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  3. How did you learn to program?

How did you learn to program?

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  • C Code2326

    How did you learn to program? Is it from the internet? a book? If from internet wut site and if book, wut book? I'm trying to learn any language like C++ or C# and i dont have any materials and dont know where to get some good sources. When you first learn your language, was it hard and how long did it take you to start to create simple programs? I'm sry if this is too many questions but im new here and i want to understand some of the experiences you had.

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    Christian Graus
    wrote on last edited by
    #18

    Code2326 wrote:

    If from internet wut site and if book, wut book?

    How did you learn to spell ? :P I learned from this site, and from various books.

    Code2326 wrote:

    When you first learn your language, was it hard and how long did it take you to start to create simple programs?

    My first language was Applesoft BASIC.  6502 assembler is the only language I ever found hard, although it takes time to become a good programmer, and then it takes time to really learn a new language.

    Christian Graus - C++ MVP 'Why don't we jump on a fad that hasn't already been widely discredited ?' - Dilbert

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    • C Code2326

      How did you learn to program? Is it from the internet? a book? If from internet wut site and if book, wut book? I'm trying to learn any language like C++ or C# and i dont have any materials and dont know where to get some good sources. When you first learn your language, was it hard and how long did it take you to start to create simple programs? I'm sry if this is too many questions but im new here and i want to understand some of the experiences you had.

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      Chris Losinger
      wrote on last edited by
      #19

      C64 Programmer's Reference Guide (it even came with a schematic) + various PC magazines + years of playing around writing C64 BASIC and 65xx Assembler. there was no internet in 1985.

      image processing toolkits | batch image processing | blogging

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      • C Code2326

        How did you learn to program? Is it from the internet? a book? If from internet wut site and if book, wut book? I'm trying to learn any language like C++ or C# and i dont have any materials and dont know where to get some good sources. When you first learn your language, was it hard and how long did it take you to start to create simple programs? I'm sry if this is too many questions but im new here and i want to understand some of the experiences you had.

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        Jerry Hammond
        wrote on last edited by
        #20

        Once I found CP and undstood more fully the concept, and proceedures for Cut&Paste I became a top notch, highly paid, but poorly qualified programmer...

        Epitaph: Foolish humans, never escaped Earth.- Vernor Vinge

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        • L l a u r e n

          i never was a lil wallflower ;)

          "there is no spoon" {gagfoot} {me}

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          Shog9 0
          wrote on last edited by
          #21

          :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: The image that brought to mind is probably the funniest thing i've seen all day. :D

          ---- I just want you to be happy; That's my only little wish...

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          • C Code2326

            How did you learn to program? Is it from the internet? a book? If from internet wut site and if book, wut book? I'm trying to learn any language like C++ or C# and i dont have any materials and dont know where to get some good sources. When you first learn your language, was it hard and how long did it take you to start to create simple programs? I'm sry if this is too many questions but im new here and i want to understand some of the experiences you had.

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            Shog9 0
            wrote on last edited by
            #22

            Code2326 wrote:

            How did you learn to program?

            Got sick of using the recipes in the books, so started trying to make my own.

            ---- I just want you to be happy; That's my only little wish...

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            • L l a u r e n

              i never was a lil wallflower ;)

              "there is no spoon" {gagfoot} {me}

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              Steve Mayfield
              wrote on last edited by
              #23

              that and Dr Dobbs hadn't published it articles on Tiny Basic yet... ;) I did the assembly route too, first on a Xerox 930 (mainframe - 32K core memory) and then Intel 8008, Signetics 2650 [first processor with more than one (they had 2) register banks] and Motorola 6800 all at the same time followed by the 8080...then on to DEC machines and custom desktops using Motorola 68000 and 68020 processors...didn't get exposed to a real IBM PC until nearly 10 years later (mid 80s)...MS-DOS was still king but Quarterdeck was coming on strong with QEMM... Steve

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              • R Roger Wright

                First lesson - an outdated book on FORTRAN II from the library. I read it 'cause I'd heard there was a computer at the college I planned to attend. Second lesson - a course in FORTRAN IV at college, with simple I/O and number crunching. Third (and most important) lesson - an Intel 8080 databook with opcodes in octal and binary. Wrote an OS, then an Assembler, entered via 1's and 0's on a panel full of toggle switches. Programming has got a bit less interesting since then, but much easier.:-D

                "...a photo album is like Life, but flat and stuck to pages." - Shog9

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                Steve Mayfield
                wrote on last edited by
                #24

                hey, me too...I thought FORTRAN was an IBM mainframe model...CalPoly sure set me straight... :-O Steve

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                • L l a u r e n

                  i never was a lil wallflower ;)

                  "there is no spoon" {gagfoot} {me}

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                  Stuart Dootson
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #25

                  You *do* surprise me :rolleyes: :-D

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                  • M Mike Dimmick

                    Likewise from the ZX Spectrum manual (a little later than you, we didn't get our Spectrum until Christmas '84), plus some other books my Dad picked up. He worked for ICL (and still works for Fujitsu Services, which is what's left of ICL) as a programmer, so he already knew various languages anyway. I can't now recall if he bought the Z80 machine language books for himself or for me, but I certainly got use out of them! That was around 1990, IIRC. I took a bit of a look at C at this point but really didn't get it. I did some stuff with Visual Basic 1.0 in the early 1990s. I recall picking up a Pascal (Object Pascal) textbook from a library in about 1995, and that was the first time I really 'got' pointers (in retrospect, I must have understood them in assembly but not correlated the concepts). Then I went to University in 1996 and learned to program properly ;) Well, to be a bit more systematic about it anyway. While at Uni I picked up Ada, C, C++ and SQL (and a few more languages that I've never used again - actually you could count Ada in that).

                    Stability. What an interesting concept. -- Chris Maunder

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                    Stuart Dootson
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #26

                    Mike Dimmick wrote:

                    Ada

                    That was my main language in the early to mid 90s - I learnt it doing safety-critical embedded systems and then when doing developing software tools on VAX/VMS, had a choice of Fortran, VAX assembly, C or Ada. VAX Ada just about won out! And then PCs happened, so I started doing C++ full-time...and haven't really stopped since then.

                    Mike Dimmick wrote:

                    I took a bit of a look at C at this point

                    I first learnt C on the Spectrum. Yep, #includes with a cassette deck. Mmmm, nice X|

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                    • C Code2326

                      How did you learn to program? Is it from the internet? a book? If from internet wut site and if book, wut book? I'm trying to learn any language like C++ or C# and i dont have any materials and dont know where to get some good sources. When you first learn your language, was it hard and how long did it take you to start to create simple programs? I'm sry if this is too many questions but im new here and i want to understand some of the experiences you had.

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                      brianwelsch
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #27

                      Internet? Ha! There was no such thing back then. ;) We'd buy or trade copies of magazines like Byte, Compute, Antic, etc. These magazines would have small programs listed in the back that you could type in. Granted they weren't all that exciting by today's standard, but it was pretty cool. Eventually we figured out different commands did and started writing our own little programs. It was all Basic back then for me, and a little bit of Logo at one point. Later on, I took some programming classes in high school and we learned Pascal and a little assembler. Then C++, RPG/400, COBOL, Basic, Fortran. Then I started teaching myself OOP, web development, yada, yada, yada.... To get your feet wet on basic concepts of programming try googling "introduction to programming" or similar phrases and wade through the gazillions of pages detailing variables, loops, conditional statements, memory, I/O, etc... Get a feel for the lay of the land with that info, then pick a language like C# or C++ and search for introductions/tutorials/etc. You should be able to find plenty of simple examples to get you programming a little and you'll be on your way. Be prepared to spend an enormous amount of time learning, experimenting, picking apart other people's code, etc. Good Luck.

                      BW


                      If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
                      -- Steven Wright

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                      • C Code2326

                        How did you learn to program? Is it from the internet? a book? If from internet wut site and if book, wut book? I'm trying to learn any language like C++ or C# and i dont have any materials and dont know where to get some good sources. When you first learn your language, was it hard and how long did it take you to start to create simple programs? I'm sry if this is too many questions but im new here and i want to understand some of the experiences you had.

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                        Leah_Garrett
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #28

                        Logo and Apple basic were the first programming experiences I had. They were simple environments to work in. Then I went to University where I learnt lots of theory. My first job was C++ Windows development where I had a great mentor / boss. Learning a programming language is like learning a spoken language, you get better with practice and it takes a while until you can start "thinking" in that language. A good book is Thinking in C++ 2nd Edition by Bruce Eckel which is available free at: http://www.mindview.net/Books/TICPP/ThinkingInCPP2e.html[^] This site also has links to free compilers. Although you might want to get the express edition of Microsoft Visual Studio if you are also interested in C#. Try Googling for "c++ tutorial" there is heaps of stuff out there.

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                        • C Code2326

                          How did you learn to program? Is it from the internet? a book? If from internet wut site and if book, wut book? I'm trying to learn any language like C++ or C# and i dont have any materials and dont know where to get some good sources. When you first learn your language, was it hard and how long did it take you to start to create simple programs? I'm sry if this is too many questions but im new here and i want to understand some of the experiences you had.

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                          Rohde
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #29

                          My first contact with computer programming was in oh about '86 I think (when I was 10 years old). I'd got a C64 in Christmas and was absolutely crazy about it (of course). A few months later, after being totally engulfed in Hero[^] and Green Beret[^] I just had to learn graphics programming. So I tried to learn some BASIC and some years later I signed up for some Pascal classes, where we programmed on IBM XT which had these great keyboards with keys that made very loud click noises. Oh those were the days. I was happy with simple native code and a simple DOS Pascal "IDE" :|:suss:


                          "A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems." - Paul Erdos (1913-1996)

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                          • C Code2326

                            How did you learn to program? Is it from the internet? a book? If from internet wut site and if book, wut book? I'm trying to learn any language like C++ or C# and i dont have any materials and dont know where to get some good sources. When you first learn your language, was it hard and how long did it take you to start to create simple programs? I'm sry if this is too many questions but im new here and i want to understand some of the experiences you had.

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                            Anna Jayne Metcalfe
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #30

                            Writing BASIC, Pascal and Z80 assembler applications on an Apple /// (with a Z80 co-processor; the Apple used a 6502).

                            Anna :rose: Linting the day away :cool: Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "If mushy peas are the food of the devil, the stotty cake is the frisbee of God"

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