Where should I start with programming?

[SideSlitter]

To be honest, I wouldn't buy any books with the words, "In 21 days" in the title. 21 days is hardly enough time to grip the basics, and by the end of the book you'll probably be able to write a few basic programs, and know the syntax, yeah. But nothing significant... If I were you, I'd take programming languages one by one if you want to seriously get into programming. C++ and C# are generally harder languages anyway, so I wouldn't advise starting out with them. However, you could start with an easier language, such as Python, just so you get a hold on programming, it's basics, etc.

Read Peter Norvig's guide "Teach Yourself Programming In 10 Years"

 

[Shazer2]

I'll check it out, thanks for the help. I'm still open for more ideas also.

 

[ethanson12]

I think you start with the C programming .Because it is a basic thing to learn other language. The other language mostly based on this .

 

[berry120]

I think you start with the C programming .Because it is a basic thing to learn other language. The other language mostly based on this .

I seem to constantly find myself shouting such comments about C down - but they really are utter tripe. C is a very old language these days that bears very little resemblance to most modern languages in use (with the exception of C++, but again its use is fading rapidly.) Yes, C is interesting to learn, but not to start with and definitely not because "everything is based on it."

 

[Shazer2]

I'm still not sure what to use, Denthul has been showing me a bit of Perl. It's quite interesting. Not sure if anyone else has used it, have you berry120?

 

[berry120]

Perl's useful for hacking together scripts - I've used it occasionally when a normal shell script isn't really up to the job. It's useful because you can hack together things really quickly - doing the equivalent thing in something like Java would take far longer. As a main programming language though I really wouldn't recommend it if you're starting out, chances are it won't get you into brilliant practices because of its nature.

 

[marknelson]

This is really the nice stafrt for the programming as i9 also think that learning C is always good. As C is the basic programmin language and it has all the concepts related to programming.

 

[astromech_kuhns]

ok, so i am also new to programing. i run linux and have installed python. i have read how to program in 10 years.

i would really like to learn the basics like what a IDE is and a compiler and such terminology. also i dont mind exploring and learning on my own at all, but i would really like to know where to start, like what to type into the terminal when running python so i can begin. because i have no clue how to program or what the language is like. but i dont mind finding out on my own....

 

[root]

python is a scripting language not a programming language.

start with a hello world program

literally just a program that prints hello work to the screen.

 

[berry120]

i would really like to learn the basics like what a IDE is and a compiler and such terminology.

Google? It's seriously helpful for those sorts of questions!

But to give you a start, the compiler is what takes your code and transfers it to the machine code that can be executed by your processor - the processor works with 1's and 0's and it'd be hideous to write everything that way! So you code in your language of choice, then the compiler maps everything down to machine code so you don't have to worry about it. Not all languages are compiled - some like python are interpreted a line at a time. There's advantages and disadvantages to both ways. The main advantage of not compiling is that you don't have to wait for the compilation process to finish before running your code - so for quick prototyping it can sometimes save a bit of time. That said most IDEs compile on the go these days so the wait is barely noticeable unless you're compiling a beast of a program and doing a full clean / build.

An IDE (integrated development environment) is desigend to make your life easier writing code, just like a word processor say is designed to make your life easier writing letters or documents. A decent one these days will contian autocomplete features, refactoring tools, tools to manage your build files and so on. When you're proficient at programming they're a great time saver, though to start with it's either best to use a specialist beginner's IDE or just steer clear of one altogether - if you don't understand what you're doing the tools there will hinder far more than they help.