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What can help me develop a "love" for programming?

ibex333

ibex333

Diamond Member
I really want to learn to program, took plenty of classes in college, self studied, etc. but every time I get to the more difficult stuff like multi dimensional arrays and stuff, I abandon it and forget everything I learned a few months later. I find it so boring, so tedious...

I understand you may be tempted to say " Well maybe programming is just not for you then!". But this skill is very important in today's world, and I hate learning by forcing myself to learn. It should be at elast somewhat interesting and pleasant and I don't find it so.

Anything you can recommend to make the process more enjoyable?
 
You need to find a problem that programming can solve for you. Everything becomes more enjoyable if you know you're going to get something good at the end of it.
 
Most people think seeing things on their phone is "cool" so I'd go with coming up with a simple app you could build and put on your phone then show off to people. As a seasoned developer, I know that the first time I actually made an iOS app, even though it was when I was more than 5 years into my career, it was still fucking cool to see my own app on my phone and in the app store.

And programming is only "a very important skill" if you are going that direction in your career. My wife is in optics and programming has absolutely nothing to do with her field and couldn't be less important to her.
 
Programming is not for you if you are already finding it boring. Nothing wrong with that, but why stake your future on something that you can't even get into?
 
Mental illness. You have to be a little warped.

Seriously though, if you have problems you are motivated to solve, the programming is a means to an end. Learning the ins and outs of multidimensional arrays is not its own reward.

"I'm going to program a utility program for stat tracking in AD&D" or "I'm going to program a new list app for my phone" or something is a good place to start.
 
Programming is much too wide and deep of a topic to just say I want to be interested in programming.
Specialize and focus: What type of programming? What are the (business?) goals and objectives?
As others have said, your programming needs a purpose, and that purpose will determine what you need to learn and when.
Stop thinking that programming is like algebra/calculus, and that you have to know how to use every operation on the calculator... you don't.
Basically, once you know the language, and some common core concepts like Object Oriented methodology and Abstraction Layers (Separation of the interface from the implementation), you have enough basics to get started.
I have been writing business ASP.net websites for 5 years, and in that, I don't think I have ever used a multi-dimensional array. Sure I have used other common data structures, like lists and queues and trees, but those are not a end goal themselves, they are a tool to solve a particular problem, but not every problem.

Keep in mind this too... As a programmer, only ~30% of your "work" is writing code. The before you can write any code you have to do a lot of designing, planning, architecting... Then after coding comes test, fix, test, fix test fix, etc.
Being a good programmer means much more than just being able to write some code.
 
I do software development for a living, but if I'm not interested in the problem I'm solving, I find "programming" to be boring as shit.

The problem-solving is the fun part. Find a problem you actually want to solve.
 
sdifox said:
Potmatoes :awe:
Click to expand...
Tomacco2-15-2011-2.jpg
 
Nick Arthur said:
i think you should first know what're your interests, and then program something that related to your interests.
Click to expand...
This. I learnt coding and databases out of a desire to run chat bots for an MMO and customize my own functions. And then out of my tabletop miniature gaming hobby came my online tools I built. Now I work from home developing web apps making twice what I used to.
 
You're kidding, right ?

That lecture makes me fall asleep.
It's from 1986. A lot of exciting stuff has happened since then. I don't feel like any of that excitement in that boring lecture.

And they talk about Lisp. LISP !!!
If you want to scare people away from programming, you should definitely talk about Lisp. In fact, I don't know any subject in Computer Science that would scare potential programmers faster away from CS than Lisp.

FFS. Lisp.
 
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