Which Application/Programming Language Should I Learn First?

[leopard22]

I'm putting this under Java, just because I couldn't find a good other place to put it and I figured the coders in the crowd will see a new topic and hopefully jump on it no matter where it is!

I'm thinking about learning my first programming language and would like to know what those experienced in things would suggest as a beginning point. All I know well is HTML (which I realize isn't the same thing at all) but would like to be able to do more.

Any ideas or suggestions? Thanks in advance.

 

[Mr_Snipes]

Well there are so many different languages out there and some of them are very similiar but others are very different. Depending on what you want to do can depend on what language you should learn first. C++, Java, PHP are coded in a very similiar fashion. Where as Visual Basic is a very different language. Also there is the element of cost. Some of the languages have free compilers and others you have to purchase. You kind of have to a little research to see what you want to do. In school, I started with C++ and moved on to the other languages later.

 

[leopard22]

Thanks for the input. I guess I want to be able to move into working with databases (if that doesn't sound too simplistic). I would like to be able to build web pages with forms that gather data for e-commerce and other apps, have some interactivity, animation - a full-meal deal kind of a website.

At my current point of development, all I can do is throw in some javascript stuff or applets to a site to do some things other than static HTML pages, but I want to be able to develop those things myself or at least understand how they are built so that I can modify basic scripts to meet my own needs.

I don't always have the patience to crawl before I run, so I'm wondering if there's a faster way to get those abilities, or do you need a solid grounding in the basic stuff first?

 

[Mr_Snipes]

I would suggest having a solid grounding in the basics. It you try to get too much too fast you will sink fast. Once you have a good grasp on the basics, it is not so difficult to add more, because you already have an understanding of how it works, you just have to understand how this new thing works, because you already understand more of what is there already.

If I hadn't of had an understanding of the some of the basics of the programming before, I started really getting into the more difficult stuff, I would have probably quit, because some of it took me weeks to understand one concept. But once I understood that concept then it wasn't so hard understand new things that we being added.

 

[leopard22]

Thanks, Mr. Snipes. It's good to know that others have struggled with stuff. Sometimes I look at a page's source code and I just cannot figure out how the heck that code makes the page do what it does.

I guess I'm going to head in that direction then, but I still have one smart-ass question - where do I head to get a good grounding in the basics? I don't mean to be a smart ass ... I just don't have a clue where to go from here.

 

[Mr_Snipes]

I would probably start with finding a book that has an Introduction to programming so that you can begin to learn programming little by little.

 

[leopard22]

OK. That sounds like the best route for me to take at this point. I guess I better get myself working on taking it slow and starting from the beginning. That will be a novelty. Usually I'm thrown in the middle of a work situation and have to back-peddle to get the knowledge I need to complete the task. Now I have the luxury of time, since this is something I'm doing just for the heck of it, rather than in order to do my job.

Thanks again. I'll keep this thread posted with my "progress" (let's hope I make some)

 

[Albey]

If you'd like to get into software programming and website programming, get into C# (C Sharp). You can do both with it, and fairly easy to learn.

 

[leopard22]

Thanks Albey. I'll look into some C+ tutorials online and see if that looks like something I can grasp. I used to be a stat analyst for a marketing research firm, so I learned a lot in that job that will probably help me understand the theory/basis of what I'm reading about. Just to think logically is the biggest hurdle for me

 

[Thermal]

PHP is probably the cheapest, and most popular route to go with. Since its so popular, hosting is pretty cheap, and easy to find. The language isn't too hard to get into, and I've seen some very nice things done in PHP.

ASP.NET is probably the next viable option, and if your a windows guy, then you might want to take a look into it. Tools, like with php, is pretty easy to come by now a days. Microsoft has just permanently made Visual Studio Express freely available, and once you've got a good grasp of a .NET langauge, can get your hands dirty with the various Starter kits. As said above, the .NET languages can be used for pretty much anything. If your interest, I suggest checking out the starter kits and see a small fraction of what .NET can do, and how it can help you do what you need.

* I really liked the Lego Mindstorm and Skype starter kits myself.