How do most people start programming?

Question

This is quite a bit question for me so, the more detail you include, the more thankful i'll be for your answer. :-)

Ok so I'm 14, and since I was say about, um, 8? Yeah about 8, all I wanted to do was learn how to create apps, games, websites etc. Now, my question is, how do most programmers learn how to code? Do they learn in Collage? High School? Can I start to learn to program now? And if I can, where?

Would appreciate any answer :-)

Answer 1

try this website http://www.codecademy.com/ you'll earn many things related to websites after finishing it

goto this website http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/ to learn basics of C++ then download visual C++ to get started in programming

but I simply don't know when I started probably when I was 5 years old ,my dad was a computer engineer who also know programming (still) so I was just copying everything he do until he noticed that I was trying to open programs and do the coding thing ,he sat down , helped me, he explained to many things about coding and he started teaching me

Answer 2

Most people start programming when they realize and are inspired by the tremendous possibilities they see in computers. Then their curiosity takes them forward. They start by trying a few things and then their career takes off. It is a rabbit hole and only a few people reach to the bottom of it, rest stop at different levels in the hole.



I was inspired when computers were introduced to me in my 9th grade. They used to teach us using the BASIC programming language. I made many programs that inspired my classmates and made my teachers happy. They were from smart calculators to flashing graphics. I believe the flashing graphics thing is what inspired my classmates! I also wrote a program for an animated robot! it was pretty long! Then I did some research and realized that C programming language is something that is popular and goes beyond any other popular language. I learned C and C++ at an institute that taught programming languages. However, there were many things to learn in C/C++ that an institute or a book does not teach and I learned all that through experience. For a few months I taught programming at a school and I inspired many students and most of them are programmers today! I was writing advance C/C++ programs before I went to college. I learned Assembly language in college. I am working on embedded systems and sometime in the past I also wrote some OS level code, that's how deep the rabbit hole goes baby! the base of the hole is quite wide and you can branch of in corner of your liking and luck.



So basically if you are curious to learn and you find someone who's work inspires you then you will start programming. Seems like something is missing in the last 6 years!



Can I start to learn to program now? And if I can, where?

Yes, you can start anytime but the first question that you will have is which language to learn? There are many out there and it is very confusing to choose from. If you want to go far in this field then I would suggest learning C and then C++ because these are high level languages (human readable, abstract etc.) which also allows one to write low level code (hardware control, interlaced assembly code (machine language) etc.). Later also learn Python to complement your knowledge. Python is an interpreted language and is mainly used to write scripts to automate your tasks and also for testing. Once you get started you will figure out that you need to know many other things and you will be good enough to learn those things on your own. BTW, the order of learning C -> C++ -> Assembly -> Python is probably important because you will have developed some basis for things that your learn later and would have an idea of what could be going on under the hood and would prevent unnecessary waste of time in searching for the right answer and then few years down learning that the right answer was only partially right and the actual right answer is quite deep.



You can either purchase books or download PDFs online for learning C/C++. Python comes with its own tutorial and documentation so you do not need to purchase/download any books. For C/C++ there are two books, Thinking In C and Thinking in C++. The author has made their PDFs freely downloadable. Simply Google for the titles and you will find the author's website.



You will need a good editor, use Eclipse For C++ and use Notepad++ for Python and other files. You will need a version control system, use SVN and Tortoise SVN, You will need diff software, use WinMerge for diffs and KDiff3 for 3-way merge. You will need C/C++ compilers, use GNU compilers.



If you want to work on Linux/Unix an alternative is to use Cygwin on Windows. Cygwin will simulate a similar environment in a shell. Its installer is superb.



Everything that I have mentioned is freely available and is used by most professionals in the industry and I believe all this will give you a good start.

Answer 3

I started learning visual basic at my first year doing computing at college. Visual basic is pretty easy to learn but its not very "fun" you can't really make any games with it and in the real word its not used very widely.



I'm now finishing my first year of university studying computer science and to begin we learnt a programming language called python to introduce new people to programming. Now python is a really simple language to learn as it doesn't differ too much from normal speech. If you want to start now they have a very good online tutorial

http://wiki.python.org/moin/BeginnersGuide



Also if you prefer videos the khan academy have some of there own python tutorials

https://www.khanacademy.org/science/computer-science/v/introduction-to-programs-data-types-and-variables



As a project i created a very simple version of space invaders in python that worked pretty well and wasn't too hard to make.



Python is great for learning but not too great for making games. Once you get the hang of python you will want to look at C++.



C++ is a little more complicated but you have much more control over what you create and how you code it. The following is a pretty good tutorial

http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/



Again once you get a good understanding of it you will want to look at a library called SDL which is a graphics library which you can use to make games.



Programming can be very complicated if you just dive into the deep end without really getting to understand the basics. So whilst you want to make games you will need to do everything leading up to it.

Answer 4

I started back in college, using books and online tutorials in my own spare time even though I wasn't being taught of all of it in college. You have to spend a lot of time studying code in books etc. I would recommend starting with the basics such as HTML and CSS before doing advanced such as PHP or Java (Android). I mostly learn by following through other peoples code that I find on the internet and tweaking it to see what happens if I change certain bits of it.



You can start to program any time. The site that is most helpful to me is http://www.w3schools.com/. If you have any problems you can find solutions on stackoverflow.com. The types of books I recommend are the dummy books, such as 'HTML & CSS for dummies'. If you want to know more contact me on '[e-mail]'

Answer 5

You can definitely start now!



Choosing the language to start with should depend on what you want to do the most.

If you want to do apps, then I start start with apps (Java, and android SDK)

If you want games (C++, or one of the .net frameworks (C#, VB))

If you want websites (HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, SQL)



Here's a few places to get you started:

http://www.cplusplus.com/

http://www.gamedev.net/page/index.html

http://www.w3schools.com/



You can also search for other tutorials and what not as well.



I'll warn you. Programming isn't easy at the start, and has been known to slap people around a bit... My C++ class in college started with 42 people. We finished with 13. Take your time with it, and most of all "play" with it. Don't be afraid to test it, to see what else it can do.



Good Luck!

Answer 6

The internet is full of great resources. It just depends on what you want to start with. Not a lot of high school I know of offer a lot of programming classes. You can definitely find stuff in college though. If you want to start now check out www.codeschool.com, they offer a lot of different type of programs!

Answer 7

probably on a language called C++ or C i would probably just do simple hello world and make borders and learn more commands slowly there is also a language called BASIC you can you its goo for begginers