New to programming

[mylifeforaiur]

Hello, haven't visited this part of the forums before.

I have virtually no experience in programming, but I'd like to change that.

Next quarter I will be taking an accelerated course teaching java. The course requires that I have prior experience in programming, the textbook assumes that I have programmed in C. My reasoning for taking this course is that it replaces 2 courses and a lab that is required when taking the total noobie route.

How should I prepare for this course? What language should I be looking at and what IDE or compiler should I use? Any advice, links other forums or tutorials, etc. would be much appreciated. You have my gratitude in advance.

 

[thatolchestnut]

Virtually no experience meaning none or taken another language course?

im curious, which topics do the noobie courses cover that you havent had experience with?

 

[mylifeforaiur]

virtually no experience means the closest i got to any sort of programming was excel.

The noobie courses is basically everything that this advanced course covers, except over 3 quarters. This course just moves much faster and doesn't bother to explain things that a person who has already done programming in another language would already know.

 

[SunnyD]

The noobie courses will probably teach you the basics which you WILL NEED:

Program Logic
Flow Control
Basic Systems Architecture
Basic Data Structures
Basic Algorithms

Skipping those if you already know them would be okay, I personally was really bored for my first two semesters taking CSC101 and 102, but then again I had been programming professionally for about 5 years by that point. I know a lot of people in the classes had a good deal of trouble because they had never done this sort of thing before.

Since you say you have virtually no experience, answer this without looking it up on the net:

Do you know what a stack is and how it works?
Do you know what a queue is and how it works?
Name as many "LOOP" types that you know.
Do you know what the difference between a WHILE loop and a DO WHILE loop is?
What is "flow control"?
What does "one's index" mean?

I could go on, but those are the easy ones I could think of.

 

[fyleow]

..

 

[Schadenfroh]

Checkout the C++ Beginners Thread

Many free tutorials / guides linked in there.

 

[Rockinacoustic]

Is this strictly a Java Programming Course, or a Computer Science Course? It may be in you interest to learn some basic computer logic and architecture before any programming. Here's some things I'd suggest you look into:

Computer Logic and Architecture
- Understand Numeral Systems (Such as Binary, Decimal, Hexadecimal). Our everyday numerical system is decimal (base 10). Learn to convert numbers to other bases. If your really ambitious, Understand how Two's Compliment deals with positive and negative binary numbers.

- Get an idea of Boolean Logic. (True-False systems)

- Learn what an algorithm is!

- Do you understand how CPU structure and how they operate (execution)? How about Hard-Disk architecture and scheduling algorithms?

Anything beyond this is usually covered heavily in a dedicated discrete math and computer architecture class. Just getting your feet wet is sufficient.


For basic programming logic now, I'd recommend knowing the following concepts. Don't be critical of understand the programming languages syntax, just use common English language in your algorithms to get the idea:

Programming Logic
- Understand the logic of conditional statements ('If' statements, and for Java the 'switch' statement).

- Understand the logic of loops such as 'do', 'do-while' and 'for' loops.

- Searching and sorting algorithms (linear search, binary search, bubble sort, radix sort just to name a few...). These will be key when you learn about arrays. For starters, try searching and sorting sets of numbers.

Anything beyond this is truly dependent on the programming language at hand. You'll definitely learn about Object-Oriented concepts to programming with Java , but that should be left to your class.



I'm sure I've forgotten plenty of stuff so those who know better please feel free to critique my education , but this is how my intro to CS class got me started before Java programming. It gave me a basic idea of Computer Science, not Java or C or etc. As for programming, I've found it is one of those things that just clicks so don't give up if your still struggling a few weeks or even a month into the course. The hardest part of programming is getting your foot into the door. However once you do get through everything just clicks. Good luck!

 

[mylifeforaiur]

Thanks for the helpful advice. The textbook's title is "Absolute Java" so I'm assuming the course is a java programming course. Course title is CSE 11. I've googled alot of helpful webpages, and I'll be sure to drop by Barnes to take a look at the books that have been mentioned.