Be Excellent To Each Other

Friend of mine decided to learn the guitar when he was (much) younger. He went to his first guitar lesson and spent an hour learning how to play an open E string. He never looked at the guitar again and eventually sold it.

Years later, he got another guitar and just played along with records. Now he's rather good at it.

My point is, how many beginners really want to learn the proper way to do things? When I started out I didn't care about functions or variables or classes or arrays or strings or anything else, I just wanted to make some stuff move about on the screen. Same with the guitar - playing the same note for an hour isn't any fun, and although it might teach you the *right* way to play that note, if you don't enjoy it then everything you've learnt is useless because you'll just give up.

I was thinking about this the other day, so I'd be interested to hear what people think. If you were going to teach someone to program, would you show them how to do something simple but interesting (make a sprite move around in a Java applet, for example) and gradually explain how you've done it, or would you start them off with functions, variables, classes, etc, and gradually build towards something interesting? My thinking is that if you don't grab someone's attention right at the start they'll never get past the first few lessons.

I was simply suggesting that he learn what variables, functions, strings etc. are whilst seeing their results on-screen, right now, with little effort, right now guy. Then he could go onto C# with a degree of confidence. Since he's already got Turbo Pascal about, he might as well go straight onto C# after, it'd accomplish the same purpose... mostly... enough, I expect.


But that isn't learning how to program, which is what he asked about. *rethinks* Oh, are you suggesting he... downloads a sample game or something, and sort of fiddles with it a bit? That might work too, I support that's one way to see how you can... make shit happen. It's just completely the opposite way to how I would do it, but YOAYO *shrugs*

I'm entirely self taught in (counts on fingers) far too many languages. Mainly by taking the Nike approach and having an idea and Just Doing It.

The downside to this is that some of the terms used pass me completely by. I couldn't describe what a strongly typed array is* but I will automatically use them all the time, and tell off my PFY (fresh out of Uni with a 1st in Comp Sci) for not type declaring all his variables.

I do believe in a natural aptitude for programming, though. Mine was because of all the (borrowed -Ed.) games I used to have for my Vic-20, C64 or Amiga, where you could only work out the instructions from the reviews and tips pages as (the friend had not lent you the instructions - Ed.).

*Actually, I do. Bad example.

Edit:Forgot the footnote

I just programmed something in Pascal using Notepad++ and some strange free compiler. It kind of worked a bit. I managed to make an exe file and it outputs in a cmd prompt sort of thing, but it just flashes on and then closes. Somehow I managed to make it stay on and the calculation I did was out by a decimal place. Learning is fun.

The real question you need to answer in deciding which language to go with is how far you want to be abstracted from the compiler -- all OOP languages will abstract the problem you are trying to solve, because that's what OOP is, and you will be expressing pretty much the same *stuff* in all of them. The difference is that C-alikes will require you to have a better handle on what's really going on (like knowing what pointers are) and hold the compiler's hand for it (this is the end of the line Mr Compiler;) whereas script and BASIC derivatives won't so much. Can you get interesting things up and running in BlitzMax (might as well keep pushing my fave!) faster than C#? Sure. Does it take a long time to get things running in C# by any objective standard? Not really (see XNA). You can't really go wrong.

I am going to copy Jonarob and buy that book, as I too am a simpleton who can't code yet who got a C in A-level Computing (by programming a simple database in BASIC).

Winnar... or LOSER?

If you want to learn java I can get you a lovely free copy (pdf, natch) of a very good textbook. It's being written by one of the lectures at our university and is a very good way of teaching things. Well, some of the examples are fucking crap and the guy likes to do things in very round a bout ways, but the fact is it sets you nice little exercises.

Why not try and and I'll mark them for you? If you learn Java, it's a very small step to learn C#. And from there it's an even smaller step to learn C/C++. Personally my favourite language is ARM Assembler. Nothing like predicated instructions to get me hard.

It is to anyone who knows nothing about computers.

There's loads I'd love to learn, but I have a slight learning difficulty and I'm still working on simple thigns like HTML and CSS, let along moving onto programming.
Still, in future I do intend to look further in to it

*cough*
(Admittedly, I just use WCHAR arrays for everything string related, but still...)

I just prefer it as it gives you a much greater idea of what the hardware is actually doing over any other non-assembly language.
(See also: Why I quite like x86 assembly)

On the subject of Ruby, this book http://www.pragprog.com/titles/fr_ltp is by all accounts a good introduction to programming if you have absolutely no past experience. A few sample chapters online too.

I'm a freelance programmer fluent in several languages and I'd have gone for a dynamic scripting language such as Ruby as a starter for 10. Ignoring all the Rails hype, the underlying Ruby language is fantastic for getting a lot done in relatively few lines of code, and it will teach you sound object-oriented concepts applicable to many other languages.

I think I have to learn C-something again soon.

Right now the only programming I do (under sufferance) is in LSL, a scripting language. "They" are putting some "Mono" thing into the system so it will be all "proper" languages then.

Are you me?

I also got a C for a-level computer science. The teacher decided that my awesome Pascal (Turbo? Ooh, fancy!) written company payroll system wasn't 'appropriate' as a project. Even though he'd been saying how ace it was all year.

Bizarre, I too got a C and also used frigging pascal. In my defense though, the lecturer for the course dissapeared after the first year, and for half of the second year we got a sub who just said 'keep, errr, doing your pascal', which basically meant all we did was piss about on the internet all lesson, every lesson. Eventually a full-time person was hired but he didn't actually have a clue about the course, and it was too late to actually teach us anything. Complete shambles, I say.

I got an F, mainly because we (as in, the whole class) did the wrong coursework, and all got a 'U'. The genius teacher ever taught us LIFO and FIFO backward. He left that year when the PC replaced the Acorns.

We were joking at work yesterday about how useless most computer courses are. Lots of 'This is how the bus works' and 'This is FIFO, LILO, LIFO, FILO...'. Over and over and over and over again.

I have never needed to know the difference between a MAN and a WAN.

LILO is FIFO, surely?

At school I didn't do the computing course, it seemed a bit pointless. Before I even started doing GCSEs, I probably could have passed the A-level course.

Of course. Almost every college exam I sat had 'Which is the odd one out: LILO, FIFO, or FILO?'

IT (renamed to ITC eventually - bugger that) was all about word processing and spreadsheets. It didn't interest me, so I took Biology, Chemistry and Psychology, keeping computers as a hobby. Now I work with the things, but it isn't bad, if I'm honest.

You must be a young'un - it was called 'computing' when I was at school, and we did bugger all about WP and spreadsheets.

Fairly young - 23. My IT teacher had a degree in geology, and was utterly, utterly useless with computers.

I did GCSE IT (called "ISG" at the time) because I noticed there was a bit of programming at the end of the course. It was all about word processing and the programming was a lie. Massive waste of time.

Geology? Consider yourself lucky. My IT teacher was a former PE teacher.

My IT teacher told us, and I quote: "The only thing Windows 95 does that 3.1 doesn't is to let you put shortcuts on the desktop. [Acorn] MOS has been doing that for years."

We had BBC B's at my school.

There was some game about building a dyke, and another one about trying to "win" the battle of the Somme better than the real generals did.

And we made circles and stuff on the screen.

Apparently, that's a game called 'Elite'. I was surprised too, after the fact.

Mono is an open-source implementation of the .NET CLR (Common Language Runtime) that C#, J#, VB.NET and Managed C++ (or C++/CLR, or whatever it's called now) run on. Your LanguageOfChoice code is processed into CIL (Common Intermediate Language) which the CLR runs.

So! Instead of learning C, learn how to write/define/build an LSL->CIL processor so you can just port all your LSL stuff straight into the new Mono-based system!

PHP.

Oh yes, I did CLAIT at school (a clash prevented Computer Studies, which I ended up doing as an additional GCSE anyway).

Thou Shalt Not Give Faulty Acronyms To Schoolchildren - any foo' know you don't include minor words like 'and' and 'or' in acronyms. Now I'm a grown-up it's hard to believe that Computer Literacy and Information Technology wasn't a joke that got out of hand.

I've yet to meet someone who had a GOOD teacher for their A level computer-ing. HMPH.



Everything they teach you up to A-level is ridicuously simplistic and not useful in anyway shape or form. Why do these thnigs exist?



See above!

Sounds like GCSE German for my year group. We just had a few supply teachers who didn't know or speak German, they just had a pile of very old textbooks which we were meant to work through ourselves somehow. Some lessons one year we were timetabled to sit in the GCSE PE 'class room' because there was no other free rooms - it stank, and we had to put our work on our laps, although few people actually worked. The only one of 25 of us who passed the GCSE was a German lad (which may have been the only GCSE he passed).

The ideal learning programming language is Python or Ruby. Python probably takes it in terms of sheer all-round niceness and the amount of concepts it introduces - I can recommend Apress's Beginning Python which is pretty well written. Ruby is pretty good, but has a few less intuitive concepts, less clear syntax and its books tend to be a bit poor - the Pickaxe is horribly overrated.

PHP is pretty damn ugly and annoying but is exceptionally easy to pick up and play with. It's a language that has been thrown together rather than fitting together nicely. It's not a good language for "learning programming" but is suitable for hacking stuff together despite any experience.

C# is pretty much Java, which has upsides and downsides - it's quite fast, it's a nice compromise between speed-and-clarity, but it has long-winded syntax and forces you to use objects for everything.

I make objects move, and textures change into other textures. Don't confuse me with your programming stuff!

The book arrived! And it really does start from the beginning - I think I'm gonna be ok.

I tried "Hello World" and it works fine. However, my console only flashes on and then closes itself instead of staying open and actually displaying my "program". Anybody know why? It's the basic cmd console.

Because that's how windows works. If you want it to delay the end of the program, you have to ask it to.

(Also, I think there's an option in Visual studio which also has the same effect.)

Ah right. In the book it doesn't mention that, it just says that the cmd prompt will remain open and show my "hello world".

Run it from the console.

If you're running a command line program from windows it'll close the window when it's finished. There's plenty of ways to get it to pause though. Alternatively, start a windows command line and run said program from that.

Edit : 3 answers in as many minutes, does this place rock or what?

I've fathomed a way. I was running it and debugging, but if I run it without debugging it keeps it open. Presumably when it debugs, it just runs the program to test it and then closes it.

edit: It does indeed rock!

The easy way would be to chuck in a breakpoint just before the program ends if you want it to pause with no extra work while debugging.

Yeah that would be easy, were it not my first ever program in C#

I'm just following the book!

Am I right in thinking that debug does just that? Checks the program and closes it? Whereas running it without debug is like running it from the point of view of an end user who may have downloaded my program?

No, the point of debug is to enable you to debug it (after all, how does it know a bug as compared to the behaviour you wanted, you may have wanted it to horribly crash). Breakpoints are places where you stop the program from running, and then it allows you to step through each instruction and see what values things are taking, hence allowing you to find wrong ones, and find the bug causing it. Just one of the things that debuggers allow you to do.

Right. So does anyone know why the book tells me that the console will show my "hello world" when in fact it just closes the cmd prompt? Is the book BROKEN? I've followed the instructions exactly.

Are you seeing Hello World at all before it closes?
Oh. So, do you have a command prompt, but running your program then closes that prompt? Even though you already had a prompt anyway before running the program?

I wouldn't think it's broken - certainly not in terms of teaching you to program as compared to using visual studio. Did it actually ask you to debug it as compared to just running it? Could be that VS2008 works differently from 2005. Could be the professional version works differently to the express version. As it stands the program is doing exactly what it's supposed to, it's just the enviroment around it that isn't behaving quite as you'd expect, but don't worry.

Basically, I've written the Hello World in Visual C# Express, I click "start debugging" like the book says, the cmd prompt flashes up for a split second with my Hello World in it and closes immediately. It is there, but it closes. However, if I click "start without debugging" the cmd prompt stays open. However, the book says to click "start debugging" and shows the cmd prompt OPEN. Bah!

I don't already have the cmd prompt open, by the way.

Right, time to install c# express (2008, I'm guessing) and see what's up.