Comments on: What does learning to program involve? http://brianwill.net/blog/2007/05/28/what-does-learning-to-program-involve/ Thu, 25 Mar 2010 06:32:45 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: TMG Studio http://brianwill.net/blog/2007/05/28/what-does-learning-to-program-involve/comment-page-1/#comment-644 TMG Studio Tue, 10 Jul 2007 13:39:44 +0000 http://brianwill.net/blog/2007/05/28/what-does-learning-to-program-involve/#comment-644 First of all, I would like to say thank you for this article. It was easy to digest and answered many questions I have had for the last several weeks about the best path to take with learning a programming language. Recently I was blessed with the birth of my first son and it was after this that I began to think about my current career path. I am a designer / web monkey for a rural telcom in TN. It is a good job with good benefits, but little to no upward mobility. Dabbling in PHP and some Javascript has given me a chance to get my feet wet in the world of programming, but I realize that these are only a very small slice of a large pie. Hence my searches for articles like yours. I have set a goal for myself to learn a programming language(s) (good enough to design a GUI based Job Tracking Program) by July of 2008. I will then spend another 1-1.5 years polishing these skills by lending myself completely to an open source project where I will work through development, testing, debugging and analysis. All of this in hopes of being able to step into the world of programming professionally. I am fairly confident I have the aptitude (IQ 125-135) to accomplish my goal, but I am unsure the real world application of what I am after. I have a degree in Communications, but no desire to return to college and I am wondering if it is really important to have a computer science degree tucked under my arm in order to move into this job market. Is my goal realistic? Am I chasing the right direction? You mentioned guinea pigs needed. Well. I am interested. Feel free to contact me via my email. Thanks for the great article. First of all, I would like to say thank you for this article. It was easy to digest and answered many questions I have had for the last several weeks about the best path to take with learning a programming language.

Recently I was blessed with the birth of my first son and it was after this that I began to think about my current career path. I am a designer / web monkey for a rural telcom in TN. It is a good job with good benefits, but little to no upward mobility.

Dabbling in PHP and some Javascript has given me a chance to get my feet wet in the world of programming, but I realize that these are only a very small slice of a large pie. Hence my searches for articles like yours.

I have set a goal for myself to learn a programming language(s) (good enough to design a GUI based Job Tracking Program) by July of 2008. I will then spend another 1-1.5 years polishing these skills by lending myself completely to an open source project where I will work through development, testing, debugging and analysis. All of this in hopes of being able to step into the world of programming professionally.

I am fairly confident I have the aptitude (IQ 125-135) to accomplish my goal, but I am unsure the real world application of what I am after. I have a degree in Communications, but no desire to return to college and I am wondering if it is really important to have a computer science degree tucked under my arm in order to move into this job market.

Is my goal realistic? Am I chasing the right direction?

You mentioned guinea pigs needed. Well. I am interested. Feel free to contact me via my email. Thanks for the great article.

]]> By: Brian Will http://brianwill.net/blog/2007/05/28/what-does-learning-to-program-involve/comment-page-1/#comment-643 Brian Will Mon, 28 May 2007 22:48:39 +0000 http://brianwill.net/blog/2007/05/28/what-does-learning-to-program-involve/#comment-643 (I didn't take it as criticism; if you're wondering why the comments didn't show up immediately, new posters must be approved before their comments go up.) I agree Python is the more pleasant language to use and learn, but a taste of C (or maybe assembly) should be somewhere in a programming education because it exposes you to issues like memory management and primitive file operations. Other languages are good at hiding these issues most of the time, but I believe it's a critical part of being a good programmer to have at least some familiarity with low-level concerns. (I didn’t take it as criticism; if you’re wondering why the comments didn’t show up immediately, new posters must be approved before their comments go up.)

I agree Python is the more pleasant language to use and learn, but a taste of C (or maybe assembly) should be somewhere in a programming education because it exposes you to issues like memory management and primitive file operations. Other languages are good at hiding these issues most of the time, but I believe it’s a critical part of being a good programmer to have at least some familiarity with low-level concerns.

]]> By: Seamus http://brianwill.net/blog/2007/05/28/what-does-learning-to-program-involve/comment-page-1/#comment-642 Seamus Mon, 28 May 2007 11:59:32 +0000 http://brianwill.net/blog/2007/05/28/what-does-learning-to-program-involve/#comment-642 Oh didn't mean to be critical of your article at all, just my two cents. Oh didn’t mean to be critical of your article at all, just my two cents.

]]> By: Seamus http://brianwill.net/blog/2007/05/28/what-does-learning-to-program-involve/comment-page-1/#comment-641 Seamus Mon, 28 May 2007 11:46:33 +0000 http://brianwill.net/blog/2007/05/28/what-does-learning-to-program-involve/#comment-641 I think that these days processors are becoming so fast and developer time so valuable that speed of execution is no longer the number one priority (unless you are writing OS code, for which C really is the only choice). As time to market etc. is now so important I think the argument for higher level languages is becoming very strong. Personally if I was to advise someone on which language to learn first I would recommend Python. It is a language which will let you learn the concepts required without getting in your way or being drawn into language specific issues which have little to do with learning to program. I take your point about ruby on rails but python is making a very strong comeback with the django framework. I think that these days processors are becoming so fast and developer time so valuable that speed of execution is no longer the number one priority (unless you are writing OS code, for which C really is the only choice). As time to market etc. is now so important I think the argument for higher level languages is becoming very strong. Personally if I was to advise someone on which language to learn first I would recommend Python. It is a language which will let you learn the concepts required without getting in your way or being drawn into language specific issues which have little to do with learning to program.

I take your point about ruby on rails but python is making a very strong comeback with the django framework.

]]>