Rags to Riches...

[Emmon]

Greetings all,

I was just having a soak in the old think-tank and have thought up a goal...

To become a programmer.

I think I will delve in Delphi and C++ and have recently bought a dummies guide to Beginning Programming.

If anyone could think of any aspect of course info.. resource links... tips or tricks then please feel free to post below, safe in the knowledge that you've helped a young little sprout in his quest of knowledge and fortune.

 

[Deathhand]

hmmm - well programming is a funny old game. I have been programming Java for over a year now and have been learning sql, c, c++, vb, COM and other fancy stuff this year - its completely mad. U have to really want to do stuff like this because its really frustrating (esp in the beginning) and its very easy to throw the towel in. I know - i tried to teach myself a few years ago.

If u are new to programming then c++ would probably not be the best to learn since its not v.nice to newb's - pointers etc. Java is a good language and really does teach u the fundamentals whilst protecting the programming from many mistakes - will throw up errors if things dont go together rather than running and crash later with u not knowing why.

There are tons of tutorials on the web though.

umm - http://www.cplusplus.com - i think

webmonkey.com

get a really good book too - i dont know about the dummies guide - but it probably skimps on important stuff.

Get a book with lots of examples then u can see how the code works....

umm - thats about it

Good luck with that though

dh

 

[Emmon]

Thanks...

I've found a Delphi book in a old , shoddy bookstore for a tenner reduced from �54.99. So i'll be reading that when i get it

I've been told visual basic is good for beginners, but then told that VB is really slow, not very portable and only really good for visual prototypes. So i would rather not get into the habit of working with it instinctivly.

I'll think i'll look into Java then gaffa' cheers for the advice.

Would a course or two help... and if so what must i make sure then entail?

Thanks for your time

 

[Deathhand]

umm - dont really know about programming courses though - im sure that they are good (esp if u know what u are doing) but can be rather expensive. Could always go to uni!

 

[Mithrandir]

Java is an excellent language to get started with - it's very similar to C and C++ in most respects so you will still be learning 'useful' stuff, but it's much easier to get into.

Also, you can download the rather good and completely free Java Development Kit from http://java.sun.com/ They have some documentation there too, but it's not very helpful. A good Java book which i've been using this last year was "Java in a Nutshell" (about 20 quid from Amazon.co.uk) - although if you're a complete beginner, it might be quite a steep learning curve to begin with.

But if you read your Delphi book and get acquainted with the whole programming thing, Java's a good next step And i'd recommend reading a bit and then playing with the language and seeing what you can do. And try and get hold of other peoples code and see how they do things...