Introduction
Programming is a very useful
and rewarding hobby. There are few better feelings than when someone
sees you using a program you lashed together to make your life easier
and says that it looks really useful. Most people have, at some point in
their lives, really wanted to be able to do something on their computer
or phone and been unable to. If you know a programming language, then
there is often a fair chance that you can write a program to accomplish
that task yourself. While there are a huge number of programming
languages, many of them have a lot of similarities; this means that once
you learn one language quite well, in most cases you will be able to
pick up a new one far quicker.
Limits
One
thing that all new programmers must come to term with is the amount of
time learning a programming language takes. Although when you have
become an expert you will be able to write many programs quickly, you
must remember that many programs have taken whole teams of expert
developers years to create. So it is important to understand that
knowing a programming language or even several is not enough to write
some of the more complex programs you have seen. Don't look upon this
new hobby as a way to save yourself a lot of money, as writing your own
version of most of the programs that you need to pay for now will be out
of your reach.
The most important thing that a new programmer
needs to know is that the "Learn Programming in 24 hours" sort of books
are simply not true. A more accurate title would be "Learn Programming
in 10,000 hours". If you put 24 hours or a week into learning a language
you will not be creating the next Windows or a new, state of the art
game. It is possible to learn to write a program in 10 minutes, and
really all you need to learn a new language is your favourite search
engine, but you will not be an expert. The only way to become an expert
is much like learning the violin; the answer is practice, practice and
practice some more.
Selecting Your First Language
Now
that we have examined the limitations and handled some of the more
unrealistic expectations, those of you still wanting to learn to code
will be happy to know that programming is not a hard thing to start
learning and will not require you to pay out huge sums of money. If you
are reading this article on-line, you already have the resources to
start with some languages, so let us consider what your first language
ought to be.
Traditionally the first language a programming
newcomer learns is either Visual Basic or Python. The first thing to
understand is that these two languages are very different. The simplest
difference is one of price. Python is totally free; you can start
writing python now with just a text editor on your computer, though if
you are on Windows, you will probably need to install it first. However
Visual Basic, often abbreviated to VB, is both free and not free. On the
upside, VB can be simpler for newcomers to learn because it allows you
to build the interfaces (the part of the program the user will see) by
dragging and dropping the different parts much like designing it in some
basic art application. The version of VB newcomers learn is usually
Visual Basic 6, but this is rather outdated and has been discontinued.
So these days the version learned is often VB.NET which can be
considerably less simple for newcomers.
VB.NET must be developed
inside what we call an IDE (Integrated Development Environment); this is
basically a special program you use to write other programs. They also
exist for Python, but their use is totally optional. The free VB.NET IDE
is called Visual Studio Express. At the time of writing, the latest
version is Visual Studio Express 2010. Unfortunately, by using the free
version of the IDE you are restricted with what you can do, and any
programs you create cannot be commercially sold on. Regretfully, the
full paid version of the IDE is not cheap, and probably not appropriate
for a hobbyist, but fortunately to learn VB the free version is enough.
In practice, very few commercial programs are developed in VB these
days, but the Visual Studio IDE allows you to use many other languages.
The familiarity you will develop by using it will also allow you to use
the power of the IDE for development in many other languages. Some will
argue that almost every language can be developed in a text editor and
that they are by far the most flexible way in which to code. While this
is technically true (and I do suggest trying development in a text
editor to compare once you get a little better), I would strongly advise
learning your first language with a proper IDE.
While
traditionally, people learn Python or VB first and these are generally
what is taught at schools, I would not suggest either of these. I am of
the opinion that your first language should continue to be useful to you
one it has served the purpose of helping you learn the fundamentals of
programming. If I had to recommend one of these for newcomers, it would
be VB.NET as often the most complex part of programming is the graphical
side of things and in VB.NET this is very simple due to the drag and
drop interface. These two languages are often used as introductions as
they are very tolerant of mistakes, and allow you to become confident in
programming principles without worrying about a lot of the more complex
matters.
For those brave souls among you, I would actually
suggest Java as your first language, even though it can be complex, and
is therefore not a common choice for a first language. Java programs are
different to most others in that they do not run on your computer. The
user downloads Java, then your code runs on what is called a VM (Virtual
Machine). This means that your code runs in a special place Java sets
up for it - a fake copy of your computer - and handles the translation
of this to the real machine for you. This means that Java programs are
"cross-platform", meaning that they will for the most part run on
Windows, Mac, Linux and most other operating systems.
Java is a
good language to learn, as it is very widespread and useful.
Furthermore, it is very powerful, and is available for free for both
hobbyists and commercial uses. However, in contrast to VB and Python, it
does not tolerate mistakes and requires you to be very specific about
everything. It is also an object-oriented programming language, which is
a very complex issue which I will briefly try to summarise. Languages
like Python and VB are what is known as procedural languages, meaning
that the lines of code are run one after another, whereas Java is an
object-oriented language. object-oriented development is a term thrown
around a lot these days in the programming world, and while not always
appropriate it is generally considered a good idea. At the most basic
level, an object-oriented program is all about objects. An object is an
"instantiation" of a "class". A class is a blueprint used to describe
something like a cat. The class contains both the data about the cat
such as its name, age and owner as well as "methods" which are
essentially actions the cat can perform, such as miaow. An instance of
the class "cat" would give you a particular cat. However, this is not a
Java tutorial, so if you are brave enough to experiment with Java you
will come across this yourself in more detail. It is worth noting that
VB.NET and Python both have support for object-oriented development, and
Java has the potential to be used procedurally, but these are not the
languages' primary intended uses and are not often used. If you did not
understand that comparison, don't worry about it too much. Object
orientation is hard to get your head around, but any basic Java or other
object-oriented language tutorial will have you understanding
everything in that paragraph.
A final reason Java is a good first
language is that it is similar in many ways to Javascript, which is an
entirely different class of language. Javascript is a scripting language
(as is Python), and learning Java will mean you understand Javascript
reasonably well. The difference is between scripting languages and
normal programming languages is outside the scope of this article, but
as a large generalisation scripts are generally used for automated tasks
while programs are used interactively by users. This is not totally
true, as both types of language are used for both tasks and most web
programs are built in Javascript.
As for the actual language you
pick, it is entirely up to you. Some may choose the traditional beginner
languages or be brave and experiment with Java. Some of you may already
have your eye on a language or fancy one of the more specialist
languages like Scheme or Prolog. Whatever your choice, the way you will
learn how to program is the same.
IDEs, Yes or No?
Many
of the purists say that IDEs are a bad idea, and are packed with
unnecessary tools and menus that take up disk space and time to learn.
While this is true, I feel that an IDE is definitely worthwhile. Many
people offer free IDEs, such as Eclipse and Netbeans, for the more
popular languages. There is also Visual Studio, which I mentioned
previously; it is very intuitive, very powerful and it supports many
languages (much as Netbeans and Eclipse do). If you chose to use Java I
would suggest Netbeans, as there is a packaged version of Netbeans with
the JDK (Java Development Kit). Most languages need an SDK (Software
Development Kit) to work with them, and getting it installed properly
and linked to the IDE is often the hardest part of the procedure. Visual
Studio already comes with the development kits set up, which makes life
easier, but other languages like Java and Python can be quite hard to
set up properly. This is why I suggested the Netbeans + JDK bundle for
those experimenting with Java, as it handles the complex set up for you,
which will save you hours of suffering.
There are, in my opinion,
three major advantages to using a fully featured IDE. Firstly, they are
usually extensible, meaning that there are many free plug-ins that
could make your life a lot easier when you get a little more advanced.
Secondly, and most importantly, is the ease with which an IDE allows you
to debug your code. Most IDEs let you set breakpoints in the code,
which will make the program stop when it gets to that point and let you
step through it line by line, so you can examine the contents of all the
variables at any time. (For those of you who do not know what a
variable is, I will briefly explain. A variable is a bit like a train
station locker. You ask for one big enough to hold what you want to
store, and if what you want to store is the right shape, it can be
stored there. When you write a program, any data you want to store
temporarily will be held in one of these until you are done with it.) As
the old programming saying goes, if you have not found any bugs, you
are not looking hard enough. Almost no non-trivial program will work
first time, and trying to work out where the problem lies without the
use of a debugger is a pain I would not wish on anyone. Finally, an IDE
will often give you advice on how to fix issues in the code. This can be
very useful for fixing bugs, and saves you having to resort to Google
every other minute.
Learning the Language
Now
that you have a language and an IDE, it is finally time to learn the
language. This, as you may or may not be surprised to learn, is not
complex at all - it is simply time consuming. To learn programming for
the first time, there is no better way than exploration. Buying a book
that walks you through steps will not teach you anything, as you will
not understand the reasoning behind what they are doing, and people
often get disheartened by the tedium.
The key to learning
programming is to have a goal. Think of a task, such as a system to keep
track of where you are in all the various TV shows you watch, or a
system to let you look at all the books you own in a particular
category, or, if you feel brave, try to replicate part of something that
you use on a regular basis. My advice would be to start small, perhaps
by making a sequence of message boxes that insults the user or a really
simple calculator. It is important when you first start that your goals
are interesting, challenging and entertaining. If you try to make really
boring programs you will quickly get disheartened, so try to inject
some comedy into your program. The calculator is a very good
introductory program, but after you get the general idea it is important
to set quite ambitious goals, as if you keep doing simple things you
will never learn anything new. It is important to try to incorporate
some of the knowledge you have gained from previous work. One of the
reasons most books fail to teach programming well is that they use small
examples for each thing they introduce, whereas what you really need to
do is plan the task without considering what you will need to
accomplish it. This means you will be able to code some of it using what
you already know, but most importantly, you will not know how to code
some of it. The best way to learn is to learn by doing. Go for a full
program that does a task you wanted to do on a computer in the past,
work on it, and when you are finished you will have learned a lot and
you will have a useful (or at least entertaining) program which is far
better than some toy program demonstrating lists.
I have said that
you learn by choosing to do projects where you are unable to do certain
sections, thus requiring you to learn, but how do you go about finding
out how to do them? It's simple, and most likely the way you found this
article. Go to your favourite search engine (like Google) and search for
what you want to do - for example, search "drop down list Java" to find
some examples of using drop down lists in Java. Because you will need
it for another task, and not just to re-do the same thing the examples
did, you will have to play with the examples you find and try to get
them to do what you want. Just search each bit you need, and before long
you will find that most of the basics are as natural as waking up in
the morning, and you did it all without spending a small fortune on
books, without getting bored and hopefully while being entertained. To
this day, if I am bored, I sometimes break out one of my very first
programs which is just a list of boxes and a random number generator. It
is your task to try to fill all the boxes such that the numbers the
random number generator gives you are in ascending order - if you don't
leave space and can't fit a number in a hole then you lose and must
start again. It's a simple program, but it took a lot of work when I
first made it and I learned a lot from the experience.
Once you
have a few decent sized programs under your belt, you will find that you
know the language well. You will also find that it is rare, no matter
how well you know a language, to be able to write a program without
resorting to Google at least once just to check something. So with that
in mind, it could be argued that you learned the language without ever
actually trying to learn it. Clearly there are standards and good
practices that you may not pick up on your own, but as you see more
examples and read the comments you will find you adopt your own
standards rather rapidly.
Learning Another Language
Once
you have learned one language, whatever it may be, the most valuable
thing you will have learned is all the key words for searches. When you
want to do something in a new language, you need only search what you
want to do and the language name. However, by now you will know the
names used to refer to what you want to do, allowing your searches to be
more effective and yield examples and answers much more quickly. As the
fundamentals of programming are mostly the same, regardless of the
language you use, you will hopefully be able to guess at the meaning of
most of the code much more effectively once you locate an example,
allowing you to pick up most of the language very quickly indeed.
Conclusion
If
you take nothing else away from this article, remember that the best
way to learn a skill is practice, practice and practice some more, so
don't expect to become an expert overnight. Remember that programming is
not something that can be learned overnight, and that to become a
passable expert you probably need to spend at least 10,000 hours
programming, so you will need to find ways to remain motivated. Don't
think of it as learning to program - rather, just start programming, and
before you know it you will be an expert. Programming is a skill, and
while it is quite simple once you have the feel of it, it can be quite
daunting to see your little calculator that took you a week and then to
consider a modern game like "Batman: Arkham City" and realise how far
you have to go.
Programming is easy when you know how, but is not a
trivial thing to learn, so it is important that you set yourself tasks.
These tasks should preferably be interesting and, better yet,
entertaining, as these will be what keeps you programming and learning
more and more until, one day, you wake up and realise that you know
quite a lot. You are your own best tutor and the key is simply to jump
in and get started.
