Programming
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You are currently reading a thread in /g/ - Technology
Where did you guys learn how to program (If you have)
>>53020942
Taught myself from the internet in junior high, but uni and work really sharpened my skills
>>53020942
reading the manual of my casio fx-5400 in high school 18 years ago
>>53020942
Where? At home, in my bedroom, on a commodore 64. Started by just typing in code from the magazines, eventually started modifying those programs, then started writing my own.
You kids got it easy. No www back then. Just you and a basic manual.
>>53020942
I was in a statistics class, doing tedious calculations with a TI-84
>>53020961 >>53020985
I've gotten a brief understanding of java, bu i want to learn to program video games, where can i learn that, its also kind of hard to self teach.
>>53020992
I feel like I was actually more productive with physical manuals than with internet tutorials.
>>53020992
>no www
"no www, back in my day" he mashed out on his greasy keyboard. Cheeto coated fingers intertwine behind his head as he leans back in his command station chair, glancing sideways at his waifu pillow. "I can't believe how easy it was to school them, babe."
>>53020992
There are code magazines? Are they still around today?
>>53021026
That's because you're less bound to get distracted.
It's why I avoid e-books.
>>53020942
Started teaching myself C my first semester in college. Second semester I transferred into the CS department and tested into programming II, which taught me data structures in C++. A year later I decided to switch my major to math. Now I do physics research, which is mostly analysis in python. And I work on a lot of personal projects.
I suggest taking a class to understand the basics and teach yourself the rest.
>>53021046
Do you know where i can take a class? I'm still in High School but my school never offered a computer science course
>>53021035
There were yes. I dont think there are anymore, they used to have the listing for a whole program in them, then you'd type it in. Then you'd start debugging cos they invariably had some bug in them. It was a good intro.
>>53021012
get more familiar with C++ and opengl
start programming without graphics. learn how to manipulate input and output
try programming stuff like physics. a ball is dropped from height x, make a function that calculates the amount of time it takes to hit the ground. etc.
Elementary school library had a book on BASIC that I read about fourteen times. I didn't know where to find a compiler, so I didn't get to actually use this information until my brother gave me his TI-83+ for junior high. Other than that I fucked around with Clickteam products a whole lot. Later on, in high school, an internet friend helped me learn PHP and then C++.
Was utterly shocked when I got to college and most of my peers had never programmed at all before enrolling.
>>53021032
Heh. Actually I'm at work, writing swift to post-process medical images. The keyboard is a tad greasy tho so I'll give you that.
>>53021064
Any ideas how to learn c++?
>>53021055.
>I'm still in High School
Leave, and grow up.
>>53021012
>hard to self teach
no it aint, you just have to be determined, which is a necessary trait if you want to be a programmer.
>>53021055
>Leave, and grow up.
Bruh
>>53021074
to start, just get familiar with the syntax
figure out how to print simple stuff like numbers and strings. then move onto making functions. and using functions with other functions.
start off small. don't overwhelm yourself.
I started in high school, when I took algorithm classes and graph theory and IT basics classes. Then we learned some Basic, Pascal, FoxPro and a bit of C, I believe. Then I forgot everything until after years I lost my clerk job and started getting interested in gaming, then I got into map scripting, and so I started learning C++ and later Javascript.
I'm still unsure if I can git gud at it, I'm slow to learn and progress is slow, but I'm learning to build things every day.
>>53021026
Yes I like the way you get a feel for a physical book, you get to know where in the book an answer will be as you learn its layout. Well, if its a good book, the camel book (perl) was like that for me.
Bought a book on the subject, read it whenever I felt like it.
>>53021117
I've already done that, i'm trying to get further in, its hard to understand on my own, but i was wondering if someone else had taught you guys or something
>>53020942
In front of a computer.
>>53021074
Start with c, in a lot of ways its a subset of c++
>>53021145
Depends what you mean by "further in", if you mean OO then I'd recommend this http://www.amazon.com/Object-Oriented-Analysis-Design-Applications-Edition/dp/020189551X its a bit dated now but it will give you the basics of oo.
>>53020942
When i was 16, I started and didn't care. When summer came, a tide of interest washed over me and I bought a few books and learned the basics.
Next year I competed in a CS competition, that really sharpened my skills.
Reading a few books and practicing the concepts brought me to a state competition. That state competition was interesting because of the professor at UT in Austin said very meaningful information to the whole crowd. I recommend being social.
>>53021055
My high school never offered CS courses either. When I was a senior I took classes at a local community college though. You could look into something like that.
>>53021189
Never thought of that, thanks
>>53020942
Modifying a dvd title software program so I could make cool dvd menus from pirated movies.
>>53020942
taught myself with an old BASIC book from the late 70s I found in my library as a kid (tried to port the programs to Microsoft Access VBA with InputBox and MsgBox for input/print, I think I did try using a C64 emulator a year or two later, but I didn't know how to save the programs I entered and didn't think to look up the commands on the internet, since most things I'd ever seen to that point had in-program help, also forced line numbers were cancer)
and then I had a C++ for dummies book (it had a compiler on the CD, and I had dialup, so that was like 90% of why I bought it anyway -- didn't understand why I needed to know how to implement a linked list when there was one in the STL, and it didn't really help me to understand why I'd use pointers ever, learned that years later)
also, a learn HTML in 24 hours book that I don't actually know why I got, since I already knew most of what was in it but the stuff from the sole Javascript chapter by reading the source of webpages
and then for over 12 years, I made kind-of-shitty games in Game Maker (and dropped the drag-and-drop blocks pretty quickly, almost everything was in GML code)
Man, kid me would have loved to have owned a copy of actual Visual Basic.
couldn't pirate it because lol dialup (downloading 5MB took over an hour), and I didn't know anyone who had it
>>53021067
>Was utterly shocked when I got to college and most of my peers had never programmed at all before enrolling.
same
>>53021055
If you want to learn html js css and all that stuff to make a webpage try codecademy but if you want to learn something like c++ try learncpp its a lot of reading but its a very good guide to start
>>53021074
try learncpp.com
>>53021145
1st learn the basics
2nd learn Object oriented programming
3rd learn data structures and algorithms
4th specialize in learning what ever specific are may interest you (IE machine learning, AI, operating systems, etc.) and how you can use programming (C++ in this case) to learn this area.
I would recommend finding a free online c++ text book, read the book chapter by chapter, Youtube/Google each chapter after reading it to see how it may be done irl (and to get an alternative perspective of the information), and then code it yourself. Once you fully understand the material, move on.
After you have a good understanding on c++, I would recommend you study programming paradigms/ Computer organization. Which will teach you how the code all comes together when compiled and is interpreted by the computer.
99% of information about programming can be found on the internet. You can get an equivalent of an MIT CS education if you look in the right places.
>>53021012
To be honest, the motivation "I want to make games" is probably the worst motivation to learn programming.
First you have to have the tools to make games. You can't have that with a simple compiler. Second, how satisfied are you with the games you have created? Everybody says they want to start with simple games but everyone gets bored making a simple tic-tac-toe for practice/intro to programming.
Moral lesson, if you want to learn how to program, get gaming out of your mind and program on the mundane yet practical tasks.
Automate something you do often. Make linux work (people start out usually by tinkering their os). Create a password manager. Closest to gaming would be to create a bot for games. Etc etc...
Pretty much every failure in college was in it for the games. They think just because some Vietnamese was able to create games, they could do it as well...
>>53020942
One little tip, don't underestimate the power of physical books. Reading online tutorials and e-books is all well and fine, but for some people the information sinks in x10 better if you're sitting down and relaxed with an actual book. If you know that you're a quick study using this strategy in any other context, then definitely do this.
>>53021074
This is the comprehensive C++ resource site.
Everything about C++ specifics can be found here.
It's not a good teaching tool. But is the best C++ website you will find for referencing information.
>>53021326
forgot to link site
http://www.cplusplus.com/
>>53020942
Taught myself some C and C++ in high school. I knew enough that when I took the Intro to Programming course at my university, I skipped the class for 2 months straight (except tests) yet still ended up with the highest grade in the class. I didn't learn anything new other than coding style, which was great. I learned a lot from the classes that followed.
>>53021313
To be fair, with Unreal and Unity these days it is pretty easy to make a vidya, and a lot of people do. It's whether or not your game is good enough to make money and survive in the current day saturated-as-fuck gaming industry. I don't think "wanting to make games" is such a bad end goal, but don't quit your day job unless you accidentally the next Minecraft.
>>53020942
The internet.
Always thought that programming was unachievable esoteric knowledge because I had never really been exposed to it. Grew up poor.
I still loved computers and wound up doing manual-labor tier tech work for a few years. Started browsing /g/. Thought 'fuck these elitist fucks, I'm going to do this shit too'
Having gone through three years of struggle and constant effort to catch up to a point where I can making a living doing soul-crushing webdev, and trying to study my way to greater things, I want to tell anyone who'll listen to go to fucking university, don't buy into the propaganda.
People that don't want you to go to uni want you in the low-tier shitmonkey 'coding' jobs forever, earning them money, without getting intelligent enough to compete with them or move out of the position where you're most useful to them.
a complete education will prove priceless, trust someone who's tried to get by without one.
I made some shit in basic in school; never really pursued it, though it helped me understand the basic concepts of programming. The problem comes when you actually want to make something large. Where do you begin? There's a difference between doing little exercise problems and actually designing a working program.
Ruby and Python are pretty easy to understand. I learned Ruby when I was younger and dabbled with RPG Maker, and Python is pretty similar to it, so if I really needed to, I could do some scripting with it.
>>53021012
For languages, first learn Lua or Python, then learn C.
>>53020961
as someone that taught themselves in junior high, i really skitched through college without learning any programming. i got a fair amount of theory out of it, but the programming classes were awful. my internships were also really bad. it's probably my fault for being so depressed though
>>53020942
Prison.
>>53020942
When i tried to learn how game servers worked back in 2006.
>>53021363
What kind of jobs can you actually get as a code monkey?
Are there any left, assuming no Pajeet or Chang has taken it yet.
>>53020942
by playing WoW. Lua ftw.
>>53021313
this, I used to want to do it to become a video game developer, but now I spend most of my time thinking about how to shave milliseconds off of data analysis algorithms and just play games for fun. Still, I might go take a shot to be a game dev but video games aren't as cool as some of the shit that's happening in computing.
>>53021964
d-do you do any cuda programming
>>53021996
Since you've brought it to my attention, I should probably pick it up.
>>53020942
taught myself how to do it.
quite embarrassing that schools don't already teach this shit
Modding and hobbyist game development for fifteen years.
>>53021831
Down in the south, the job market ( like the rest of this part of the country ) is stuck in the past.
So as long as I'm willing to put up with the locals I can do alright for myself, while trying to further my education.
I spoke to some kid in his last year compsci last year, just knew java and had just started working on python, wasn't too keen on linux.
I learnt a few weeks later he just dropped out and picked up a job without any issue. Decent pay with benefits.
I was trying to talk to him about programming in general and what his expectation of the job market was, he said that his classes were quite big, so competition is high. But that he wasn't concerned because they were already headhunting him at the time.
People understand the value of having someone competent they can speak to, face to face, especially around here.
Racism probably has something to do with this too.
>>53022679
amend dropped out/finished up
I met him at a christmas party.
>>53021026
Physical is superior.
For your first languages, learn OCaml and Haskell
>>53021150
That's the worst advice you can give. Modern C++ barely has to do anything with C besides the syntax.
>>53021056
I used to get these "program your own adventure" books from my library. There were huge basic programs in them. Sometimes 40 pages to type in and of course if you ever finished you'd know exactly how to complete the game. Still fun though. Anyone else remember those?
It really all started when I did hour of code. It was so inspiring; I finally saw the potential apps had to change the world. I soon started codeacademy tutorials and learned HTML, CSS, Javascript, and Ruby on Rails, which I used to create my blog. Once I had conquered web engineering, my sights were set on becoming a hardware engineer. I bought a Raspberry Pi and Arduino, along with maker kits and went to maker hackathons, where I created my LED blinking project using the Arduino, and a home media center using the Raspberry Pi. Two projects in two days! it was crazy. Next I think I will start learning how to make iPhone apps. I can't wait to see what new world-changing app I create.
By myself when I was 8/9, wanted to make gaems in C++
Internet
>>53020942
Classes at school and online got me started with the basics, then curiosity and googling tutorials etc. for making small little projects did the rest.
Still learning and currently taking an intermediate java course at uni, but I enjoy getting introduced to some concepts during lectures and then just digging in deeper on my own.
>>53021335
>http://www.cplusplus.com/
http://en.cppreference.com is actually better
>>53024391
less readable desu senpai
