• I'd love to begin to learn how to code. Where do I begin?
    11 replies, posted
^Title says it all. Any tips on where I should begin? Any useful sources/guides? And lastly, any languages I should learn first that ease me into another? I skimmed the section, and there don't seem to be any megathreads that I'd be able to post this in.
https://www.codecademy.com/
I personally think the 'For Dummies' series of books can be a great way to get into development. There are lots of resources online too, but books are quite good because you can read through it as you're at the computer and are less likely to get distracted. Books tend to be quite well structured too. Do you have any languages in mind? What sort of things do you want to accomplish?
I've nothing too specific in mind. I'd like to begin with something like C++, as I've heard that you can build very simple programs using it. I've never really had a specific goal in mind. I should begin thinking about that, actually.
This is anecdotal but my experience with that series for programming isn't that great. I bought C++ For Dummies back in my senior year or so of high school and almost none of their lessons even worked despite using the exact version of the ide that came with the book which they recommended. Even their lesson files that came on the same disc simply wouldn't compile despite supposedly being compiled in the exact version of the editor that was on the disc. As for recommendations for op, I'll second Code Academy. I haven't used it much for a long time but it was pretty useful when I was getting started. The best thing to do is shop around and look at several different methods and find the one that works best for you. Then just make sure to do some programming at least reasonably often and you'll slowly improve over time.
I learnt C++ using a For Dummies book. The IDE was Bloodshed DevC++ or something like that. It was written by somebody with the nickname 'Randy', if that helps? Is that the one you used? I'd personally recommend C# over C++ because it has something called garbage collection, meaning you don't need to worry about pointers (which can be kinda confusing for newcomers.)
Actually that's about the same timeframe and same ide as well. Maybe I just had a disc that was somehow flawed despite seeming to be fine? I just went and found the book though, it's C++ For Dummies, 5th Edition by Stephen Randy Davis. Copyright in the book says 2004 so it may be a bit older than your version possibly?
Actually, 5th edition sounds correct to me, so I must have been 14. I know I was young, but I guess I started a little younger than I thought. I do know that DevC++ is a little finicky on some computers. I tried using it again recently because I couldn't be bothered setting up Visual Studio if I was just going to do a refresher course, and not even a simple cout would work, even with all the prerequisites, so it could just be that it's not a very good IDE. One of the reasons I tend to mainly stick to web programming and Lua GMod stuff these days is that I don't have to worry about compiling really, even if scripting languages are obviously a lot slower. I remember my grandma teaching me Power Basic on her WIndows 3.1 computer when I was 11 or 12.
I mostly do Javascript for similar reasons. Also MDN has really good documentation compared to places like MSDN in my experience. Also can be fun to work around the performance issues of Javascript when it comes to big things that are normally very unperformant.
I can give you all my courses from my fac and you should be able to know the basics of programmation in 4 weeks. The courses are about C, but after this you should be able to learn all others languages easily. https://discord.gg/w9nq4Z5
Personally, I'd recommend against C++ unless you really wanna build computer games. Typically I'd recommend ruby or python or some dynamic language because its easier to learn and you don't really have to worry about a type system. However, it really depends on what you want to build. If you want to build websites, go with ruby on rails. Games? Probably C#. Mobile? swift or Java (android)
Find yourself an objective. Build a GameMode in Garry's Mod, create funny mods for games, make small QOL improvements to well stablish open-source projects (this is by far your best bet- lots of people willing to give you great advice if you're willing to do the work, the junior jobs aren't as big but they're useful and can give you lots of experience), create games on gamemaker, etc. There's also other means, such as playing videogames: https://store.steampowered.com/app/246070/Hack_n_Slash/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/370360/TIS100/ (hardcore mode this one) https://store.steampowered.com/app/504210/SHENZHEN_IO/ (also hard) or partaking in stuff like competitive programming: http://urionlinejudge.com.br/ Start small, build stuff on gamemaker for fun, when you get your feet on the ground, you can go for other harder things such as TIS100, SHENZEN IO, URI, etc. Remember that, like with every skill, you need to start small in order to go big.
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