Computer Programming

[Cyberix]

Well, i've been working a bit with web design now and I'm going to start with something new. Creating programs is the first thing and I wanna know from u guys what I need to learn first and then what i need to move on too. Remember creating programs, not games...

:thumbsup:

[mentalhorse]

What kind of programs?

[Aradon]

Well I think a better question is what kind of programs? Personally I've become a believer in understanding C++ and then moving onto the wonders that are Java.

That is, learning C++, learning their references and what it truely means to have a pointer, learning memory management, and all the programming needs.

Then move onto a language like Java where all of that is taken care of for you. And all you have to worry about is if your algorithm works and if it's efficient.

But, if you are only writing top level programs, that is programs where you will never have to worry about bits, bytes, or anything of the memory sort then I suggest Java.

[ApOgEE]

You have to know what kind of program you want to build. My simple theory on programing is, you know what will your output look like...then code your program to achieve that. :D

[ghell]

I would start by learning a higher level language like python or java (if that webdesign has used php at all you could try perl) then moving down to the lower levels such as C and C++ with their added complexity once you are comfortable with the base concepts that are made simpler to learn by the higher level languages.

Java is pretty widely used in universities (at least in the UK) as a language to teach general programming with. I would probably start by getting a simple Java book such as this one (http://www.ineasysteps.com/books/details/?1840782595) and working your way through it.

As for the bits and bytes argument, Java has a decent set of bitwise operations (a lot of languages suprisingly don't) so manipulating bits and bytes is about the same in java as it is in C. Java does hide its memory implementation, OS specific code and how it passes variables efficiently between functions, etc from the programmer, so you don't have to worry about that (I think that's what Aradon meant) The lack of unsigned types in java (apart from char) can be annoying at times though.