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Starting an Education in IT?
AriaStar asks: "It's overwhelming to start trying to learn all the different technologies needed to go into programming. It seems that every type of technology assumes knowledge of a different one, which in turn requires knowledge of another, until it's gone full circle. I am interested in everything from Unix to AJAX to Perl. Things like HTML, Javascript, and SQL are like English, but then again, they're basic. Where is the best place to start? What is a good path for someone who learns quickly and easily, but who is simply too overwhelmed, to take?"
Grab a used PC, install Linux on it and play around with MySQL and PHP. It's a cheap and easy way to learn the basics and you can adapt to whatever technologies are in use when you get hired in a development shop.
If you want to learn how to skate, take a tennis ball and chase it around a parking lot while having skates strapped to your feet. Don't spend more than a few minutes trying to consciously learn how to stand, roll forward, brake, or fall. Chase the ball. Do something OTHER than learn how to skate, but do something that requires skating. Your medulla oblongata will do the job far faster if it's allowed to do it without micromanagement from your conscious mind.
Same goes for programming. You won't learn how recursion works by typing in a fibonacci example. You'll learn how recursion works when you want to make a gallery thingy and find yourself needing to catalogue all *.jpg files below a certain directory. You won't learn how object oriented programming works by re-reading the wikipedia article on polymorphism, you'll learn more valuable lessons when you decide it's insane to be writing almost identical code in so many places and realize that's what a parent class is for.
Solve YOUR problems, not the book's, and you will develop a passion for problem solving. Almost all of the "programmers" out there who succeed have one thing in common: they wanted something implemented so they got it working on their own.
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Look. Start by learning a procedural language, and then learn the 5 structure diagrams. Then proceed from there to non-procedural languages.
Finally, learn Assembler. Yes, Assembler. It will teach you how things work. NOW you can learn ANY programming.
Next a course in Data Structures is good. Follow up with a course in database management. Especially if you can get a good one that teaches Network DBMS structure, not just Relational.
Operating systems are LAST, and only if you want to be systems programmer.
My suggestion is that (and in this order):
Now you should have a solid good base to learn just about anything. I would stay away from IDE's as much as possible and try to learn by hand, it is sort of doing division long hand before using the calculator.
Be aware that most technolgies like LAMP, AJAX, DHTML, etc are just applications and combinations of technologies that will be super easy to undertsand if you have a good grounding in the basics.
D.O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V.M.
And also get a good book about LISP and learn it. Almost every language out there is placed somewhere between C and LISP.
You can draw a line like C____C++_Java____Python___Ruby_Lisp
I suggest Common Lisp an Interactive Approach.
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
This is very much my situation. I just finished a Computer Science AP class at my Hich School, and know Java quite well, as well as c++, which I suppose isnt too bad for a high schooler. My suggestion: find someone you know, a teacher or an older friend, who knows something, then learn everything you can from him. I had a great Computer Science teacher in High School. Though it was just a Java class, I also got my feet wet with c++, css, html, bash, and loads of other stuff. The trick to learning something is to use it. You WILL NOT learn c++ without writing a large-ish program in c++, config your enviornment, read books, and get everything running. The same applies to every other language.
Youo want to generalize yourself, so my strategy is to learn one language that you like pretty well (java would be a good choice), and at the same time, poke around in python and c++. That way, you can learn advanced programming ideas and dont have to worrb about the language, and learn fun programs. Have some fun and experiment: Write a network program - you learn a lot about networks. Get your program working on linux - learn about portability and the linux shell. Write a good game engine - learn how to use enginges. The key is to just jump in.
This is all applying to learning oo languages, but it applies to everything.
Discrete Mathematics (recommended textbook: Discrete Mathematics [amazon.com] by Kenneth A. Ross and Charles R. Wright)
You ought to write a review at Amazon.com since the others there gave it an average of two stars.
The book by Ross and Wright is quite good.
The mediocre reviews at Amazon are likely at anomaly.
Good suggestion! I would supplement it with the following as well:
1. Episodic Learner Model/An online Lisp tutorial
2. Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation
3. How to Design Programs
4. Practical Common Lisp
5a. The book - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
5b. The movies - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
6. Loving Lisp - the Savvy Programmer's Secret Weapon
7. Common Lisp the Language, 2nd Edition
8. On Lisp
9. common lisp: a web application tutorial for beginners
10. JavaScript: The World's Most Misunderstood Programming Language
11. Free JavaScript Learning Center
12. JavaScript for Scared People
13. JavaScript Closures
14. Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby
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