Learn to code?

[Music Lover]

Here's the thing: I want to learn to code, but I lack resources.

So any tips on how to start learning? And could someone with experience compare the main programming languages in terms of advantages and disadvantages?

[StoppingTime]

Start here (www.w3schools.com), they have excellent tutorials for many common languages.

I'd start with something simple like HTML, and work my way up.

[TheMatrix]

What kind of programming are you interested in? Web? UI? Robotic?

As for myself, I am a web coder, so I know about languages intended for web programming. My favourite is Perl(and I seem to be the only one :/), and I will be comparing to PHP, a common one.
Perl advantages:

Module support. This allows for easy expanding of the language, without having to "reinvent the wheel" or recompile the interpreter(or compiler)
Namespace support. Allows seperation of variables and subroutines without getting them mixed up
Also can be used as general-purpose. Perl isn't only intended for use in web applications; rather it can be used for a large variety of things. That way, the coding skills you learn from Perl can also be applied to a game, for example.
An acceptable license. Perl is released under the GNU/GPL license, so it is free for everyone to adapt and modify, or even learn from the code behind it. Personally, I disagree with the PHP license, mostly because it has some things such as that you may not use the name in certain ways(wierd, right?).


Perl disadvantages:
For the beginning programmer, Perl may seem very difficult and daunting. Perl is a very complex language, that is true. However, once you get the hang of it, it all becomes a breeze.

PHP advantages:
(I personally don't like PHP, so I will have a bias against it)

Easy functions. There is no need to install modules. Most of the stuff you need is right there, in the core. This allows for easy access*
Easy to embed HTML in code. You can simply close the code with "?>" and put some HTML.

PHP disadvantages:
I refer to this article (http://tnx.nl/php.html) for my basis.
In summary, PHP has too many functions in the core. This makes it hard to read code. For example, how to you know if the function "time2str" is built in or created by the coder? You can't, without searching the documentation, which is not very beginner-friendly, IMHO. That also makes it really hard to ensure that your function does not coincide with a preexisting one.


You probably read all that and thought, "wtf is this guy chatting about?".
I know where you're coming from. If you want to learn Perl, visit the official "Learn Perl" site here (http://www.perl.org/learn.html).
Good luck, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask me or others! :)

[PoseidonX43]

Start here (www.w3schools.com), they have excellent tutorials for many common languages.

I'd start with something simple like HTML, and work my way up.

That is a great place to start learning to code, its easy and its free, its an amazing site to learn from :)


.-*Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk*-.

[sliidz]

Start here (www.w3schools.com), they have excellent tutorials for many common languages.

I'd start with something simple like HTML, and work my way up.

woah.... don't every work your way up from html yes you can learn it easily but it is its own language a good coding place to start is javascript or SQL and work your way form there because html only codes sites...

[Commander Thor]

woah.... don't every work your way up from html yes you can learn it easily but it is its own language a good coding place to start is javascript or SQL and work your way form there because html only codes sites...

HTML is actually a great place to start, as it teaches you the fundamentals of programming, not to mention it's a rather easy language to grasp.
And once you learn one language, others become a cake-walk, compared to if you were to just dive in to them right off the bat.

[sliidz]

thats not even true at all html doesnt teach you anything about javascript.... there both basics once you learn javascript others become easy html is also classified as "the fake language" because anyone can learn it and you dont even really learn it you just look up everything and even use dream weaver and have everything done for you.

[TheMatrix]

thats not even true at all html doesnt teach you anything about javascript.... there both basics once you learn javascript others become easy html is also classified as "the fake language" because anyone can learn it
Oh, well then in that case I can consider JavaScript a "fake language" because "anyone can learn it". In that case, all languages would be "fake languages" per your definition, and we may as well drop the "fake language" bit, keeping things exactly as they are now.
Hence, your argument is invalid.

and you dont even really learn it you just look up everything and even use dream weaver and have everything done for you.
I don't own DreamWeaver, much less do I intend to buy or even torrent it.
I am fine with Vim, it's worked for me for a long time. It has no HTML-generation things in it(granted, you can write an extension, but I don't need that).
This part of your argument is invalid as well. Some learn by example, such as myself. An HTML generator is therefore an excellent place to start, because you can see exactly how different things are rendered and done. Did you know that that is how I started with HTML? I looked at the output of a page that I made on OpenOffice Web.

And on top of that, you don't need JavaScript to code a website, as a matter of fact, the W3C recomends that you avoid it for compatibility.(Source (http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/#gl-use-w3c)) Of course, that is not always possible, but if you're a novice programmer(or the Java-like syntax doesn't click, like for myself), you won't start using it right from the start. I sure didn't, and I'm willing to bet that you didn't, either.

[Commander Thor]

thats not even true at all html doesnt teach you anything about javascript.... there both basics once you learn javascript others become easy html is also classified as "the fake language" because anyone can learn it and you dont even really learn it you just look up everything and even use dream weaver and have everything done for you.

I never said HTML taught you anything about Javascript. In fact, I never mentioned Javascript anywhere in my post.

What I said was, that HTML was a great language to learn first because it teaches you the fundamentals of programming. Such as formatting, how nested code works, and to be diciplined in closing tags in the order you opened them, plus so much more. Not to mention the fact that the world of software development is really starting to switch from the standard desktop applications, to web applications, making knowing HTML, a very very useful tool.

Java is seriously a headache for the novice programmer, and I would not even think about recommending it to someone first starting out. HTML or C# are FAR easier languages to learn.

[Skyhawk]

I take a class at school for web design actually and it's best to start with basic HTML, it's easy after a while. Then try CSS, then Java after, and go down the list from there.

TextEdit's my web coding friend. ;)

[Syvelocin]

I learned everything I know about HTML and CSS from playing Neopets when I was a kid. No joke. And it expanded from there through experience but... point is it made it easy. Like learning a foreign language as a kid and growing up and it just being completely natural to speak it.

[Silicate Wielder]

bHere's the thing: I want to learn to code, but I lack resources.

So any tips on how to start learning? And could someone with experience compare the main programming languages in terms of advantages and disadvantages?

Well, im mainly experienced with Scratch VM, but i have played roblox which has its own version of Lua for scripting, and BPL. if you would prefer Visual go to scratch.mit.edu or use BPL which i haven't used for over a year now.
either way those two are great beginner programing languages, also try Stencyl.com, thats a more advanced version of scratch but its extremely technical, and its one i cant really work with

Scratch is basicly a visual programing studio but has more advanced Mods of the original like B.Y.O.B (build you own blocks) or bingo 1.3.0, preferably i use bingo 1.2.0 because it allows for learning how networking works along with advanced data retrieving techniques like saving,editing,and reading, along with a whole lot of other abilities

BPL means Beginners Programming Language whic is very true, and is simpler than HTML. its basicly the best one i've used yet.

but now im learning batch code through ubuntu, since they're pretty much the same in both ubuntu and windows, they just have a diffrent file type windows uses .bat and ubunt uses somthing like .sch

[Music Lover]

Ok thanks for all the info :) Nevertheless, gonna start out with Python, following the advice here http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html#skills1 It seems like a comprehensive guide and the programming part gave quite a bit of insight.
I recommend the awhole article to others who are interested in programming etc. :)