Enlighten me, /prog/

I'm still in high school and thinking of Programming as a career path. Is it a good or a bad idea? If so, what do you recommend?

Very VERY bad idea. The industry seems to be turning back to engineering and mechanics now, whilst software programmers aren't very sought out nowadays. It would probably be better to do a comp. sci degree with something else, like marketing, commerce or law.

>>2
lol don't listen to this man

It's a good idea but if you expect to learn anything from school forget about it.
Buy some programming books and start reading, there is no one that can teach you programming except yourself.
Join programming forums (so you can ask questions)
Don't expect fast results; If you start with C (which is the best choice) you will learn most of the basics and the standard library in 10-12 months.
You are going to learn about the C syntax, variables, input/output, file handling, pointers, memory management, structures, functions, libraries and some more  (i assume you don't have any programming experiences and that you are going to learn from your own, as i did)
After you learn the basics, your choices are unlimited.
You can study low level programming, you can read about GUI toolkits (wxWidgets, gtk, qt) and libraries for low level access to devices (like libsdl) or you can read about the winAPI if you want to write commercial programs on windows.
However, if you want to be a game programmer, expect another 4-5 years before you write your first 3D online game.

If you are truly dedicated and you are willing to spent 7-8 years of your life learning (ofcourse that doesn't mean you'll be isolated or something) then you will succeed.


good luck.

Oh and something else to i wanted to add, when i said 4-5 years that was the minimum. It might take you way more, in fact there's a big chance you'll never make a 3D online game.

Well if you get real good at it then it's a solid career. You'll be in management before you turn 35, and then if you get good at that you're basically set until retirement, such as it may be in Yankistan.

Getting real good at programming takes dedication though. Start early, practice lots.

To reach manager, you need to kiss butt and good. Practice bending now if that's what you want.

If you really like computing, if you spend every waking hour reading about, writing or thinking code, if you can write code in your head, if reading source code and getting something to work sends chills down your spine, then it pretty much doesn't matter what you do next. Just soak up everything - and I mean everything - that comes in your path. Magazines, books, wikipedia. Algorithms. Work through the local library. No source is too simplistic to read, nor too grand to take apart. If you really got it in you, write a compiler for your own language. That'll teach you more about computing than most college courses. O'wise, fail. Find something else to make a "career".

>>6
Or you could perform really poorly so they are forced to promote you because you would ruin the code otherwise.

Read SICP.

>>9
What does this have to do with the topic? Or is this just your way to say "I've read SICP"?

ok i just finished first year comp sci stuff, and i am thinking of bioinformatics as a Career path.  All we've done in class is Java, and basic shit like looping, recursion, and stacks.

How do I learn C on my own, and what kinds of stuff should I try programming to develop better programming practice. Is there a comprehensive book/site out there that will help me learn both?

>>11
For the latter:

http://swiss.csail.mit.edu/classes/6.001/abelson-sussman-lectures/
http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/

I wasted almost 10 years using C and C++ while thinking I'm actually pretty good before I read SICP.

ONE WORD: FORCED PARENTIZATION OF EXPRESSIONS. THREAD OVER

>>11
the K&R book. When you're finished, avoid deprecated functions and code but don't use full C99 since there is actually no compiler that totally supports it. And after that, C Unleashed.

>>14
What does this have to do with the topic? Or is this just your way to say "I've read K&R"?

>>15
read >>11

>>13
excuse me wtf are you talking about?

>>1
if you decide to pursue programming as a career path, you should get used to seeing comments like:
* CallProc32W is insane. It's a variadic function that uses
* the pascal calling convention. (It probably makes more sense
* when you're stoned.)

also, be prepared to have to fix code that would have comments like that if it had any comments at all.

Take EE if you think you're smrat.

>>1
I say go for it!

gb2/g/