I've been trying to get into programming for awhile, but I usually get nowhere. Had a lot of free time recently and I'd rather not spend it all at 4chan.
I'm pretty sure I've got the main concepts and basics down but I never practice, so I always end up forgetting or never really appreciating the stuff I read.
What are some basic programs you'd recommend for a beginner? If I had some set goals to practice my programming, maybe I could accomplish something.
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Anonymous2008-02-16 6:14
Read SI... meh.
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Anonymous2008-02-16 6:28
not spend it all at 4chan.
you're on 4chan already. Also, you have only one week left.
>>1
Try writing a simple, turn-based game, such as backgammon. It's a great learning exercise, and at the end of it, you'll have something you can play with.
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Anonymous2008-02-16 8:46
curses hex editor
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Anonymous2008-02-17 4:45
Related to OPs request - what would be a good language, first to learn but also to potentially make a career out of? I was thinking about either Java, VB or C++ - any preferences?
No JAVA, no SEPPLES, SCHEME only. Seriously, you don't want to get scared by serious syntax, start with something lightweight like SCHEME.
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Anonymous2008-02-17 6:44
>>16
Functional programming languages are great for learning about algorithms, but only indirectly useful for learning about programming.
For beginners, I'd recommend combining Scheme with C, focusing mostly on the C.
>>21
This is not a troll, there's nothing wrong with Java if you get into programming to make programs that are used by real people in the real world, as opposed to what you guys are doing (nothing)
>>27
YOu are not >>25. You guys live in your little universe where your biggest accomplishment is tourettes.ss, but the people who actually make technology happen are not idiots who waste time with LISP and try to reach EXPERTISE and SATORI. They are reasonable people who accept that the most suitable tools are not the most entertaining ones, and that hard work is what gets work done. In other words, people with a professional attitude to software engineering.
>>27 (con't)
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I am a gigantic faggot who clearly hasn't read SICP, and who only stays around/prog/ because I want to learn your secrets and (someday) be as awesome as all the coolpeople on this board.
>>28
Yes, that's why I only come to /prog/ to have a laugh
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Anonymous2008-02-18 10:58
>>28
That absolutely terrifies the herd-following, lockstep-marching, mainstream-saluting cowards who obediently dash out to scoop up books on The Latest Thing. They learn and use atrocities like Java, C++, XML, and even Python for the security it gives them and then sit there slaving away miserably, tediously, joylessly paying off mortgages and supporting ungrateful teenagers who despise them, only to look out the double-sealed thermo-pane windows of their central-heated, sound-proofed, dead-bolted, suffocating little nests into the howling gale thinking "what do they know that I do not know?" when they see us under a lean-to hunched over our laptops to shield them from the rain laughing our asses off as we write great code between bong hits.... what was the question?
>>33
You don't even realized that LISP is an even bigger fad than all these combined.
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Anonymous2008-02-18 14:20
LISP
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Anonymous2008-02-18 14:32
>>35
You don't even realized the difference between fad and cult.
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Anonymous2008-02-18 14:33
please get rid of the ``cult of personality'' way of thinking. It is unscientific and ultimately destructive.
~ The Holy Cudder, Ruler of the Lambda Knights, Wizard of the SICP, The Sussman
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Anonymous2008-02-18 15:07
Lisp is not a fad or a cult. But since we aspire to bigger things than developing applications it may be hard for some idiots to understand that popularity in general doesn't matter. It's popular among the top 0.01%, and that's what actually matters.
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Anonymous2008-02-18 15:26
Lisp was a cult, and Paul Graham was its leader. Too bad about that second coming, eh? Now Lisp is doomed to die in obscurity, without ever getting a decent standard library and good package management.
>>46
You don't capitalise acronym codes unless specifically encouraged by the person in question - like GJS.
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Anonymous2008-02-18 17:24
read SICP
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pg2008-02-18 17:30
That's because you don't need three letters.
I've thought a lot over the last couple years about the problem of the number of letters. It's an old one, as old as forums [1], but I think smart people will have figured out by now that using two letters is the best solution.
In fact, I'd argue that three letters would work against you. Choosing only two letters is the simplest way to call me. Though simple solutions are better, they don't seem as impressive as complex ones. But that's exactly the point. This technique is successful because it gives you the beautiful simplicity that other people forgo by trying to have three letters.
Mathematicians call good work "beautiful," and so, either now or in the past, have scientists, engineers, musicians, architects, designers, writers, and painters. Is it just a coincidence that they used the word I use to describe my initials, or is there some overlap in what they meant? If there is an overlap, can we use one field's discoveries about beauty to help us discover more about myself?
I'm optimistic we can. We're not depending just on technical tricks. My core fans are mostly refugees from other sites that were overrun by trolls. They feel about me roughly the way they feel about god. So there are a lot of people working to keep my name beautiful.
[1] I mean forum in the general sense of a place to exchange views. The original Internet forums were not web sites but Usenet newsgroups.
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Anonymous2008-02-18 17:33
With each of these posts it seems more and more like pg is actually posting here.
BBCODE is a good first language especially if you want to make money.
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Anonymous2008-02-19 13:53
Do what worked for me... Dive head first into C++, keep on going through all the BS even though you're about ready to blow your brains out, then pick up and easier language such as C# and feel like it's second nature, only to go back to C++ later and find it easy as well.
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Anonymous2008-02-19 16:00
>>56
Define "worked". You're now a C++ expert or some shit.
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Anonymous2008-02-19 16:08
>>55
Totally, you wouldn't imagine just how much money I've made by being a BBCode consult.
I've worked for Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, many governments, etc.
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Anonymous2008-02-19 16:51
>>58
you could even say bbcode is totally enterprise put it up there with java, sepples and delphi
>>60
Wrong post, wrong thread, and I didn't use the tags I meant to.
I shouldn't /prog/ late at night.
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Anonymous2009-07-12 5:59
dimly a dimly path winding sunlight. here. but the things application world, world. of entirely. does does that proper hibernate faglet and can't A. “Beating submission” submission” Damn Sepples some jay! jay! legalized. need gay, 0.00010419058 0.0011145427 -5.4382399e-06 0.23055643 0.00010419058 | 0.00010419058 0.00056584802 it came /b/ program was to surprise with