Recently, a friend of mine asked me how she could get into programming, kinda like an additional qualification. Here are my thoughts on this:
Basically, what you have to learn is how variables work, what functions do, what loops and decisions are and which way the flow in an application runs. All things considered, I feel the best platform to start with *no* knowledge whatsoever is Visual Basic:
- the language itself isn't as strict or complex as C/++ - one line will already do stuff - you don't have to know anything about OOP - an entry level programmer will not struggle with error messages regarding scope or initializations or inheritance - you can start with structured programming - it's Windows, she uses it, most people use it, so she'll be better off than saying 'I once wrote a csh-script in OSX, how cool is that?'
Anyways, I had this introduction to VB.NET by Diane Zak (Microsoft Press) floating around which comes with a trial of Visual Studio. Gave her this and she's happy with it. However, I also cautioned her to move to something more complex as soon as possible once she decides to keep programming.
Options for her life after the trial period are IMO: - PHP: most practical, platform independent, LAMP skills are nice to have - Java: if she wants to be able to write actual complex applications and share them - (C++): in case she really digs the technical aspect of coding
Personally, I would recommend learning PHP or Java to anyone who's programming for practical purposes as an additional skill.
I dunno about major players but we've been using it to port some of our networking code to the Palm platform. Not having to rewrite everything for gcc was quite a time (and $$) saver.
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Recently, a friend of mine asked me how she could get into programming, kinda like an additional qualification. Here are my thoughts on this:
... =)
Basically, what you have to learn is how variables work, what functions do, what loops and decisions are and which way the flow in an application runs. All things considered, I feel the best platform to start with *no* knowledge whatsoever is Visual Basic:
- the language itself isn't as strict or complex as C/++
- one line will already do stuff
- you don't have to know anything about OOP - an entry level programmer will not struggle with error messages regarding scope or initializations or inheritance - you can start with structured programming
- it's Windows, she uses it, most people use it, so she'll be better off than saying 'I once wrote a csh-script in OSX, how cool is that?'
Anyways, I had this introduction to VB.NET by Diane Zak (Microsoft Press) floating around which comes with a trial of Visual Studio. Gave her this and she's happy with it. However, I also cautioned her to move to something more complex as soon as possible once she decides to keep programming.
Options for her life after the trial period are IMO:
- PHP: most practical, platform independent, LAMP skills are nice to have
- Java: if she wants to be able to write actual complex applications and share them
- (C++): in case she really digs the technical aspect of coding
Personally, I would recommend learning PHP or Java to anyone who's programming for practical purposes as an additional skill.
Thank I had an Atari 800XL
I dunno about major players but we've been using it to port some of our networking code to the Palm platform. Not having to rewrite everything for gcc was quite a time (and $$) saver.