Hey all! I'm starting my first A level year in September and I was wondering if some of you guys could point me in the right direction of getting a headstart with programming? I'm studying computer science and I'd like to get a feel of what I will be learning, such as what language I will most probably be being taught? Thanks.
Most probably start with C or Java, though I think some places might use Python as a first now aswell?
Ah ok thanks man, could you point me in thr right directionof some useful tutorials? for Java or C?
Language is largely dependant on your school. Personally my uni opted for using a higher-level language (Python) at the intro level then taught us Scheme for functional, C for low-level, and C++ for everything else (data abstraction etc.)
In my experience Uni courses usually rely less on the practical application of programming and more of the technical aspect (my wording might be iffy). At the intro level we mainly discussed the logic behind programming and were introduced to concepts such as sorting and O/n. We often had reports that were merely applications of those concepts they were were more like "use bubble sorting to sort a list of contacts" versus "make a super uber duper game that does some thing".
However, I will say that I'm still in the midst of uni so I can't speak for some of the higher level courses. Not to mention programs differ from uni-to-uni-to-country-to-country. A person I know took an intro level programming course at her university and they had to program a chat client. Of course it was in java and using some 3rd party library but nonetheless! She says "programming is easy! I'm a natural." I have not the heart to tell her.
Haha, well the college I was planning to go to originally did Visual basic, but they arn't doing the course anymore. but my cousin told me he did Java, so I'm abit confused about exactly what to expect haha.
The college I'm going to this September forces you to use Visual Basic for your first year. If you call the college and ask for more Information we could probably help you out a little more.
I'm doing computing at A Level and the course sucks, but it's the colleges only programming related course. I thought we were using Pascal but I just looked it up and it looks like the coursework for AS is a "practical computer problem" (e.g probs using Microsoft packages.) and for A2 it's Visual Basic and Microsoft Access.
You know, I'm not looking as forward to that as I was.
[QUOTE=iPope;31190798]I'm doing computing at A Level and the course sucks, but it's the colleges only programming related course. I thought we were using Pascal but I just looked it up and it looks like the coursework for AS is a "practical computer problem" (e.g probs using Microsoft packages.) and for A2 it's Visual Basic and Microsoft Access.
You know, I'm not looking as forward to that as I was.[/QUOTE]
Well...that's abit of a kick in the cunt.
I have a bachelors degree in computer science, but the college s*cked so bad... I just can't explain it , you need to experience it. We learned nothing.
I just finished a 2 year BND course in Computing, we did Visual Basic the first year and then C++ for the second year. The projects are not exactly thrilling though, but the teacher let me use SFML so it was a bit more exciting for me. I'm moving onto the HDN for the next 2 years where I believe I study C++ some more and also get into some Java.
Fuck man I'm 18 and I'm already thinking doing A levels is a bad idea haha. If A level computing is a waste of time I'm sort of thinking about doing my own studying.
[QUOTE=Jah Mason;31190993]Fuck man I'm 18 and I'm already thinking doing A levels is a bad idea haha. If A level computing is a waste of time I'm sort of thinking about doing my own studying.[/QUOTE]
Just don't expect that you will learn much at college (especially if you have professors like I did). You will maybe get some guidelines there, but mostly you are on your own if you want to learn more.
I finished college a few weeks ago, did computing for AS and A2 level. Bad course really, it's tons of theory and the only programming we really did was VBA in Access. It was the only programming I could have done there though, so better than nothing I guess.
Luckily, there was a physics teacher there who was an avid games programmer, and he ran an enrichment course (i.e extra-curricular activity) where he taught people to program games using FreeBASIC (:v:). I went along because the PCs they used had VS2010 on them, so I could do my own coding in C++.
If nobody at your college offers such a thing, it might be worth spending some time looking for other people there who enjoy programming, and gathering up a little group to meet up and code together sometimes.
[QUOTE=Chris220;31192449]I finished college a few weeks ago, did computing for AS and A2 level. Bad course really, it's tons of theory and the only programming we really did was VBA in Access. It was the only programming I could have done there though, so better than nothing I guess.
Luckily, there was a physics teacher there who was an avid games programmer, and he ran an enrichment course (i.e extra-curricular activity) where he taught people to program games using FreeBASIC (:v:). I went along because the PCs they used had VS2010 on them, so I could do my own coding in C++.
If nobody at your college offers such a thing, it might be worth spending some time looking for other people there who enjoy programming, and gathering up a little group to meet up and code together sometimes.[/QUOTE]
What college was this? I'm not surprised about the course being the same because of exam boards but the college I'm going to has enrichment for games .. in FreeBasic.
Remember that college isn't trade school, it's not about training you to write specific kinds of programs like games. Studying computer science to become a software developer is like studying physics to become a mechanical engineer: it's the fundamental science that defines the field you work in. Having a good CS background will help you to recognize the implications of the decisions you make while writing a program: what time/space tradeoffs you're making, what's the most appropriate algorithm for a task, what problems are provably difficult or impossible to solve.
You may find that the school offers electives relating to things like games or graphics, but core courses are likely to be about theoretical things like algorithms, data structures, and language parsing. Those things are valuable.
If you already have significant programming experience you'll probably be ahead of half the other students in that regard, so you'll be able to finish the programming assignments without too much difficulty and spend the free time working on projects of your own. But in the theoretical courses, assignments tend to involve writing answers on paper (like doing math homework) rather than writing code.
[QUOTE=iPope;31204666]What college was this? I'm not surprised about the course being the same because of exam boards but the college I'm going to has enrichment for games .. in FreeBasic.[/QUOTE]
Farnborough 6th Form
It's good to already be exposed to programming. Makes the classes very easy. You do still learn a good bit, but already knowing how to program takes much of the challenge out of it. I noticed that many classmates had a hard time really understanding what they were doing.
[QUOTE=Jah Mason;31190993]Fuck man I'm 18 and I'm already thinking doing A levels is a bad idea haha. If A level computing is a waste of time I'm sort of thinking about doing my own studying.[/QUOTE]
There's no point taking A level computing unless you're gonna take it to uni. It's a complete fucking waste of time lol.
[QUOTE=Catdaemon;31210079]There's no point taking A level computing unless you're gonna take it to uni. It's a complete fucking waste of time lol.[/QUOTE]
I was going to go to Uni after my 2 A level years, I just didn't want to go straight in and have no idea what the fuck is going on.
[QUOTE=Chris220;31205635]Farnborough 6th Form[/QUOTE]
Well, that's a small world. :v:
Fair warning if you know anything about programming the start of the unit will go very slowly
[QUOTE=iPope;31215313]Well, that's a small world. :v:[/QUOTE]
You too huh? Wow :v:
[editline]19th July 2011[/editline]
[QUOTE=jlj1;31215512]Fair warning if you know anything about programming the start of the unit will go very slowly[/QUOTE]
The entire COURSE went slowly for me, I literally learned nothing new
This is why I'm not solely going to college for programming. I'm going to learn about business and software marketing and other things in that category which should keep me more occupied than a 100% programming course load.
There's really a shit choice of courses for programming at this college. It's either Foundation programming which sounds fucking terrible, or A level computer science which will mean I will have to take to futher subjects.
can you not take a btec in programming in your area?
Ithats what i did and we did java & vba the first year then C# and PHP the second
that said php was for a web development course not for a programming course
[QUOTE=AgentBoomstick;31215991]This is why I'm not solely going to college for programming. I'm going to learn about business and software marketing and other things in that category which should keep me more occupied than a 100% programming course load.[/QUOTE]
I had thought I'd study business as well as CS, and get a second major or at least a minor in something like finance, but I found that it didn't interest me and I spent my time working on my own programming projects when I should've been doing accounting homework. In the end it just brought down my GPA. Pursue the business/marketing stuff if it actually appeals to you, but not just because you think your "main" course of study will be inadequate.
In many of the computer-related courses, I knew a lot of the material already or was ahead of the curve in learning it, but there's more to college than sitting in class. Being around other smart people with similar interests on a day-to-day basis is very valuable, much more than reading web pages and posting on a forum. Having friends around to bounce ideas off or collaborate on projects is a great thing.
BTW, a nitpick: you don't go to college to learn programming. You'll probably have freshman introductory programming course or two, which you may be able to test out of, but past that, it's assumed that you can program, and the focus is on [i]what[/i] you program. Software engineering, graph theory, computability and Turing machines, that sort of stuff.
[QUOTE=Wyzard;31217393]I had thought I'd study business as well as CS, and get a second major or at least a minor in something like finance, but I found that it didn't interest me and I spent my time working on my own programming projects when I should've been doing accounting homework. In the end it just brought down my GPA. Pursue the business/marketing stuff if it actually appeals to you, but not just because you think your "main" course of study will be inadequate.
In many of the computer-related courses, I knew a lot of the material already or was ahead of the curve in learning it, but there's more to college than sitting in class. Being around other smart people with similar interests on a day-to-day basis is very valuable, much more than reading web pages and posting on a forum. Having friends around to bounce ideas off or collaborate on projects is a great thing.
BTW, a nitpick: you don't go to college to learn programming. You'll probably have freshman introductory programming course or two, which you may be able to test out of, but past that, it's assumed that you can program, and the focus is on [i]what[/i] you program. Software engineering, graph theory, computability and Turing machines, that sort of stuff.[/QUOTE]
I said it wrong, pretty much. Business and economics do interest me and will generally be beneficial to my career. However, if my programming work is too easy or not enough work at one point, the other work will really give me something to focus on.
What sort of career do you plan to pursue? The skill I wish I had more of, working as a software engineer/developer, is math, not business. Many of the interesting problems out there -- "big data" analytics, photorealistic 3D rendering, that sort of thing -- can involve advanced math to figure out a solution, and [i]then[/i] programming to implement that solution.
I can build a well-structured, maintainable application with clean understandable code, but for the mathy stuff I tend to have to rely on formulas I found on the web and don't necessarily understand in depth. Why does subtracting [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandelbrot_set#Continuous_.28smooth.29_coloring]log[sub]P[/sub](log|z[sub]n[/sub]|/log(N))[/url] from the iteration count produce smooth shading in an escape-time fractal rendering? I have no idea.
I did my AS in computing 2 years ago, we did Visual Basic the first year (It was piss easy stuff even on the exam, we didnt need to do anything past manipulating basic variables and using loops to do simple stuff)
I'm busy self studying Python right now and its a hoot, very friendly and its very easy to set up your workspace for it and get going.
It really sucks that they dont do introductory programming courses at A level or college (UK college), the college I went to only had 'Media Production (Games Development)' which was basically a media course with a few games related words slapped in, no technical stuff.
[QUOTE=Wyzard;31217630]What sort of career do you plan to pursue? The skill I wish I had more of, working as a software engineer/developer, is math, not business. Many of the interesting problems out there -- "big data" analytics, photorealistic 3D rendering, that sort of thing -- can involve advanced math to figure out a solution, and [i]then[/i] programming to implement that solution.
I can build a well-structured, maintainable application with clean understandable code, but for the mathy stuff I tend to have to rely on formulas I found on the web and don't necessarily understand in depth. Why does subtracting [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandelbrot_set#Continuous_.28smooth.29_coloring]log[sub]P[/sub](log|z[sub]n[/sub]|/log(N))[/url] from the iteration count produce smooth shading in an escape-time fractal rendering? I have no idea.[/QUOTE]
I'm majoring in Software Engineering, and I've been told/believe that the key alongside being an engineer is being able to market/manage finances/have general knowledge of how the business works to work well with a company. I've been hearing that those trained in software engineering are called upon often to work on the design of x software and usually end up looking over and revising/optimizing code.
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