How Should a Non-Techie Learn Programming?

CurtMonash writes "Nontechnical people — for example marketers or small business owners — increasingly get the feeling they should know more about technology. And they're right. If you can throw up a small website or do some real number-crunching, chances are those skills will help you feed your family. But how should they get started? I started a thread with the question on DBMS2, and some consistent themes emerged, including: Learn HTML + CSS early on; Learn a bit of SQL, but you needn't make that your focus; Have your first real programming language be one of the modern ones, such as PHP or Python; MySQL is a good vehicle to learn SQL; It's a great idea to start with a project you actually want to accomplish, and that can be done by modifying a starter set of sample code (e.g., a WordPress blog); Microsoft's technology stack is an interesting alternative to some of the other technology ideas. A variety of books and websites were suggested, most notably MIT's Scratch. But, frankly, it would really help to get more suggestions for sites and books that help one get started with HTML/CSS, or with MySQL, or with PHP. And so, techie studs and studdettes, I ask you — how should a non-techie go about learning some basic technological skills?"

Comments

The tao of programming

[Radres]

Give someone a program, frustrate them for a day. Teach someone to program, frustrate them for a lifetime.

Re:learn the standard way

[interval1066]

High School/Jr.High

                10 PRINT "HELLO WORLD"
                20 END

First year in College

                  program Hello(input, output)
                    begin
                          writeln('Hello World')
                    end.

Senior year in College

                  (defun hello
                    (print
                      (cons 'Hello (list 'World))))

New professional

                  #include
                void main(void)
                  {
                    char *message[] = {"Hello ", "World"};
                      int i;

                      for(i = 0; i = 0) {
      while(defined($arg=shift(@ARGV))) {
          $outfilename = $arg;
          open(FILE, ">" . $outfilename) || die "Can't write $arg: $!\n";
          print (FILE $msg);
          close(FILE) || die "Can't close $arg: $!\n";
      }
  } else {
      print ($msg);
  }
  1;

Experienced Hacker

  #include
  #define S "Hello, World\n"
  main(){exit(printf(S) strlen(S) ? 0 : 1);}

Seasoned Hacker

  % cc -o a.out ~/src/misc/hw/hw.c
  % a.out

Guru Hacker

  % cat
  Hello, world.
  ^D

New Manager

  10 PRINT "HELLO WORLD"
  20 END

Middle Manager

  mail -s "Hello, world." bob@b12
  Bob, could you please write me a program that prints "Hello, world."?
  I need it by tomorrow.
  ^D

Senior Manager

  % zmail jim
  I need a "Hello, world." program by this afternoon.

Chief Executive

  % letter
  letter: Command not found.
  % mail
  To: ^X ^F ^C
  % help mail
  help: Command not found.
  % damn!
  !: Event unrecognized
  % logout