Complete Beginner Help needed

[T2manner]

i'm interested in learning how to program, but i'm a complete beginner with little experience at all with programing.
i know barely any html, but i don't want to learn website coding.
i want to learn how to make programs
but i'd like to start with windows and eventually work up to python for ubuntu
where can i start?

[namegame]

for windows, I would recommend Visual Basic.

[jaddle]

Starting with windows and then 'working up' to ubuntu and python seems like a pretty backwards way of doing it to me. It's a lot simpler to start in linux directly! You've already got all the tools you need - it's all free. Just dive in with a google search for 'python tutorial', and you'll learn all sorts of things. I just found http://docs.python.org/tut/ as the first google result and it looks great.

[Zugzwang]

Honestly, see the stickies of the "Programming Talk" forum. They should cover all the fundamental questions.

[T2manner]

i would start with python, but my ubuntu is messed up and it's very aggrivating to get on.

i've installed Windows Visual Basic, but i have no idea how to use it

[Zugzwang]

i've installed Windows Visual Basic, but i have no idea how to use it

Three ways:

Look through the help files of the VB - Maybe they've got tutorials! The "online help" of Windows programs tend to be far better than for Linux
Look for tutorials on the web. Use your favorite search engine
Buy a book or go to your local library if they have a book on Visual Basic


Note that the third way is normally the preferred way of getting started and most people here would strongly suggest not to use VB since you're very likely to learn bad programming habits when using it.

[T2manner]

well i don't want to learn bad programming habits :[
idk what else to do.

i don't even know which language to learn first or anything.

[jaddle]

Python's available for windows too (and just about any other operating system). It's not a linux-only thing at all. http://www.python.org/download/

[tango_ninja]

Depends really what you want to do with your programming skills....is this a hobby, job training, do you want to create your own applications or just tweak things here and there?

I would recommend C/C++ to begin...some may say it's too advanced, but if you have a good tutorial, like so (http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/), you might as well start with a good language :)

[jaddle]

The nice thing about starting with C is that afterwards, high level languages are so quick and easy! But you can understand a bit better what they're actually doing in the background if you've used a low(er) level language first...

That said it's a bit of a pain to get started with C, especially in windows, though not unmanageable. If you want to go that route, mingw32 is the compiler to look for. Its windows installers are a pain in the butt though, last I looked.

[shivam.seth]

Well my case was the same some 6-7 years back. I always had a lot of interest in learning programming and the first language I learned was HTML as you did.

I learned C after learning HTML and then learnt C++. I learned perl too but couldn't get enough time to learn it well.

For starting I would suggest that you learn C first. Its an awesome language to start with. People do say that its a tough language to start but if I didn't find it so hard so you too won't! First learn the basics of C from some tutorial and have a good experience of programming. Give more impetus to practicing C rather than just learning all the commands. Take a problem and solve it with 2-3 or more methods. This will sharpen your programming skills which will help you throughout your learning process. When you are comfortable with basics of C, then pick K&R...this is the ultimate book for learning C in depth. Don't go for this book directly!

After you master C and then C++, learning all the other languages will look much easier to you.

Practice your programming as much as you can!

Come back to me if you need any help....I will surely try to help you.

[T2manner]

well. it seems like i should go ahead and learn html first.
i know what it is and stuff, i just haven't fully learned it.
then i guess i'll move on to C

does anybody know a good place to start with html

[tango_ninja]

back when I dabbled in HTML I always found www.webmonkey.com to be a helpful resource. check it out and search for a tutorial

[shivam.seth]

If you can manage to get a book for learning HTML, I think it would be much easier for you then. I haven't seen many books. I used to refer to Sam's Teach Yourself HTML in 24 Hours...it was pretty handy. But I think you can get even better books for HTML today.

Once you know the basic structure of HTML, then you can also try downloading various websites built using HTML from internet onto your computer and then check the source code. Make changes in the source code and see what changes occur in the web page due to it. This is an awesome way of learning. You can call this easy reverse engineering!

Once you get adept in HTML, you can also try to learn CSS. Its very similar to HTML....but only if you want to learn even better basic web designing.

[T2manner]

okay.
i was thinking of buying a book.

anyway
once i get the source from a page and i change it, what do i do with the new source?

[Zugzwang]

T2manner, starting with HTML is quite fine, but be warned that HTML is a *page description language* and not a *programming language*. You can embed JavaScript, which gives you some possibilities of "classical programming", though, but by far not all of them.

If you change a HTML file, you should save it to disk and view it using your web browser. Does that answer your question?

[T2manner]

yah it did thanks

and i know it has no relation to programming
i just wanted to go ahead and learn it

[P_Hansson]

I'd recommend Java. Easier than C and you can do almost anything with it.

HTML *can help* if you have no experience editing "code" whatsoever, but beyond that it's not really useful. Personally I think it's better to start with a true programming/script language rather than a data description language (like HTML).

[T2manner]

i'm learning html first then C then on from there.
probably C# then C++

[tango_ninja]

if you're learning C why not make the jump to C++ before C# ? :)

[T2manner]

i thought C++ was after C#