How did you first learn to program?

Question

I first learned to program through self teaching but I later learned it in an academic setting as well, so I have a mix of the two. I am curious to know how others learned to program. Did you self teach, take a course, learn through a friend or by some other means?

Answer 1

All the half decent (or better) programmers I've ever met have been self taught, or self taught then college educated.

I've yet to meet a single competant programmer who started learning in university

Answer 2

I taught myself how to code for a little under a year, took an 8 week Ruby/Rails course called bloc.io in the summer, and just finished a 10-week Ruby/Rails course called Dev Bootcamp. In that time, I have gone from zero knowledge, to making sites like http://www.instamap.it/ and http://www.codequizzes.com/. Here is a more detailed summary of my journey (I have been employed full-time in a non-programming job, except for a 3 month sabbatical for Dev Bootcamp):



1. Fall 2011 - Read Python Programming by John Zelle (http://www.amazon.com/Python-Programming-Introduction-Computer-Science/dp/1590282418)



2. Winter 2012 - Solved Project Euler programming challenges (http://projecteuler.net/) and made games by reading Invent with Python (http://inventwithpython.com/)



3. Spring 2012 - Attempted to learn PHP, but that was a bit disastrous. Kept plugging away with Python.



4. Summer 2012 - Was accepted into a program called bloc.io that gave me a programming mentor via Skype, which helped a lot. Switching from Python to Ruby was not bad, but learning Rails was tough because I didn't even know basic HTML/CSS/JavaScript. I also found a programming buddy through this course and he taught me a lot.



5. Fall 2012 - I took a 3 month sabbatical from work and went to Dev Bootcamp to program all day every day. I programed so much that I started dreaming in code.



I am still studying all the time because there is so much to learn!

Answer 3

I learn the same way like you. First i learn practice what l learn in the school and others thinks on some code from others progra

mmers. There is no school for be a programmer eaven in the school some tachers doesnt know some much about

Answer 4

Initially yes self interest,i started from linux commands and shell scripts.Wow those where amazing days.Doing a small automated task gave a big smile on my face,Then to improve my self did computer science engineering and became a professional Software developer :) and enjoy my work

Answer 5

Mostly all self taught with very little formal programming education...started out on a FreeBSD system as well.

Answer 6

either way you learn, to be good one must "self teach"