Programming class

[matt_arnold]

I hope to audit a Python class, or at least some type of introductory programming class, in the evenings and weekends. Do you know any you can recommend?

How about flashcards? Do those help for learning the vocabulary and rules of a computer language?

For years, I have gone back and forth on the issue of learning a programming language. At first, I

Comments

[eilrahc]

I think you should give PHP a try. It will literally take a weekend to learn the basics and there's plenty of online documentation and examples. Although the language does have a lot of peculiarities, I suggest this mainly because I know you get pretty jazzed up about web applications and PHP drives at least 90% of them.

Python is a good solid language, but I think it's more appropriate for people who have been programming for awhile and/or are computer scientists. Casual programmers like you and myself seem to have a harder time with it. In contrast, I learned PHP not by reading books or taking classes but by just jumping in and debugging code.

Learn by doing

[anonymous]

Flashcards aren't likely to help. Or rather, you'll make a little progress, but nowhere near as much as you would actually writing code

Re: Learn by doing

[anonymous]

One last thing I forgot to mention: most people assume that computers are smarter than they actually are. You are likely to approach a large decision tree, get halfway down it and realise that there's no function you can call to make a decision because the computer is dumb and can't figure big stuff like that out. Go the other way. Write small bits that you know you can handle, and then join them up into a larger program that solves a bit more of the decision tree. This is "bottom up" programming. "Top down" programming has its advantages too, but programming beginners are much better off with bottom up.

[squeekyhoho]

As part of my serial enthusiasm streak, I've decided that I want to write a book / website for teaching people how to program. As luck would have it, I've gravitated to Python for the language I'd like to teach. I have a drupal site set up, but it's under the cloak of "site maintenance" for now. If you'd like a peek at what's there, or would like to help out, I'd love to hear from you. It initially started out as a kid's book idea, much in teh same vein as Dr. C. Wacko, but morphed into something a little different.

The site is http://bit-twiddlers.com. Let me know if you're interested, and I'll double the efforts to get it up and running.

Good to see you again at OLF! Looking forward to Penguicon++!

[matt_arnold]

Yeah, I would get in on this. Please!

[squeekyhoho]

Well, the site http://bit-twiddlers.com is up, but not much content has emerged yet. I've got a few examples that I'm going to be putting in as part of the book, but for now it's there, and waiting. :)