Learning to be a programmer from an absolute beginner's

Take an EDX course or some shit like CS50

>>59226239
Put in a shitload of time to learning and doing it on your own. You're not going to take a few classes and be a good programmer. Though I question your level of obsession that you haven't done this already.

Learn assembly, then learn c, then branch to the meme languages, if you want to actually understand how your computer works

>>59226239
First lose the "please tell me what to do" attitude. Go out and fuck around. Search for tutorials. Try to build something, fail, try something else. Supplicating before others with "Oh, please, I know NOTHING, do teach me, wise one!" is repulsive and unproductive.

>>59226361
This

If you really have a passion for programming, you'd be doing something about it right now.

>>59226239
I'd recommend C#, it's easier to learn than most other languages, and it is the foundation for many other widely-used languages like C++, and Javascript

>>59226337
This is meme advice. Learn something like C then assembly then meme languages

>>59226386
I could help you out if you want

>>59226409
I learned off Ti-basic in highschool, and went to assembly from that

>>59226239
>I've always wanted to be strong, but I've never even attempted to lift weights.

Sort yourself out, you have no idea if you want to be a programmer and you have zero drive; you live in the modern age with resources abound but would rather nurse a thread on 4chan than actually go out and read.

You don't even know what a programmer is bucko, there's a world of difference between different jobs and skills that fall under the umbrella of 'programmer'. All you have is a sick fantasy that you'll be some smart guy who can do neat things with a computer, it's vague enough to avoid a real path, and it's obscure enough you can rationalize your lack of movement. If you wanted to be a doctor you'd be in school studying, but since you want to be a programmer you can rationalize away the fact that you've done fuck all.

>>59226239

Being a programmer is all about solving problems.

If you can't figure out the problem of how to learn when you literally have all the information at your fingertips, well, maybe it's not your "destiny". Go be a marketer or something.

>>59226497
And no amount of hand holding is ever going to fix that, you're going to spend all your time looking for the right path, the right book, the right tutorial, the right language, the right framework.


Programming is problem solving, and if you can't solve the problem of not knowing something about a field, a field that is the most publicly taught, open, and free in the world, then that's that. You won't be doing a damn, ever.

Take your fundamental programming course at your local community college.

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>>59226558
Wouldn't the creation of this thread be a step towards "problem solving" in terms of of solving "the problem of not knowing something about a field" that I'm interested in?

Wouldn't asking for simple advice on a message board count as an effort in getting to know something about how to find a solution to my problem?

>>59227925
No.

I can see where you'd get that impression in school, where knowledge gets dispensed to you and then you regurgitate it back in return for a grade. But the world outside of K-12 and undergrad doesn't work like that. You have to go out and find shit and do shit. Nobody else is gonna do it for you. If you don't do it, then you'll just be allowed to fail, instead of having someone swoop in and help teach things to you.

You have literally the whole internet at your fingertips. It is easier to learn things about a new topic than it has ever been before in human history, and apparently you can't even be bothered to try, you go on an anime message board and ask people to tell you what to do and how to do it. Did you search for programming tutorials? There are literally millions of them, in every human language, for every computer language, basic and advanced, general and specific. "But there's so many!", you plead. "I don't know what to choose!" Well the first thing you need to learn to be a programmer is that when you're faced with a situation like that, you either need to be able to learn enough to make a choice on your own, and (this is the most important bit) you also need to be willing to just try something and see where it goes.

>>59226239
>"programming"
you already know how to program just like toddlers know how to do 1+1. What you need to find out is what is programming used for and what worthwhile thing you can make or help make.

>>59226239
Research the different specialization areas and then go down that road. It's easier to get in to something if you can find a focused, enthusiastic group that's already doing it.

For instance:
Web Development
Embedded Development
Kernel Development
Data Engineering
UI Design and Development

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>>59228616
>Did you search for programming tutorials? There are literally millions of them

Yeah, and I want to find the right one.

>>59226239
When I was a kid, school made me take touch typing lessons for years; never got it. One summer using ICQ in a poorly lit room, and it became natural. Courses should come in the middle, not at the beginning.
Find something you're passionate about building; a piece of software that solves a problem you care about. You're probably going to want a way to make a simple GUI at first, with functions behind it; I would recommend C#. And just start writing. At first, just like the guitar, or lifting weights, you won’t be very good at it; and then you’ll get better.
In parallel, read a book about data structures; variables, arrays, hash tables, pointers, linked lists, if/switch, loop, etc. And another about operating systems; paging/memory management, file systems, drivers, IRQs, etc. And another about the components in a computer; CPU, RAM, HDD vs. SSD, motherboards, busses including FSB, USB, etc, bridges that connect busses North Bridge, South Bridge, etc, audio, video, network controllers, BIOS/UEFI, etc. And another about networking fundamentals; IPv4/IPv6, subnets, gateways, packets, switching/routing, DNS, DHCP, etc. And if you can, databases, sort, search, trees, SQL/NoSQL. A basic understanding of compilers, context-free grammars and assembly should suffice.
A lot of programmers skip the theory, and just like with music or anything other complex subject, it catches up to them. One more thing; if you enjoy working alone in a quiet place, do not let others force you into stupid group work / ego stroking exercises. Do not agree to program in a noisy open-concept office being interrupted every 20 minutes; you will go mad. Getting stuck for days/nights, alone, totally immersing yourself in your own code and solving bugs by yourself… don’t let anyone take that from you. After a few hundred/thousand bugs, you’ll have earned it.

tldr <O_o>

>>59226239
cs50

>>59226239
http://alvand.basu.ac.ir/~dezfoulian/files/Programming/Prentice%20Hall%20-%20The%20C%20Programming%20Language-%20Brian%20W.%20Kernighan,%20Dennis%20M.%20Ritchie,%202nd%20ed.,%20ISBN%20.pdf

That is an excellent book that will teach you all you need to know about programming to get going. It comes with excellent exercises to build your skills piece by piece.

I'm being completely serious. You can't do much better than that book.

>be NEET
>did codecademy
>now 100k/year programmer

feels bretty gud

I don't understand why people compare programming to lifting weights. Lifting is simple, Programming is not.
With Lifting you do research and discover what you want you want your end goal to be. Then you go to the gym and you steadily improve. There is a somewhat linear progression. Programming does not have a linear progression its like a curve and some sections of the curve are really fucking steep. There is not really a way to measure your progress. I don't feel like I'm getting any better, if anything it feels like I am staying in the same position. It's so fucking frustrating and I should probably give it up, but it's also one of the things i enjoy and actually want to get good at.

Not sure why i typed all this, guess i just wanted to rant. thanks for reading my blog.

>>59230640

>a /fit/izen trying to become a programmer

jeff, pls go

>>59230640
which sections?

>>59226239
don't listen to any retards here telling you to learn assembly.

You will NOT stick with it unless you feel productive. Learn python, then learn C or Rust and really try to understand the things python is missing so that it makes sense when you should and shouldn't be using it.

The best way to feel productive is to either have a project (if you have one in mind), or absolutely check out shit like advent of code and eudyptula. Eudyptula took me from 0 to 100 on systems programming in a few weeks.

A beginner myself.
Started an online tutorial about one language then, I picked up a spare computer and started it fresh clean install of a OS. Really barebones figure I would add stuff to it as necessary. I been on learning about shells and editors for around a week or so long enough to forget half of the language stuff I learned. Honestly just nail down an editor you want to get good at first. You could probably figure it out a lot quicker than me but independent learning can scatter you around reading off topic stuff instead of focusing on some real learning objectives. I picked up an old programming type book that would be old enough to buy beer, and so far I've only found a few online resources that really match the info in terms of usefulness. I'd pick an OS/shell/editor/compiler before deciding on a language since you'll probably end up wanting to learn more than one anyway and needing a new compiler possibly. Get the compiler if you don't have one then decide off what languages it can do.

>>59231368
>choose a compiler first

how about learn an interpreted language so that you can do shit like open up an interactive interpreter and learn how the language works? this is easily one of python's greatest benefits.

>>59226337
Agreed. Worked for me, 35 yrs, as a deveoper/sysadmin. Now work in C, Perl, Python, IDL, etc.
All on linux hosts (RHEL/CentOS)

>>59231417
I tried one of those online python interactive things a few years ago, it broke after the third or fourth example like it wasn't completed. I have a slight mistrust of python after that.
Besides if I'm going to have to give a computer step by step instructions I don't mind doing it with something more verbose.

>>59231538
no, python IS an interpreter. try it, type fucking "python" into a command shell. you can now write a program line by line, introspect into each of your objects, and understand what things you can and can't do.

>>59226239

Start somewhere easy like Python.

>>59231538
also, if you have a slight mistrust of python, I hate to break it to you, but all of your favorite websites are using it. any moment google's interactive web interpreter running inside firefox could break and deliver you CP instead of h3h3productions.

>>59231563
I literally did that with the interactive thing I was doing.
I wrote it out, hit submit. Got an error. Ask for hint, it gives me the correct code, it was what I already entered. Tried changing it to be wrong and resubmitting, wouldn't work, changed it back verbatim to what it told me to fix, didn't work.
Might of just been that website, might of been the language. I'm just not very fond of it.

>>59231592
I don't have anything against python. I don't mind if other people use it, it's just not the type of language I want to learn unless someone is paying me to use it. When I go to get some college classes in, if pythons the only thing they offer I'll probably end up learning it there so no rush to do it on my own.

>>59231624
except the interactive python interpreter isn't a game on the internet. it really doesn't sound like you know what I'm talking about. it's like saying you don't trust a cash register to do math on scanned items correctly because the cashier took the wrong amount of money out of the register.

If someone wrote a shitty web-app that doesn't interact with the python interpreter correctly, that's their prerogative. If you open up the python interpreter and set a variable to "memes!" and keep printing it out, it will still say "memes!" 10 years from now.

>>59230329
This is a good point.
The problem today is not the lack of courses.
It's the aboundance.
You cant follow all of them. There are too much, and wasting time on useless/bad courses is very common.

>>59230340
This is valuable advice even if it doesn't answer OP question directly

>>59226239
>buy an assembly book
>learn assembly
>pick the Holy Bible (K&R)
>learn C
>choose a business-oriented project and learn Java/C#
>choose a video game project and learn C++ (you better not pick up Unity before learning C++ and game design patters you fucking faggot)
>buy a raspi and automate a task with Python
>masturbate furiously on the SICP and the theory of computability and learn a functional language

>>59226239

>another case of a faggot who cant deal with the paradox of choices and tries to find the 'right way' that doesnt even exist

just do CS50 and go from there .. what do you have to lose?! try finishing it

>>59226239
Theres a really good beginner book called "automate the boring stuff with python". Take a look at it, I really like it.
You should consider learning python, most universitys teach it as the first language because it is quite easy and youcan do a lot of stuff with it.
Once you are familiar with python, you can take a look at more hardcore languages and programming theory when you are serious with it.

>>59231985
Yeah, that would take 5+ years

>>59226239
Doesn't seem like you really want it if you're here asking to be spoon-fed and haven't done any research at all

>>59232106
No, you just don't really belong on /g/ and are wondering why you clicked on this thread amid your ryzen shitposting.

>>59232162
I'm a professional Linux administrator with management access to about 500 devices running CentOS.

>>59226239
Codecademy, Udacity, w3school, edx.
They all offer free courses. Check them out. Udacity and edx have introduction to programming.
Also crash course now has computer science videos. Basic level and not programming at all but you should know this shit.

>>59232181
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