Ask HN: How to start programming?

3 points by pcora 15y ago ↗ HN

How do I start programming, without any real knowledge about it. I have a great infrastructure background, managing servers and networks. But I don't know how to code.

Can anyone help me? Indicate a book or a web-site. Regards!

5 comments

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nolite 15y ago ↗

This book has good reviews, and its also online for free

http://pine.fm/LearnToProgram/

pcora 15y ago ↗

Yeah, this is one of the links that I have here marked as a starting point.

Pistos2 15y ago ↗

It's easier to adjust than to create from scratch. Find an open source project you admire or use a lot, and try to tackle some minor task. Or, search a source code site (e.g. github) for a project with a relatively small codebase, and just play around with the code, to see how changing something in the code brings about a change in behaviour or output. You could begin by changing hard-coded data first (such as strings, or initialization values), then move on to change actual logic.

Make it a point to explore more than one language -- hopefully at least three. It's easier to work with higher level languages; I recommend that your list of languages to try includes Ruby or Python.

Geee 15y ago ↗

Carl Herold provides excellent programming lessons at http://www.highercomputingforeveryone.com/

kls 15y ago ↗

What kind of programming are you going to do? Web, desktop? What are you doing it for? career, hobby? If you are doing it for personal enrichment then get an arduino and learn embedded, embedded is far more rewarding than any other form of programming.

If it is for money than web and mobile is where it is at and for web there is no better language to learn right now than Javascript. Get a Javascript book, a web server, and go to town.