Submitted 1 year ago by folak@lemmy.world to programming@programming.dev
Don’t start with classes. Start with something that actually does something you understand. Like updating text files. Or pulling data about something you find interesting from a server.
Is a good book every newbie should read. It teaches you how to use programming like a tool
This is the book that started it all for me 5 years ago. Now I’m a software engineer!
Lots of good technical starting points here. I don’t want to prematurely discourage you, but before you get into any code, evaluate your problem solving abilities. If that is an area you struggle in, work on that first, or at least in conjunction with programming basics.
particularly nasty situation, for real. in my experience, they know the bits of a framework, but they’ll never get to write a modest regex: they’ll have opinions on that too.
That’s why I don’t get tired recommending How to solve it to engineers of every level
It depends what you want to do.
Do you want to make cool desktop apps? Probably something like Rust or C#.
Do you want to do machine learning or scientific research applications? Definitely Python.
Do you want to make websites and web apps? Definitely HTML, CSS, and JavaScript (look up both Node.js and DOM API).
Do you want to make mobile apps? Probably Dart and Flutter. Also could learn Java for Android or Objective-C for iOS.
Do you want to get into the nitty gritty of kernel level programming or embedded programming? Probably C and Rust.
Do you want to accomplish nothing of value? Visual Basic.
C# is also very nice for server side and mobile apps as well as desktop
Learning Java for android is still useful as a lot of legacy stuff is Java, but given Google has gone Kotlin first, and Kotlin is IMO easier and less error prone, dipping their toes in that first would probably be the better move.
You can always circle back to Java
Thanks for the correction, I added it to my post.
Kotlin is IMO easier and less error prone
I’m no Kotlin expert, but I think Kotlin has a far more extensive core language and requires a heavier cognitive load to get up and running than Java.
It might have better developer experience and be less error-prone, but that comes at a price of admission that newbies have to pay.
First time I see “cool” and “c#” on the same sentence. I’ve always thought stereotype of c# is that is the language for corporate uncool projects.
Just a comment. Cobol nowadays is heavily outsourced. There are jobs but not so lucrative as in the past. Fortran is still strong in scientific computing, but nowadays it is wrapped in python. All that I know who were strong in fortran (me including) are nowadays working with python or scala, most of us on AI related stuff.
I believe Fortran is still heavily used in weather forecasting.
Follow a guide to make a todolist in a language that’s popular for things you’re interested in.
Games - C# (medium), C++ (hard) Webpages/Webapps - JS/TS (medium) Microcontroller - Python (easy), C (medium), Rust (hard) Datascience and machine learning - Python Automate shell - Bash Automate w scripts - Python / JS Game mods - Look up for each game Android - Java iOS - Swift
For each make a UI and connect to any database that’s convenient.
If you want to setup a server you’ll need to figure out how to communicate via http.
Making a Todo list app covers most of the “mundane” programmer problems in each language and is a byte sized problem (hehe). After that choose something bigger or post again. Good luck!
Pick Rust, learn Bevy, and make a Flappy Bird clone.
Pick Rust
Rust is renowned for being hard and frustrating to onboard onto. I don’t think this is a wise suggestion.
Rust is renowned for being hard and frustrating to onboard onto. I don’t think this is a wise suggestion.
You missed the point
This is very over-exaggerated. A lot of people started with C or C++ as their first language. Both of which are significantly harder than learning Rust. In fact, I had a much easier time learning Rust than I had with Python and Java because the Rust compiler’s always had great error messages and documentation. Which then significantly boosted my ability to write C and C++. If, in an alternate reality, I had started learning programming today, I would recommend to my alternate self to start with Rust. Especially now that it’s gotten so much easier than when I had learned Rust when it was still in alpha. Error messages have gotten very detailed lately, to the point where many of them show the precise code to write to fix the error. The compiler’s also much less strict with borrowing and lifetimes.
A strongly typed language (requires you to say what type of data is stored in variables) like C# is a good starter language. It’s not overly complex, it’s widely used in business and can be used to create games with Unity and Godot too.
Yes, i would also recommend C# as a starting point. It’s kind of a jack of all trades, master of some. But more importantly, it forces you to understand certain programming concepts you may not learn if you start with a language like Python or Javascript. Not knowing these concepts will cause problems as you get deeper into it.
And if you use Visual Studio 2022 on windows (not visual studio code), it will take away some of the initial pain points of setting up your environment and gets you straight to an executable program.
I couldn’t recommend it more as a first language.
And if you use Visual Studio 2022 on windows (not visual studio code), it will take away some of the initial pain points of setting up your environment and gets you straight to an executable program.
Rider is also a great option if you’re a student or own the JetBrains tools.
The question is a bit too vague to answer, there’s not really any right answer.
Just - find what you like to do with it, and go for it. Want to make a game? Maybe play around with Godot or unreal engine or something.
Do you have any repetitive task that you’re doing a lot that you could maybe automate? - try doing that.
You can read some books or watch some tutorials or something, but the best way to actually learn is to actually program.
If you’re coming in from zero, a good place to start is www.hedycode.com
Hedy is a language specifically designed for learning. The things it does to ease the learning curve:
What’s your age? Ideally, you’ll want at least some knowledge about logic and logical operations: TRUE, FALSE, AND, OR, etc.
Following that, “which language” might be a rather tricky question. Python and Javascript are “good starters”, but they might also “teach” you some bad habits. They’re also highly sought after if you’re looking into possible future jobs.
Personally, I’d recommend starting with either Java or Go. Both have lots of learning material and plenty of jobs, but they should also put you in the “proper” mindset of programming.
I don’t think boolean logic is a necessary prerequisite for coding, if you don’t know it yet it makes more sense to learn about it when you come across a programing problem where you’ll want to use it imo
I second Java. It’s easy to get into, has a lot of materials online, and is statically typed which is great for teaching. Most people who start with Python or JS didn’t have a good grasp of variable types and often make more mistakes.
Python.
Really depends on your age and interests
I started learning programming concepts as a teen by using RPG Maker. It introduced me to concepts such as variables, conditions, loops in a “low code” environment.
Thing is, I had a reachable goal which made it easier for me to learn and feel good as I had a tangible result. Things such as “I want to add a point everytime I touch X item” where very good for this.
IMO, I wouldn’t worry too much about the language at first and focus on small reachable goals you want to achieve. But to each his own way of learning.
Like games? You should probably check out GDevelop.
Want to automate some of your online tasks? Maybe n8n.io.
Also, it’s better if the tool you use starts with a high level of abstraction (it’s very esay to use) and allows you to add in some scripts.
If you want to go further, pick a language and go through the basics. And if you’re feeling even more adventurous, head to roadmap.sh to find a learning path towards your goal.
Thing is, I had a reachable goal which made it easier for me to learn and feel good as I had a tangible result.
IMO, this exact thing is what separates the people who succeed and those who give up. If you are only approaching the code as some abstract concept then it will never work. Anyone learning this stuff needs to understand that the code is more like a hammer to a carpenter than anything else… It’s a very physical tool used for doing a real job. If you don’t have any nails to hit, you’re not going to get anything done.
Start with an idea of something you’d like to make.
Start with a simple idea.
The clearer you describe the idea,
the easier it will be to code it.
Learn Python.
My recommendation would be to go down the web dev route to start because it’s very easy to create things that you can share easily (everyone has a browser, but not everyone has python installed on their machine, or wants to open an executable). That can be a great motivator.
I still think App Academy’s free bootcamp is one of the most comprehensive resources to go from zero to making small web apps. It’s very hands-on and they have over 200hrs of material, discord community, and it was updated about a year ago. However, it can be quite daunting and you need to have good discipline to keep going.
www.appacademy.io/course/app-academy-open
Otherwise, as someone else mentioned, freecodeacademy is a good beginner resource.
COBOL!
COBOL is pretty easy to learn and has lots of syntactic sugar to make programming easier. I’ve heard that it’s still in demand as big Enterprise is running out of first generation coders, but I don’t know how long that demand will last. Ada is another language that people joke about but is in demand in certain circles, particularly military.
Go to ChatGPT and tell it to write code in just about any language for you. No learning necessary. /s
I’m going to offer something a bit different. I’ll start by saying that I’ve never actually used it beyond a bit of tinkering and watching the presentation at the Strange Loop conference.a
The basic idea is that it’s actually pretty hard to do things wrong at the start, mostly because you just can’t do much. What you don’t get right has very clear descriptions of what you’ve done wrong, where, and even suggestions for corrections.
As you progress, you can do more and you have a very gradual transition to the more restrictive environment that most programming languages have.
By the time you are done, you are basically programming in Python, so further learning can take place using the myriad of courses, tutorials, and documentation available for that language.
I have no real experience with it beyond some basic tinkering. It is designed for classroom use, or at least on the assumption that there is a teacher or instructor available. That may not translate well to someone learning on their own.
Python, JavaScript, or (if you have a Mac) maybe Swift.
(Probably not Java or C++. They’re too big.)
But really it doesn’t matter much. CS snobs used to say that “BASIC causes brain damage” but a whole generation of programmers proved that to be wrong. The important part is to keep going and not stop. After you learn one language, learn another. There’s no such thing as a good programmer who only knows one language.
freecodecamp anyone?
I am guessing that’s a no.
tryruby.org
Give it a shot.
Beyond any of the basics (logic, loops, data types, functions, classes etc), my biggest tip is to come up with a project, and figure out how you want to do it.
Like, you could make a “local weather display”.
This could be purely JavaScript, CSS and HTML, and it runs on a raspberry pi.
Or you could go down an embedded route, use an Arduino, program in c/c++ (even python, node, or rust).
Or perhaps you want to make a game, and use c#.
Or some mobile apps, using swift for iOS… Or kotlin for android. Or a language that can compile for both.
Maybe you just want to automate some things on Linux, and some bash scripts are just the ticket.
I would suggest learning the basics of programming using JavaScript/node, python or c#.
Then figure out a project, and make it happen.
Lauchs@lemmy.world 1 year ago
If you want a good understanding of the fundamentals etc, I cannot recommend CS50 enough. The original is more difficult and starts with basic stuff (you’ll be asking the computer for individual pieces of memory etc)
cs50.harvard.edu/x/2023/
There’s also a python focused version, which is much easier. But this will make learning other languages in the future a bit more tricky. So, depends what you’d prefer.
cs50.harvard.edu/python/2022/
Both are taught by David Malan, a Harvard professor who is easily one of the best lecturers I’ve seen.
Good luck!
LongbottomLeaf@lemmy.nz 1 year ago
It’s free, right? How much are the certificates?
Lauchs@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Free to take the course through the sites I linked (includes ways to submit andbhave homework checked.)
No idea about edx but if you google cs50 I think edx tends to be among the top results.