Getting Started w/ Programming and CS

[jparsenal87]

Just joined the forum, glad I found this site. Looks very informative. To be 100% honest, I have no real history with any sort of programming or anything like it. A few years back, my brother had a "intro to c++ book" which I looked through a little bit, but when he went back to college I gave it up. I'm 19 now, and never really thought about computer science or engineering as a likely path, but it just kinda struck me a few weeks back that I would like to try to learn a little about it, even if it never turns into anything other than a hobby. I know I come across as a complete newbie, and I definitely admit that I am.

 

I have always been kinda the "self-teacher" type. Before wasting a few hundred bucks registering for a CS class next fall, I thought that I could spend my summer trying to teach myself some basics. If anyone could point me to some good resources (books, websites) etc, I would really appreciate it. I have spent the last couple weeks looking for a good intro-book on the topic, but even though I have found a ton of stuff out there, I'm not sure where to start initially.

 

Hope I didn't ramble on too much. Again, any help/advice you could give me would be greatly appreciated

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

I'd suggest picking up an easy language like Python to learn some of the basics.

 

They have a Beginner's Guide online:

 

http://wiki.python.org/moin/BeginnersGuide

 

And a list of good resources and books for non-programmers who want to get into Python:

 

http://wiki.python.org/moin/BeginnersGuide/NonProgrammers

 

Python isn't just some easy beginner's language, though -- it's powerful and used for real-world software. It's a useful language.

[DJBruce]

I would also recommend

series it goes very slow, and is a good introduction. I am not sure if you are into math, but once you learn a little bit you can put your coding skills to the test by working on some of the Project Euler problems.

 

From Capn's second link I would recommend "How to Think Like A Computer Scientist". I found it useful when I first tried teaching myself programing.

[TonyMcC]

I know it's considered old fashioned today but the programming language known as BASIC is easy to learn. Also you can find a free download and much information on line. Just about all the computer instructions the language uses are common words which do as expected!

[Nex6]

best way to learn to program... is to program, pick an easyer language.. like python,Ruby,Perl etc and write simple programs. find open source code in that language and read the source.

 

much of this also depends on weather you want to do more web or system types of things.