Programming - Where To Start

[P0ke N Die]

What Is 'Programming'?

 

You'll hear it everywhere. Your friends telling you that they coded some ******** hacking tool in C++ using Notepad, but what exactly is Programming? You can think of Programming as telling a computer or web browser what to do. You may not realise it, but you could even class using BB Code as 'programming'. Although you are only making text bold or a different colour, you are still telling your computer what to do with the text.

 

Many people take one look at programming and think wow, this is way too confusing, I'll never be able to understand this. If you actually sit down and look at programming in detail, you will realise how easy it is to understand. Programming isn't putting 0's and 1's in the right order after each other, programming is actually telling a computer what to do, like you are speaking to it. Let's take a look at some samples of displaying a 'Message Box' to alert the user.

 

Javascript

alert('Hey you, I can use browser scripting!');

Visual Basic

MessageBox.Show("Hey you, I can program an application!")

 

Pretty easy to understand, right? All you are doing is displaying a message box to a computer. Now that we know what programming is, I will move on to some key terms that you should go over before you begin any sort of 'Programming'.

 

 

 

 

 

Key Terms

 

You are going to be bombarded with key words that you may not understand, so I will try and explain them to you first. All of these terms apply to all programming languages. By the way, don't let my examples put you off. All of my examples may be based around a Message Box but that is because it makes it easier to understand. Programming goes much deeper than just displaying message boxes.

 

Syntax - Although all programming languages are similar, they all have a different syntax. A good example is BBCode and HTML. In BBCode, you use the "[" and "]" keys to declare code. In HTML, you use the "<" and ">" keys to declare code.

 

Variable - A variable is a way of storing a value but making it smaller. For example, you could store your name in a variable called $Name and then instead of sending a message with your name typed out, you could just send a message with $Name as the text.

 

Array - An array is like a variable, but with multiple values. Let's say you want to store the names of three people, you could store three names in a Variable called $Name as arrays. Those arrays will have numbers allocated to them in the order they were declared. For example, $Name[0] would be the first Name, $Name[1] would be the second Name etc. In most programming languages, Arrays will begin with the number 0.

 

If Statement - The 'If Statement' will allow you to make a decision. Let's say you would like to message yourself with good morning or good night. You could have an If Statement saying that If the current time is less than 12PM then send a message displaying Good Morning, and the same for Good Night.

 

Comment - Comments can be made in the middle of a huge section of code to allow the user to understand the code more. Leaving a comment could be a reminder to yourself saying like "Okay, the code below this comment will show a message box".

 

Loop - Loops can be created to execute a section of code however many times you want. Let's say you want to send a message box three times, you would just create a Loop for it to send a message three times.

 

Function - A function is similar to a variable, but a function does not store a text string. A function will be given a name just like a variable but will contain code that you would like to execute. For example, you could create a function named sendMessage() and that could contain the code to send a message box to the user.

 

Compile - To be able to use your application and share it with others, you need to compile your code. Programming Languages have different compilers and it will transform your code written in the editor into binary form.

 

 

 

 

 

Where Do I Start?

 

This is probably the most frequently asked question in Programming, where to start. Many people will tell you to start with older languages such as Python in order to understand programming, I say different. My first experience of programming was with Javascript and PHP, but I moved onto C++ and understood it perfectly. However, if you are just starting programming, you are best learning the well known programming language Visual Basic .NET. Why? There is a lot of documentation on Visual Basic .NET and it is a pretty easy language to understand. Although you may develop bad habbits and it may be hard to move onto new languages, Visual Basic .NET will keep you interested because of the Visual aspect. If you are creating a Console calculator in C++, you are likely to get bored and give up. In Visual Basic .NET, creating a GUI(Graphical User Interface) is very easy and really enjoyable.

 

 

 

If you have any questions regarding programming, just leave a reply. I will probably create some short tutorials in this section to help new programmers. Start programming today, you will never regret it.

[Ricky]

firsties

[P0ke N Die]

Spammer N00b

[Piers]

learn perl;

[Ryan-]

learn perl;

[Goop]

learn perl;

LOL

[Perplex]

i shall use this.

[Hejih]

Don't just post some dum stuff look up and read it word for word if you want to be a true programer

[Jay]

Visual Basic is one of the easiest to learn, so I'd probably suggest learning that first (mSL is a breeze as well).

 

 

On topic, though, I'm not even going to begin criticizing that glossary you made >.<

[Piers]

You should start with something outdated like Haskell, or something unknown like Dylan.

[Chincanna]

start in vault 101. Escape and directly go to megaton, wait there for more instructions

[mag3r-elmo]

this is the worse guide ever.

[Alexander]

When I started programming, I started by signing myself up for an online course. The programming langauge I started out with was Java. I found no problems starting with that although I don't know how much the course helped me learn it.

[xVideos]

Wut?

[exe]

lol @ u recommending VB.NET

[Selo]

Tbh, C# is the best language to learn if you are a new begginer.

[IntenseRedemption]

HTML is really hard

[Farcast]

Mixed feelings about .NET

 

the dependencies that it has make it only good in certain situations.

[Gayyab]

Should start off learning visual basic, though I began using python.