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Programming 101
ptlsbntr
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hello, this will be my first post to the forums so here goes 
.
I've been interested in learning to program for a while now and finally have some time to actually do so. My goal is that eventually I'd like to be able to make simple to slightly advanced 2d games and create a type of auto-process for some ridiculously repetitive and time consuming tasks at work. From looking through some other threads on this topic it seems that good beginner languages would be Python and/or C#. I plan on just going to a book store and buying a couple books for beginners but any suggestions on what books to buy, or websites to look into, or maybe I should start with a different language to learn, any help would be really appreciated. I understand that it will probably take a while of learning before I can really reach my goals but I've got time so not a problem.
Thanks
.I've been interested in learning to program for a while now and finally have some time to actually do so. My goal is that eventually I'd like to be able to make simple to slightly advanced 2d games and create a type of auto-process for some ridiculously repetitive and time consuming tasks at work. From looking through some other threads on this topic it seems that good beginner languages would be Python and/or C#. I plan on just going to a book store and buying a couple books for beginners but any suggestions on what books to buy, or websites to look into, or maybe I should start with a different language to learn, any help would be really appreciated. I understand that it will probably take a while of learning before I can really reach my goals but I've got time so not a problem.
Thanks
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What kind of tasks and what environment (ie: windows) do you use at work?
I'd recommend you start here, the Visual Basic, Visual C++ and Visual C# areas have links to some learning articles and tutorials.
2 caveats:
1. Getting to the point where you can make even simple 2d games will be quite a while.
2. DO NOT attempt to download Python from Python.com. Use Python.org. Python.com is a porn site. I nearly got myself fired accidentally going there at work.
Stick to the O'Reilly book. Dive Into Python hasn't aged well.
Can't speak for Python, but C# does everything you mention. For game development look at XNA and for the SQL stuff you'll want to look at ADO.NET. Don't expect to do this stuff overnight though.
Python has shit in it. Lots of quirks and stuff that are unique to python that can throw new guys for a loop when they switch to another language.
C# is wholesome. Regardless of your opinion of Microsoft, C#.NET is a robust framework and a very sound language and it will open the doors to anything you want to do*
*in Windows
Also, C# being strongly typed, it will teach you some good habits.
I find people who start with dynamic languages like Python tend to get frustrated and pissed of when they have to jump into something stricter like C#. Whereas people who start off with the tough stuff can move at will between the two.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
then, if you want to get serious, move to c++
Python is nice because it has very little syntax to memorize, but I'm gonna second the notion that starting there and moving to a more persnickety language will be frustrating for you. Better to start with C#, Java or C++. Hell, I started with C++ - arguably the most difficult language in wide use - and didn't really have any problems, and there was a huge upside in that it was all downhill from there.
Sorry, I can't recommend any good books because all my books were comp sci textbooks and I hated them but never bothered to replace them with something readable, but I've found a little searching and reading of reviews on Amazon to be enormously helpful. That method found me some gems (though nothing you would care about).
As you may have read, once you know one language, learning another is not very hard. You are able to define the new language in terms of differences from the old, which reduces the amount of stuff to memorize, and eventually, the more languages you learn, you will just have a core set of concepts in your head and only need to get a quick overview of how they are executed in a new language before you are ready to go.
Wow, seriously? Your superior/HR dept was that retarded?
Well no one saw it, but I was reading my python book after typing in the URL, so I didn't notice I'd just had this hardcore porn page up on my screen for like 5 minutes. I don't have an office either. My desk is in a highly trafficked area with my monitor facing the doors. There have been sexual harassment charges for less.
Simple data manipulation programs from scratch in literally 5 minutes with that language (or perl, which is what I use, despite its many idiosyncrasies).
i've been following this book:
http://www.amazon.ca/Microsoft-XNA-Game-Studio-3-0/dp/0735626588
I've never coded before and it's super easy to follow and understand the structure.
Plus you can use it to makes games for Windows or even put them on your Xbox if you have one.
*I think i made this exact same post last week.
edit: for grammar
Can't recommend a book but I can't recommend C# any more highly. It's great. Visual Studio is great. And the online XNA tutorials are glorious, once you learn (via book, internet) the basics of Object Oriented Programming.
Rather than making the other languages frustrating, Python was fun to use and got me writing programs. Then, when learning other languages, I was able to focus much more on their semantics and the reasons behind them. I was able to transfer most of the actual programming idioms, with varying degrees of modification.
Python isn't just a learning language either, I still use it for a lot of day to day stuff, and I think it's especially handy for "some ridiculously repetitive and time consuming tasks at work". String manipulation is king for that type of work, and Python gives you some tools that can go a long way.
You'll probably be fine starting with either, but I like to recommend Python because it worked out well for me - I learned a lot, in a relatively short amount of time, and I had fun even when just starting out with other languages because I had a good foundation to build from.
If you want to get more serious, move to C, not C++. These days, the managed environments are good enough that you're better off staying there and then integrating down to the C level only where necessary.
Specific libraries and applications may push you towards C++, but the reliance on that has been dropping steadily the past few years (I'm thinking mainly of the maturity of the language bindings on the cross-platform windowing toolkits mainly).
These days knowledge of a high-level language or two and how to make those languages interact with raw C code will let you do pretty much anything you'd ever want to do with a computer - I'd advise avoiding C++ unless strictly necessary (and definitely not as part of any learning programming exercise) - if you do need to stray there, having the grounding in simple C programming will serve you very very well.
I think you'd be perfectly well served by learning a very high-level language such as python or ruby (I'd recommend the later, but they're both perfectly fine), or C# if you're looking at making some small gui tools.
For game programming, I'd advise starting in either ruby or python to get an understanding of the mechanics of how your game will run in an abstract sense and once you have those fundamentals, start moving into lower level languages as your desire for more graphical interactions grow. (Python has the better gaming library integration, but I prefer ruby as a whole).
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I agree about starting with C#. There are many languages out there and they each have pros and cons. Here's me justifying my recommendation to the rest of the thread, using language that may not make sense to a new programmer: A new programmer who plans on someday becoming an expert SHOULD start with a language that's got conceptual depth and a richness of features, but which is also type safe and type inferencing. Lack of type safety complicates the debugging process, and lack of type inferencing forces a programmer to spend more brain cycles clarifying things that should have been obvious to the language's type system. That doesn't mean C# is the best language, just that it's one of many excellent languages for a new programmer.
As I said above, when you get frustrated don't quit. Seek help here, buy books, enroll in classes, ask a friend. And if you can find a chunk of time in your life for it, consider enrolling in a computer science degree program. It'll help.
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Something smells like poo.
Don't use C unless it's required by design (small,light,fast -- basically an embedded environment). The whole point of modern languages is OOP/OOD. You can mimic it half-assed in C, but it's a real pain in the ass unless you're just amazing at programming in general.
I'd rather the OP pick up Obj-C than flat C if he's serious about programming. The only people I hear contest that C is the best ever are old *nix farts who learned programming in the 70-80s or some linux nerds that believed their hype, and loved the smell of their own farts, on USENET. C was a godsend coming from COBOL and FORTRAN I'd imagine.
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"Learn C" is good advice for someone who asked something like "I've been learning Python/C# for a while and would like a new challenge that would teach me something different about computing" but it's not such great advice for someone who has never programmed before. It's best to start with a friendlier language so that you don't get discouraged from early lack of results.
You'll even see loads of examples of simple things, such as reading a file, that completely forgo the C++ methodology. (not that I blame anyone for using stdio over iostream; I have yet to see a compelling case for iostream not being horrible in every way)
managed languages are good for learning but once you are more advanced, if you want performance you have to go closer to the metal
Way back in high school I first got into some programming and we learned Turbo Pascal... on like Apple IIe's or something, this was only 14 years ago but public school funding is what it is.
I didn't really do anything else programming wise until 2001 when I took a local community college certificate course on 'e-business' and one of the parts of it was Java programming. This was interesting and I did end up playing around with it a little more on my own time, wrote up a text-based Blackjack game first and later I wrote a text-based version of the weird card mini-game from the Might and Magic 7 and 8 games called Arcomage, if anyone's familiar with that. It worked really well and I actually played it a decent amount for fun, the CPU could be a bit tough to beat at times. Granted, it was all hard coded, I wasn't using external data files or anything, mostly just matrix arrays which kept the data of what each card did and such.
Through a contact in one of those classes I ended up getting a job at the local newspaper's web department, which I worked at part-time for 5 years, learning HTML and CSS on the job. I also got into PHP which we started using pretty heavily. I do like PHP for the server side language it is, not needing to compile and such. I even began working on converting my Java Arcomage program to a server-side PHP script using HTML/CSS to provide a frontend to it, though I never got around to finishing it.
I ended up getting laid off from the newspaper as they were trying to find places to make cuts, the guy that was my manager in the department left a few months later, having seen the writing on the wall and he had issues with how they were incorrectly utilizing the web resources we were capable of providing them. At any rate, after a long unemployment stint, I managed to get another part-time job as a 'web developer' on a way too small team for what's expected.
I think I'm just coming to the realization that I'm not much for the creativity and design (as in layout and such) that is frequently expected of me. Which has gotten me back to thinking that what I'd much prefer to do is work more as a programmer... having a problem and needing to work out how to solve it. I'm much more of a logical thinker than a creative one, I guess.
I'm rambling a bit at this point, but threads like this on here make me think I just need to get on Amazon and start getting some programming books and begin learning some more concrete stuff. I remember glancing at C# back around when it first started coming into use and realizing that, wow, it looks a *lot* like Java code. I don't really remember much Java at all at this point, so I don't think that would hamper me much if I wanted to go ahead and start with C#.
Ultimately I *would* like to be a game programmer, but I'm not totally hung up on that idea really. I just really need to *do* something and start working towards it I think. C# seems like a good start to me though!
Since you're already in web programming, you might want to consider learning some MVC frameworks for PHP (not Cake, god I hate Cake), and the big ones for other languages - Rails, Django, etc. Doing tutorials is always fun. Django, in particular, has a delightful tendency to just make sense.
Aaanyway, I just need to figure out some useful C# books to look into and dive into it I suppose.
For what it's worth I agree with this in theory but I feel it should be expanded:
Start with a safe language with a smart type system. (Safe as in it's difficult to create code that makes the machine do something invalid, like resolve an invalid pointer, and smart in terms of strong type enforcement with type inferencing.)
Once you are more advanced, you should learn exemplar languages of all types. My picks would be: C, Assembler for both a simple machine and a complex one, Perl, Python, ML or Smalltalk for a functional language, and even Prolog for some logic programming. Find out what you prefer, and learn that in depth.
XBL Michael Spencer || Wii 6007 6812 1605 7315 || PSN MichaelSpencerJr || Steam Michael_Spencer || Ham NOØK
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we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
I was in college in PHP got support for classes/objects/namespaces.
That's a damn shame.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
Friend of mine does some neat doodles and such, I really should get him to figure out how to digitize his stuff... that would probably help. But that's a ways down the road regardless.
Anyway, anyone have any other C# book recommendations?
For starters, the standard library is almost entirely procedural, and barely has any consistency with function naming. Array operations are not intuitive at all.
Having to type "->" all over the place when working with actual objects is enough to drive anyone insane.
Typing "<?php echo (some statement) ?>" gets old fast. Most other page-generation languages are much more terse, expressive and readable, with the notable exception of JSP.
Guys, help? As a matter of principle I'd recommend buying two or three "learning" type books, maybe a "recipes" type book, and the In A Nutshell reference. But what books in those categories are good?
XBL Michael Spencer || Wii 6007 6812 1605 7315 || PSN MichaelSpencerJr || Steam Michael_Spencer || Ham NOØK
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