Those who are programmers, software engineers

[mikegg]

How late is too late to learn programming/software development? I'm in my mid-twenties almost. I know people start programming at a much earlier age. I don't want to be a developer but at least good enough to have a good idea on how to build any type of program I want.

What are some good websites/tutorials to learn on?

What's the first language I should put a lot of time on? Something worthy... I don't want to learn it and find out that it's obsolete.

 

[hans007]

Never too late to learn. To just build and compile should not be that hard . If you take to it well it'll be fairly easy.

I mean when. Computers first were invented all the programmers were already adults too

 

[SearchMaster]

Heh - not even close to being "too late". If you have a logical brain you should be able to pick up programming very easily. As for obsolescence...in general once you learn how to program, it's pretty easy to transition to a new language when needed.

As for language recommendations, it really just depends on what you're wanting to create. Websites? Mobile? PC apps?

 

[Doppel]

That isn't too late, I know a bunch successful in the field who started not much earlier than that.

 

[Broheim]

How late is too late to learn programming/software development? I'm in my mid-twenties almost. I know people start programming at a much earlier age. I don't want to be a developer but at least good enough to have a good idea on how to build any type of program I want.

What are some good websites/tutorials to learn on?

What's the first language I should put a lot of time on? Something worthy... I don't want to learn it and find out that it's obsolete.

never too late, many people in my CS class had never programmed before and they're all in their mid 20's.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

its never too late, its more a question of your ability. a guy i went to grad school with got a degree in particle physics and then went on to work on programming language standards committees and now is a big shot at a large search engine/mobileOS company

 

[disappoint]

How late is too late to learn programming/software development? I'm in my mid-twenties almost. I know people start programming at a much earlier age. I don't want to be a developer but at least good enough to have a good idea on how to build any type of program I want.

What are some good websites/tutorials to learn on?

What's the first language I should put a lot of time on? Something worthy... I don't want to learn it and find out that it's obsolete.

See C run. Run C run!

 

[EagleKeeper]

Figure your life span. Subtract 3 years. You need to start by then. Make it 5 to be proficient.

 

[disappoint]

Figure your life span. Subtract 3 years. You need to start by then. Make it 5 to be proficient.

What if he dies in 2 years? Will he die happy anyway?

 

[BrightCandle]

You'll be much behind your contempories who realised they loved working with computers at 7 years old and have already spent two decades doing it and have a degree in computer science. But like everything with greater practice comes great skill and you don't need 10,000 hours of programming knowledge to get going. You wont be competing with them for jobs but then you don't want to.

My advice is to start with something basic and work up and towards something you want to do. Having a project in mind will help you learn a lot of what you need along the way.

 

[bigrash]

I learned programming in my mid twenties and I sucked at it. There's your motivation.

 

[darkewaffle]

Definitely too late. You should probably just buy yourself a sturdy shovel and practice practice practice.

 

[SandEagle]

<-- did COBOL and C. worst times of my life. leave the dirty work for developers and go into sys admin, dba, or networking, hell even qa testing. coding is for suckers

 

[EagleKeeper]

<-- did COBOL and C. worst times of my life. leave the dirty work for developers and go into sys admin, dba, or networking, hell even qa testing. coding is for suckers

Those suckers are what is creating a need for you to have a chance to troll

 

[Albatross]

Get into PHP and web programming ,a bit easier than jumping straight into C++.

 

[purbeast0]

op i think you need to get your expectations set a bit. i'm a developer going on over 8 years now and went to school for CS. and hell i still don't know how to build ANY type of program i want to build. i probably have an idea of where to at least go to look and figure it out and HOW to get to the end product, but that part alone outside of any actual development could take months.

being a developer isn't just about coding. it is about understanding how to solve a big problem, and being able to figure out what technology to use to get there, and then how to implement it in that said tech. as a developer you should be able to learn any language as necessary to get a job done. this is more of a general mindset though.

if i were to learn on my own again i'd start with java to get a solid object oriented programming understanding, and then probably start to mess with javascript and web app development. or just use the java to start messing with android development.

 

[CurseTheSky]

Get into PHP and web programming ,a bit easier than jumping straight into C++.

I agree with this.

I've had a thing for computers since my family first got one when I was about 7. I'm 26 now, and I've been working with them ever since. I went to college for Computer Science, and got my Bachelor's going on two years ago.

Most people seem to start with C/C++, which is a very powerful, but somewhat strict and tricky language. It's good for teaching the fundamentals, but in my opinion, you get too stuck with learning the rules of the language instead of just being able to code. If you do something as simple as forget a semi-colon somewhere in the 50 lines of code you wrote from a snippet you found on the net, the debugging information you get back isn't going to do a novice much good - it'll be daunting and virtually useless.

Visual Basic is a bit easier, since a lot of the framework is laid out for you (at least if you're using Visual Studio). There are still a lot of caveats and things to learn before you get to do anything interesting, but at least you'll be creating graphical programs pretty much from the get-go.

PHP and HTML, on the other hand, will let you create a finished product fairly easily. PHP definitely holds your hand a lot compared to C/C++ and other languages. It'll do automatic conversion from one data type to another, so you don't have to worry about the debugger screaming at you when you try to add 1 and "1", or 4 and 4.0. Overall, it just lets you get in there and get coding faster, which can be a huge encouragement to continue with your efforts.

It's never too late to learn programming, and it can be a lot of fun. Stick with it, and don't worry about how "late" you are compared to everyone else. Time isn't the only factor that determines if you're good at programming; I've known people that have been working with computers and programming languages for decades and still can't turn out anything worthwhile. There's a BIG difference between knowing how to write some code and knowing how to write GOOD code.

 

[mikegg]

Thanks for the post CurseTheSky.

I'll probably start out with HTML5, CSS, PHP, and Javascript.

 

[SandEagle]

ASP.NET developers are in high demand too.

 

[FelixDeCat]

I wrote a cool business application with GWBASIC in 1992. It was the easiest language to learn. Start there.

Soon you will be selling GWBASIC apps on DOSTUNES.

 

[brianmanahan]

<-- did COBOL and C. worst times of my life. leave the dirty work for developers and go into sys admin, dba, or networking, hell even qa testing. coding is for suckers

maybe you are just not intelligent enough to design and implement software :awe:

just think, if you were, you could have written a bot to scrape twitter for police brutality tweets and have it repost them here

it would have saved you literally thousands of hours!