Who learned to program himself?

[stanton]

What is the easy way to learn programming?

or what basics do you need to learn how toprogram on C ?

[notjoe]

Originally posted by stanton
What is the easy way to learn programming?

or what basics do you need to learn how toprogram on C ?

I taught myself everything i know. Start off with something simple you want to program and go get a non advanced book with simple references.

This should do you good until you progress to move advanced shit

[StacyCat]

I took classes in school, hated programming, now im a hospitality major :-D

Taught myself basic HTML, thats about it.

[DrunkenMaster]

HTML is easy as shit, make someting in frontpage and figure out what everything means

and other programming things; download some things and figure out what all the things mean

simple as that

[Mark]

I taught myself perl.. once you've mastered the 'hello world' program the rest just falls into place.. ;)

There's loads of tutorials on the web so find something simple and work through it.. copy sample code and mess about with it, see what you can do with a few changes here and there then start adding extra stuff - this is obviously not the way to code a serious application but its good for learning the game..

trial and error gets you a long way!

[Sassyass]

I started programming when I was 9 on a trs-80. Since then I have always learned things before they taught them in school.
Get some books and understand how a computer processes code. Once you understand that, learning a way to write it is easier.
Get Visual studio and let it write code for you, pick it apart and learn.

[init]

before you attempt to program in c i would suggest with going to visual basic so you can get the basic idea behind programming to see if you like it, then once you get the conept then move onto c.

[NoCarrier]

Once you learn and master a langage, you can adapt to other langages as well. The code is different, but the logic will always be the same.

I learned with Pascal, then C++

[skazzel]

Originally posted by stanton
What is the easy way to learn programming?

or what basics do you need to learn how toprogram on C ?

Spend a few months locked in a room with your computer and 1000 page computer manuals. During this period you shall consume nothing but pizza and overly caffinated beverages.

It is important to avoid contact with any non-nerds that may distract you from the One True Path during this period. This of course means no sex.

The highlights of your day will be getting code to compile after hours spent tracking down bugs and banging your head on the wall until you bleed. And of course masturbating to ASCII internet porn. After months of no contact with females, even lame ASCII representations of the female anatomy will stir your loins.

Also, avoid baths like the plague. They detract from quality time you could be spending with your computer tracking down that last dangling pointer or memory leak. Other nerds will no you are 'leet just by smelling you, like a dog smelling another dog's ass.

After all this you will be a pasty white, smelly, fat nerd with no social life. Congratulations - you made it!

[Jak]

Originally posted by Sassyass
I started programming when I was 9 on a trs-80.

Awesome, same here. Now I do a little Perl, VB, C++, Java, bits of Python and php, and some other stuff depending on the job that needs to be done. That, in my opinion, is the best way to learn. Find a job that needs to be done and do it in the language you want to learn. There's a ton of info on the web that should help along the way. Before you know it, you've finished the job and you know the language.

Jak

[fatmonkey]

I taught myself html , asp , C , C++, PHP , perl, java, javascript, vbscript, and C#.

I work as a dev for a major software company.

You need to decide whether you want to do scripting ( php,asp,vbscript,jscript ) or real programming ( C, C++, C# ).

If you choose real programming the biggest challenge for you will be to understand how to compile ( for example what does a unresolved external mean), how memory works ( heap vs. stack ), and what compile time vs. run time means, etc.

If you choose scripting then it's way easier.. no memory to manage , no AV's to handle.. the script engine does it all for you.. all you have to worry about is makeing it work.

There is also a question you need to answer, what kind of a programmer you want to be. MOST programmers who arent programmers in real like ( websites dont count ) suck the cock.. seriously.. they are uber bad. If you look at thier code they leak handles and memory like it's fucking free.

That being said this style of amateur programming usally get's the job done and will work ok... but it doesnt mean your a good programmer.

When you write good code you need to take into account things like ease of maintinence, readability, stress, localization, memory usage, upgrade path, etc. All this can be daunting but once you learn it, it's all good.

I learned through picking very simple tools or utils I wanted, then learning to write them. Get some good books and that will also help you.

good luck dood.

[PeteTheRed]

Originally posted by skazzel


The highlights of your day will be getting code to compile after hours spent tracking down bugs and banging your head on the wall until you bleed. And of course masturbating to ASCII internet porn. After months of no contact with females, even lame ASCII representations of the female anatomy will stir your loins.

Heheh... that reminds me of something funny I saw on freshmeat recently - http://freshmeat.net/projects/hascii...90%2C125%2C128

[Muff]

Originally posted by skazzel


Spend a few months locked in a room with your computer and 1000 page computer manuals. During this period you shall consume nothing but pizza and overly caffinated beverages.

It is important to avoid contact with any non-nerds that may distract you from the One True Path during this period. This of course means no sex.

The highlights of your day will be getting code to compile after hours spent tracking down bugs and banging your head on the wall until you bleed. And of course masturbating to ASCII internet porn. After months of no contact with females, even lame ASCII representations of the female anatomy will stir your loins.

Also, avoid baths like the plague. They detract from quality time you could be spending with your computer tracking down that last dangling pointer or memory leak. Other nerds will no you are 'leet just by smelling you, like a dog smelling another dog's ass.

After all this you will be a pasty white, smelly, fat nerd with no social life. Congratulations - you made it!

Is this how you mastered the art of programming?

[TDavid]

fatmonkey gives some great advice in his post.

I know programmers who have been "learning" C for years and are still learning. I chuckle when I see [cough] these books "Learn C in 21 days" ... you can't learn anything as in-depth as C in 21 days ... or even 21 weeks, IMO. You can pick up some basics, sure, but if you are serious about it and you are new to programming especially it's going to be an ongoing long dedicated process.

Your best path if you are brand new to the programming world is go the scripting route first and learn basic programming principles so you don't have to worry about memory management because that reality in C can and does break many potential programmers. If you want to learn scripting first, I have a free resource with 7 full length courses here that will get you well on the way and through the basics.

Fundamentally, a loop is a loop, a conditional is a conditional, a variable is a variable, an array is an array, no matter what language is being used. Get the concepts down, and then start exploring code optimization. The lower level language that you use, the more of a learning curve that is going to be neccessary.

Don't let anybody, myself included, tell or teach you that you have to use only C or assembly to do serious applications. In some cases these will be your only logical choice if you are trying to squeeze the most out of a machine as possible, but if your app doesn't require a lot of hardware power or it's not a sophistocated app like say a MMORPG 3D game (like EQ), you can do something very professional using higher level languages like C#, VB, etc

Here's an online tutorial site for C which is a pretty good start.

Best of luck to you on your journey

[init]

start off easy, if you jump right into c without any programming knowledge what so ever, you will be lost. my advice is start out with visual basic if you want to do application programming. don't dodge right into c without knowing any programming logic what so ever because let me tell you, c is a very difficult language, i have been programming for a little over 2 1/2 years ( mainly visual basic ) and i only know a little bit of c because it is not an easy language to learn.

[jimmyf]

Originally posted by fatmonkey
I taught myself html , asp , C , C++, PHP , perl, java, javascript, vbscript, and C#.

I work as a dev for a major software company.

You need to decide whether you want to do scripting ( php,asp,vbscript,jscript ) or real programming ( C, C++, C# ).

If you choose real programming the biggest challenge for you will be to understand how to compile ( for example what does a unresolved external mean), how memory works ( heap vs. stack ), and what compile time vs. run time means, etc.

If you choose scripting then it's way easier.. no memory to manage , no AV's to handle.. the script engine does it all for you.. all you have to worry about is makeing it work.

There is also a question you need to answer, what kind of a programmer you want to be. MOST programmers who arent programmers in real like ( websites dont count ) suck the cock.. seriously.. they are uber bad. If you look at thier code they leak handles and memory like it's fucking free.

That being said this style of amateur programming usally get's the job done and will work ok... but it doesnt mean your a good programmer.

When you write good code you need to take into account things like ease of maintinence, readability, stress, localization, memory usage, upgrade path, etc. All this can be daunting but once you learn it, it's all good.

I learned through picking very simple tools or utils I wanted, then learning to write them. Get some good books and that will also help you.

good luck dood.

Very good advice. Finding project's can be a problem.
And this is so important.
-----------------------------------------------
When you write good code you need to take into account things like ease of maintinence, readability, stress, localization, memory usage, upgrade path, etc. All this can be daunting but once you learn it, it's all good.
-----------------------------------------------
And
ease of maintinence
the most important I think, with ease of use.

[TheFLY]

Either U are a nerd or not -- a thread like this won't help much. U got to be the nerd. Go to the bookstore and hang out in the computer section... Learn PHP first if you want my advice. Get an account w/ Five-Elements -- ask for ssh-telnet access. Download putty. Learn UNIX. Test your scripts. Hang out at User-nix -- try to make friends w/ other nerds -- watch lots of StarTrek, Starwars, etc... read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy... U are not cool -- U are a nerd. Be the nerd -- that's how to learn programming. If you are over 20 y/o and U aren't a programmer by now -- U will never be a programmer... Either U are a programmer or you aren't -- there's no in-between.

[TheFLY]

Originally posted by skazzel


Spend a few months locked in a room with your computer and 1000 page computer manuals. During this period you shall consume nothing but pizza and overly caffinated beverages.

It is important to avoid contact with any non-nerds that may distract you from the One True Path during this period. This of course means no sex.

The highlights of your day will be getting code to compile after hours spent tracking down bugs and banging your head on the wall until you bleed. And of course masturbating to ASCII internet porn. After months of no contact with females, even lame ASCII representations of the female anatomy will stir your loins.

Also, avoid baths like the plague. They detract from quality time you could be spending with your computer tracking down that last dangling pointer or memory leak. Other nerds will no you are 'leet just by smelling you, like a dog smelling another dog's ass.

After all this you will be a pasty white, smelly, fat nerd with no social life. Congratulations - you made it!

So fucking true. That is really funny. Remember the means is to an end -- money... So don't learn MYSQL just because it's cool -- shit -- come up w/ a project that you want to code that will make money -- then sit down and do it. If you need MYSQL -- then great -- but don't learn the shit just because everyone else is doing it... Scripts scripts scripts... Scripts make money -- and you don't have to commit yourself to OOP, hardcore libraries, or fucking Microsoft -- and U can still make money. Programming for U should be #1 about efficiency -- smart thinkers work less, think less -- your goal should be to code easy shit that makes money -- easy code, simple code, fast code, short code -- less code. Why do you think I have 6000 posts? U think I work every day like most of these dogs on here? Hell no. My scripts are running 24/7 doing my dirty work. A true nerd can automate just about anything. It's about cracking the system to get what U want out of it. Get the book "Hackers" -- it may change U -- if you can get wood reading "Hackers" then congrats U are a true nerd.

[Spoonie Luv]

I learned programming in college and also taught myself alot about it after. Programming is part art/part science that requires dedication to master.

[detoxed]

I learned to program myself.

[psyko514]

Taught myself HTML and PHP and some C++

[fatmonkey]

ya.. having a high nerd level helps allot