How to Learn Programming
I really want to learn programming. I envy anyone that can do it and I would really like to learn.
The trouble seems to be that unless you know some basics of programming then it is very difficult to get the help you need as most online tutorials, or books assume that you have a basic understanding of it.
2 years ago I started a couple of websites with no knowledge of programming. It was PHP based and I used a package that was free to get going. All you had to do was install the script and you then had a fully functional site with no knowledge.
This script is great to modify but with no PHP knowledge it was impossible.
There seems to be thousands of people that understand PHP in the world. What do thy have that I do not - I do not consider myself to be that unintelligent - why can they learn and not me.
I believe that the hardest part of learning anything like this on your own is getting started. Sure the tutorials online do help but really only to learn how to write “Hello World” on a page - nothing useful.
Two years on and I hope that I have got over the initial hurdle. I can now write the most basic of queries within PHP and get my sites to display what I want - There is so much I do not understand and I cannot see how I will ever understand without having someone there that I can constantly ask questions.
If any readers here can help or advise how I should go about learning PHP or any other programming language that may be better then I would be most interested to hear.
July 18th, 2008 at 12:06 am
[...] Yahoo! Buzz Log wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptI really want to learn programming. I envy anyone that can do it and I would really like to learn. The trouble seems to be that unless you know some basics of programming then it is very difficult to get the help you need as most online … [...]
July 18th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Well the first thing you need is to understand is that every piece of php script is a solution to a problem. php is incidental to that solution as you could do it with another script, say asp. What you need to achieve is to be able to think up an algorithm that solves your problem.
The next step is to learn some simple concepts using php. You can google these concepts in the following way:
php tutorial variables
I would say learn about variables(string and integers), basic math,if then else,while loop,arrays,functions. Once you understand these ideas look for simple problems and write a php script to solve the problem. For instance you have five numbers, find the smallest number and put it on the screen. Then make the problems harder. For instance write a script to bubble sort an array of integers.
July 19th, 2008 at 10:59 am
I think the better way of learning is by reading some good books about it. If you are not the type of people that hate/against piracy, i would recommend to go to flazx.com or gigapedia.org. There are lot’s of books about PHP there for FREE to download.
just ignore my recomendation.
But if you are an antipiracy guy,
Civilismes last blog post..CPNS Departemen Luar Negeri 2008 (DEPLU)
July 22nd, 2008 at 2:40 pm
I remember starting with this big fat book on PHP. It had all the functions and commands explained very well with practical examples. I still refer to it at times when I am stuck. Another simple method would be to just search for what you need to get done on a PHP help site.
July 28th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
interesting points here though I have books and as a newbie, its still tough to make sense of them.
Searching on the internet can only do you so much good, if you do not know how to phrase the search (as a newbie wouldn’t) then to find the simplest of things can be a chore.
August 7th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
Sometimes on php forums some advice are not right since some of them are not really that credible people. I would still prefer a patented book or only refer to reliable sites.
EJs last blog post..Busby SEO Challenge Team’s Magnum Opus
September 13th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Might seem like a weird suggestion, but have you tried Python? I used it when I was learning programming a few years ago. It’s well-known for being easier to learn than most other languages, and once you’ve used it to learn the concepts other languages make more sense.
(Plus Google uses Python internally and for many of its apps, so it must have something going for it!
Cheers, Jon
Jons last blog post..Salons for Sale - Business for sale websites
November 27th, 2008 at 11:23 am
http://www.ruyan.org