How to get into Programming?

Question

My dream one day is to work for Google, or start my own company. I would like to learn how to code and many different programming languages. The problem is, I don't know that much more about computers than the average person. I've made simple games and animations using Scratch and Game Maker, but other than that, I have no experience with any sort of programming. I'm a freshman in high school, and I want to learn as much as possible as soon as possible. Next year, I am hoping to take an elective offered at my high school where the class forms a mock technology company, and you create iphone apps and advertise your product and things like that. I hope to take that class for my last 3 years of high school.

So bascically, where do I start? What do I need to know to get into the buisness, and how do I get into the buisness? Does that elective sound like a good idea? Thanks so much!

Also, I'm taking Geometry now, so I will have completed Algebra 1 and Geometry by next year.

Answer 1

How to become a good programmer

- http://kaisar-haque.blogspot.com/2007/11/how-to-become-good-programmer.html

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How to be a Programmer: A Short, Comprehensive, and Personal Summary

- http://samizdat.mines.edu/howto/HowToBeAProgrammer.html

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Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years

- http://norvig.com/21-days.html

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C++

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Programming: Principles and Practice Using C++ by Bjarne Stroustrup

- An Introduction to Programming by the Inventor of C++

- http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Principles-Practice-Using-C/dp/0321543726/

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The C++ Programming Language by Bjarne Stroustrup

- http://www.amazon.com/C-Programming-Language-Special/dp/0201700735

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Code::Blocks == Open Source C/C++ IDE

- - codeblocks-10.05mingw-setup.exe

- http://www.codeblocks.org/downloads/binaries

Answer 2

To work for Google you'll need to graduate pretty high from university in a development-related degree. They're *the* company to work for so they can afford to be extremely choosy when it comes to hiring people. That's now of course, who knows where the market will be by the time you graduate...



The elective you mention sounds more like it's geared towards technology startups and marketing than development. iPhone apps are the entry level of development because anyone can make one regardless of programming knowledge. But companies like Google buy startups by the dozen if they have ideas worth patenting so it's not a dead-end either.



If you really want to go down the road to being a programmer, then setting your sights on a good computer science college degree is the way to go. Even before then you could begin by learning a language like Java. There are loads of books and tutorials available and everything you need to write code in it is available online for free. It's also quite a clean structured language - if you spend a lot of time really learning and understanding the basic principles you'll be in a great position to take that knowledge and adapt it to almost any programming language. Programming languages are a lot like vehicles, they all have buttons and gizmos in different places but if you have a firm grasp of the basic mechanics you can drive almost any of them.

Answer 3

Unfortunately everyone else who responded to you is dead wrong about this.

DONT LEARN THESE LANGUAGES:

Java

Visual Basic

C++

C#

Batch



Java will teach you bad habits, and the rest are trash.

Second off, you need no education to start a business or to work for google.

To learn from the master read the essays at http://www.paulgraham.com/

You need to install linux right away, that is first thing. Once you have a decent environment to work in, you can start to learn stuff.

If you want to get a job right away learn something like Python or Ruby

if you want to learn stuff right away and not worry about making money for 3 or 4 years, learn stuff like lisp or smalltalk.

Scheme is a great place to start with lisp. The book http://www.amazon.com/Little-Schemer-Daniel-P-Friedman/dp/0262560992/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1315643837&sr=8-1 being a great place to start learning it. then once you start figuring stuff out head to http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/ that requires some mathematical maturity.



If you like hardware learn C, which is a very beautiful language. (NOT C++ or C# which are awful.)



HTML is not a language, and a person can learn how it works in a couple days. The same thing with CSS, URL, and lots of other internet junk. Don't worry about learning any of that until you need it, otherwise you might end up memorizing lists and not actually learning anything.



Where I started: http://www.pavietnam.net/



The iphone class sounds like it might be worth your time, because it is fun.

Bad news about technology is that you might never find a decent class to actually teach you anything. The good news is that you can learn it all on your own, everything is so new that everyone is more or less a beginner.



As for linux, ubuntu.com is a great place to start. They have lots of instructions on how to install and such.

Answer 4

Start with very basic. I started with batch files, very very simple, take a few days, make crazy stuff, find some tuts on youtube. Then, go to Visual Basic, spend about a week or two, get familiar with it, it will help you when you encounter C/C#/C+/C++. Go to HTML, it really is needed to learn it, most people pay for you to do templates ( so easy ). Java is next, easy, cool, spend as much time until your familiar. Then, start on the C's. Tip : Join programming forums. The community will help you, give you ideas.

Answer 5

Pick up a book on Java or C#. Both are relatively easy languages to get into and you can get acquainted with the basics.

Answer 6

I would definitely recommend starting off with C or Java, find a book or a good online resource and start at it.