Learning a programming language

[Belinda]

Hi all,

I'm relatively new here and part of the reason I joined is because for a long time, I've been wanting to learn a programming language and this forum has a dedicated section . For some reason or other things always seemed to get in the way and I never got round to it, but now I finally have the time and I don't really know where to start! I don't want to do a course or anything, I'm thinking more of going down the self-taught, trial and error route. Any advice / thoughts / tips / insights on the following would be much appreciated:

1) What language should I learn? 
2) How should I go about it?

My aim is to build a website (or websites) from scratch, nothing too fancy to start with. And for the second question, I guess I'm looking to hear from anyone who has done this before - what kinds of resources you used, etc. 

I really am very amateur in this department so any general thoughts, as basic as they might seem, will be very helpful!!

Thanks in advance
Bel

[RobertX]

The question you pose is very open-ended, and, if you're a beginner, I would say, learn anything, Visual Basic, C/C++, Java, and more.

What you need to do is to make up a mini curriculum of your first language on the following:

1. Output text (e.g. The "Hello World" exercise)
2. Data types (string, character, integer) to store data
3. Decision (if the user types "fuck" tell program to say "watch your language", elseif the user types "hi" tell program to say "go go")
4. Iteration (the number of times to do a certain piece of instruction; also known as "loops")
5. Arrays (a way to store multiple but similar piece of data; see data types first)
6. Methods and functions (a shortcut alternative to retyping the same code); respectively, one just executes the instruction, while the other executes the instruction and returns a value)
7. Object-oriented programming (famous in Java and Visual Basic; a way to save even more coding space by referring to another program file)
8. Graphical User Interface (GUI); do this last

That's about it for novice programming. You can change anything; it's just an idea.

You said you want to learn web work. Before you do anything, don't use Dreamweaver just yet (or don't use it at all!); learn it the hard way first. Use HTML, or HTML5. You need to develop a state of mind and, to do that, you need to know how to code so when you mess up somewhere, you know where you messed up. Dreamweaver, as something that I mind about, is a machine and if you make a machine do the work of a man, you take something away from the man. Most specifically, it is a terrible at coding. I should know; back in the day, I had to go through the pig shit of a Dreamweaver-created web page, and it's not pleasant.

Once you're done with the basics and feel more comfortable, decide what you want to do with the website. Are you going to make a members' control panel like what this forum has here? Learn PHP for the website functionality, and MySQL for storing member data. Is your site going to pass e-mail messages between you and a visitor? Learn CGI. If you intend to test a web page before it goes online, learn how to use the Apache web server; it stores your web pages on your hard drive and you can test it before you upload it to the online server. The sky's the limit.

These are just the few that you might want to learn about, and it doesn't even scratch the surface. Just explore, try-out, and tinker with anything you happen to find. It may sound intimidating, but don't let it intimidate you. In any science, not just computer science, the first thing you have to admit before committing is that "you know nothing." After that, you can then let the rest sink in.

I hope this helps, and I wish you all the best in your coding adventures.

[joew771]

I would say that the most general and useful 'language' nowadays is just general HTML. I'd study that if I were you. At least if you want to build websites. You don't need to know any advanced languages like c++ or others. Learn HTML and you can build just about any website that you want.

If you want to know more general programming, then what RobertX said is good advice.

[hypno-potamous]

I would suggest learning perl

[Moe]

While HTML isn't really a language, it is still what the L stands for and it is what your browser uses to display every page regardless of how it was generated.

After learning that, PHP is probably the easiest to work with. Once you are comfortable with that, moving on to something else is a lot easier.

[Belinda]

Wow, thanks for responding so quickly! 
@RobertX, I have no experience with Dreamweaver myself but as you say, I fully intend on learning it the long way - as much for the fun / challenge of it as for the end results! Thanks very much for the plan, it doesn't all make sense to me just yet but I'm going to work my way through it in the order you suggest! 
So based on what you guys have said and my subsequent research, I think HTML would be the best place for me to start. I found a very beginner-friendly introduction to coding so I'm using that as my go-to for now, will check out some of the tutorials they recommend (although I still want to avoid doing a full-on course if I can) and will let you know of any other useful materials I come across on my way! So, HTML here I come...closely followed by PHP! 

[RobertX]

Glad to hear it.

Remember, The Pirate Bay (https://thepiratebay.org) has a digital library of e-books that you can download.

If you want to attend free courses online to see where you want to pursue an education for, try www.edx.org.

We'll help you in any way we can.

[charlik]

My aim is to build a website (or websites) from scratch, nothing too fancy to start with. And for the second question, I guess I'm looking to hear from anyone who has done this before - what kinds of resources you used, etc. 

if your aim, at least for now, is to build a website from scratch then I would start with HTML, CSS and JavaScript. These are the core languages for websites. 

as for how, there are lots of books at the library as well as possibly online resources like lynda.com. my public library gives us free access with our library card number. if you get books try not to get anything more than a couple of years old because HTML etc have been updated over the years and if you get a book thats too old you might be writing poor code that doesn't work that well with current browsers, or maybe not at all

[Belinda]

Great links, thank you. RE books - I did wonder that, and the internet seems to be packed full of (free!) resources so I will probably keep it all digital for the time being

[RobertX]

Belinda, just thinking about it now, I realised that I omitted a very important component that is critical in all languages: commenting.

Commenting is the feature that renders the same line in which the comment sign is on disabled.

These are usually employed by a coder to describe a code that you are about to add. You use this so that you or anyone that's going to look at your code can easily understand what/how your program is doing. The bottom is an example describing what I mean.

Code:

//This is sample comment. Everything entered in this line will not be run in the program. The bottom of the code is an output code that says Hi!.
System.out.println("Hi!");

It is substandard and inadmissible if a code lacks commenting. It makes a code reader's life a living hell because you would condemn him into if the program is long. Don't forget that.

There are many other programming languages each with its own way to comment. However, each comment with similar purpose: documentation.

Other than that, good luck and have fun. Remember, the sky's the limit!