I want to learn about Programming

[pawRoot]

Udemy (paid), Youtube (obviously), documentation (depending on language).

[steve_v]

I prefer an old-school book. Visit your local purveyor of knowledge, or buy one online. You'd best come up with something more specific, such as which language you wish to learn, first though.

[arochester]

MANY free programming books >>> https://github.com/EbookFoundation/free ... evelopment

[dryden]

Start out by deciding what sort of language you'd like to use.

These days, Python seems most obvious, although Python 3 is to my opinion an awkwardized version of Python 2, but Python 2 is no longer an option, so it's a bit weird now.

Learn first what languages exist.

1) C is difficult
2) Bash (shell scripting) is nonsensical as "fun" language -- you're better off with a real language
3) Pascal is pointless nowadays but good for beginners back in the day
4) Java is pretty nice
5) PHP is not interesting as a first language unless you immediately want to build websites.
6) Ruby is like Python but a bit more exotic
7) Perl is undoable for a newbie.

So I would suggest that Java and Python should be at the top of your list.

What is important is that you also learn about real functional programming language "record" or "struct" concepts.

For example, this is not a bad site for C: https://www.tutorialspoint.com/cprogramming/

I think a real functional language like C or Pascal is essential in the end for basic concepts, so you will have to learn about:

* variables
* arrays
* function calls
* conditional statements
* loops

And also structs (or records) which are combined variables.

But, you can get started with Java or Python just fine and it's easier nowadays.

[PeterB]

3) Pascal is pointless nowadays ....

Strongly disagree.

Lazarus http://www.lazarus-ide.org/index.php
based on FPC https://www.freepascal.org/

is a powerful development system that can also build simple GUI applications very quickly.


Regards,
Peter B

[dryden]

I will agree with you when I see a popular Linux GUI application made in Lazarus.

[pylkko]

This topic comes up here now and then. Then usually people start to discuss the merits of one language contra another.

However, in my opinion they are basically all the same with minor variances. The most important thing to learn is "thinking about problems from a programming perspective or computational way". To illustrate, I have even at times written small snippets in C and then translated them to Python just for fun. Also, when I was learning java, I constantly contrasted the language to C and Python, to get an idea of the differences. If you want to do things in a really convoluted way, you can uses structs and functions of C to imitate classes/objects/methods in java, for example. But you start to see why people want this language for that purpose and another for some other (i.e c for microcontrollers , PHP for web etc). If you want to do programming on a professional level, you will need to learn many languages/paradigms anyway. More important than that, is to learn to think about how to solve real world problems using standard programming tools such as variables, flow control, conditionals, loops etc.

I suggest learning via projects that are at least somewhat in accordance with what you want. For example, decide you want programming so that you can automate your linux boxes, then learn bash. or decide that you want to learn electronics and learn asm/c for avr processors, or python to rip data of the net or whatever. This is because I believe that nothing drives a persons motivation to learn more than succeeding in a project of small caliber. Then it is easy to "up the ante" and go for something similar but more challenging.

[Anthony_J]

I would like to prefer online education. It gives us lifelong access to courses, certification on completion of course.
I had a very good experience in online education. There are a lot of programming language courses are available.
You can learn any of your favorite languages online.

[greymin]

Start by playing around on syntax, basic results, learn a not so complicated language for beginners I suggest start by using python just play around start with
1. make a simple calculator (Addition)
2. make a simple of counting the words in paragraph.
3. A simple checker if a number is odd or even just to make it fun for your learning.

Then if you think you know the basics level it up, add more function.
1. Add more functionality to your calculator (deduction, multiplication, division)
2. save the paragraph in database.
3. add dynamic input to your odd or even.

For starter don't be a "Jack of all trades, master of none" it's good to learn and focus on a single language for a couple of months or to a year, then if you're confident enough you can study new PL. Also it's a good start to know what you're aiming at if you're aiming to be a web developer or mobile developer check first what's the current industry standard (for web developer or mobile developer) on your local job site or international job site such as indeed.com or monster.com by doing that you'll have a great insights of the current standard for that path(web or mobile developer) and you can prepare studying those for your future career.

There's a lot of tutorial on youtube just play with it. Hope it helps.