want done, look it up in the book.



 
I think the best way to do programming is:
1. Do something you want to do (HELPS A LOT !!)
2. Have enough time (this is VERY important too !!)
3. Try slowly and be always logic and understand every line you write.
4. Make the code and you be ONE..... this is the ultimate way ! 🙂
heheh😀🙂
 
I agree, I'm only 16, I first read a book, and then enrolled in AP Computer Science A at my high school, and the class helps me a LOT more than the book. I will read the book this summer, books generally are not as good as classes for starting points.
 
You will not learn to write code by simply reading a book or going through some tutorials. You only learn code if it's been taught by someone(*unless you are special*). You need to write code while you are learning, and the best way to do that is enrolling in a class. You also need to have good discrete logic skills and a hell of an imagination. Those two things, atleast the latter are not taught in books, only personal experience with some help from an instructor can show you the way.
 
Impact55:

I took a programming class in high school once. Personally, I thought I gained more knowledge through reading the book.

In regards to learning programming, just keep trying to learn more advanced topics and writing more and more complex programs. Start easy if your having trouble. There will be days when you absolutely hate your compiler and days where code is coming out of your ears 🙂. The biggest thing is, don't give up!
 
I agree. I learned out of books and tutorials. I actually don't like learning from an old teacher stuck in their ways (usually) and found that by allowing myself to have to figure things out for myself lamented them in my mind forever. Here are some REALLY good places to start.

This is a free CS course online that is simply SUPERB!

http://chortle.ccsu.ctstateu.edu/cs151/cs151java.html

Buy this book ASAP!

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0130316970/o/qid=976624363/sr=2-1/107-4654964-5070937

These take you by the hand as if you no NOTHING about programming and lead you on your way to becoming a great programmer. They use Java, but neverming that, they teach you how to program first and foremost, and everything you learn from these will carry over to any other language - easy!

Have fun!

 
yeah, i think a lot of it is just figuring out yourself. In high school we had a pretty much independant study CS course. The teacher was just a geometry teacher so we got books from another high school in the city, and she just assigned excercises even though she didnt know how to program. So we learned on our own to problem solve. programming is a lot about solving puzzles, like brain teasers. If you like doing those, you are cut out for it. Its really hard to teach how to think like that, and i think that a lot of people wont learn, i mean learning syntax and stuff anyone can do, but the problem solving part is the most important, including how to break down a problem logically and analyze it so that you can handle it. Your real question is &quot;how can i learn to problem solve better?&quot; and i think the only way to do that is to make yourself do really hard problems. I've had a computer since i was 6, so that probably helps to start young. Classes are good since they make you learn, if i had to read a book a lot of the time i can learn it but i'm too lazy to actually go do it. If i take a class, then the fear of failure and pride of beating my classmates at making better programs keeps me going.
 
A good thing for you would be to learn an easy language first. This way you can learn how to program. When you know how to program the language is very easy to learn.

So, I would first try Delphi. Why ? Because its a Pascal based language and you have to be rigourous in order to program (and its easy to learn).

Then, I would try some C.

You need to understand the utility of arrays, dynamic arrays, pointers, variables, constant, loop sequences (while, do, etc) and recursivity.

With that you will probably have a good base.

A good way to learn all this is to prepare a personnal project that you will program first in Delphi and then in C. When you prepare a project, you have to make all the
programs on paper first so you can have a global view of what you have to do.

Good luck and the only real help in learning a language is to try and try again....

BTW, Delphi is a very powerful tool. My biggest project with this project had 35 000 lines of code and a lots of Database...and it was really stable (It never never crash)
 
I would have to say... Learn Java. It's the easiest damned language that I have coded in. Everything is available, you don't need to remember to delete pointer, and the industry uses it (at least where I worked for the summer).

The cool thing about programming is... you are just solving a puzzle. You look at the problem, find the patterns, and apply the solution to the parts of the pattern and put them together.

Object Oriented Design and Programming are the things you should want to worry about.

I would look for a beginners book. This one wasn't the right one for me, but I would say ... take a look at it 🙂 It's called Java 2 from Scratch. There might be a new one, but it focuses on the design and then the GUI aspect (and finally some processing). The author shows you the language by going through a process of creating a stock market tracker. One thing you must do... CODE WHILE READING IT. And after that: CODE SOMETHING ELSE w/o the book. I would try to find something that you want to use yourself.

For example I just had a project on distributed processing. I created a client that connected to a Half-Life server and IRC. It would parse out the events, format them and send them to the IRC server. It also sends the events to a stats server that my programming partner coded up. He puts the stuff into the database and people from IRC can query it. He also made some PHP pages... it's awesome!

But the key is... find something that you can apply it to.

Otherwise you won't learn it!

Good luck!
 
if you want to learn java get the oriely book, of the 2 chapters i've read its really good, then again i'm so lazy, that i've only read two chapters, thus my take a class suggestion . junior colleges are good for this
 
I have taken an intro to c/c++ in which i learned the basic skills of programming. My problem is that I know how to solve &quot;the problem&quot; but do not know what commands to use. I know that there are easier functions to implement, but cannot find out which structs to use. Specifically I tried to write a program based on file I/O, but just quit because I could not find out how to find a specific file in a dir. Anyone know what books would have this info?
 
Maybe programming just isn't for you or you should use a more simple language than C/C++. Try Python, it's the easiest language I've used. It's the language that I learned to program with.
 
For those with some intro into programming, and looking for a good reference book. check out &quot;The C Programming Language&quot; by Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie. Its only 260 pages, but it easy, concise, referenced well, and covers a lot of stuff. It is not an instruction book, it is all the bent pages and book marked stuff in your numerous C instruction books, all cleaned up and put into one book.
 
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