Comments on: How to get started programming?

By: John Goerzen

John Goerzen — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 23:22:39 +0000

I hadn’t read “How to Become a Hacker” before. I took a look at it. A nice work, and it pointed me at Norvig’s “Teach Yourself Programming in 10 Years”: http://norvig.com/21-days.html — an excellent read.

By: John Goerzen

John Goerzen — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 23:10:52 +0000

Wow, those are excellent suggestions. I read the first few pages of LPTHW and it reminded me immensely of how I learned with BASIC, and then Pascal: some simple examples, trying out a few things, etc. Thanks for that great suggestion.

By: John Goerzen

John Goerzen — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 22:56:00 +0000

There are a ton of double-underscore class methods that can make things behave in unexpected ways. I appreciate the idea of lazy lists, which work great in Haskell, for instance, but I am not sold on the “list or list-like” concept being one that meets the KISS principle in Python.

By: rjc

rjc — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 15:06:42 +0000

I can wholeheartedly recommend TPTHW and other (mostly in the works) LCodeTHW. Not only are they aimed at beginners but Zed's very encouraging - both in the foreword and throughout the book - which is very important for anyone, especially a beginner.

By: John Goerzen

John Goerzen — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 13:50:19 +0000

The K&R book is a good one, but probably moves a bit fast for a beginner. Thanks for the “Learn Python the Hard Way” suggestion.

By: Tshepang Lekhonkhobe

Tshepang Lekhonkhobe — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 07:58:53 +0000

I am curious about the Python 2 fluff you mention. Do you have examples or a post somewhere about it?

By: Erich

Erich — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 20:18:29 +0000

I have practiced another way of increasing interest in other people for computing stuff: microcontrollers. There is nothing fancy in the programming, but you can teach a board your own new or old tricks. You can feel like a “creator” in some sense. I found this particular aspect to be nicely discussed in the book “Hackers” by Levy. Apart from getting going, you “must” have a project IMHO. Otherwise you will lose interest when things become complex and answers are not 5 minutes away.

By: Warren

Warren — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 18:24:21 +0000

Having a set of problems you want to solve, and someone who can tell you if the problems are easily solvable was required to get me started. My father tried to interest me in programming in ~1986, to no avail as I didn’t have a problem to solve. A CS class (really independent study) got me into it.

Just wanting to be a programmer doesn’t cut it to get going. A good start also needs to get you to understand what can and can not be done by a computer.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 17:16:29 +0000

I’d second the recommendation for “The Art of Unix Programming”; having read the whole thing, I found it quite good.

“How to Become a Hacker” and “Asking Questions the Smart Way”, while not directly programming-related, definitely seem like required reading. And I’d recommend a cover-to-cover read of the Jargon File (AKA the New Hacker’s Dictionary) as well, or at least the introduction and appendices.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 17:11:45 +0000

Dive into Python has a reasonable amount of introductory material, but in general it assumes you already have some programming experience. For a truly introductory text, try “Learn Python the Hard Way”.

I’d also suggest that The ANSI C Programming Language works as a good introduction, either as a first or second book.