How did you learn to program?

[neilrbowen]

It's an interesting one, i taught myself everything i started with a very basic 20 page book on perl, and then learnt all the new bits i needed bit by bit from google as required

I suppose this took some time, but it was quite good fun along the way, and at least i can shudder thinking back to some things i created!

But it would be interesting to know what languages people have learnt and how they did it...?

 

[AdamPlastic]

All my programming ability is self taught.

Started out in PHP and moved over to Ruby nearly 2 years ago now and love it. Self taught is certainly cheaper and if you pay careful attention to various sites you soon learn the best practices for the language your working with.

 

[Dimitar Christoff]

self thought all the way!

started on basic for 8bit IBMs back in the 1980's, then for 8088 moved over to Pascal (fu*k knows why not c++) and assembler for DOS, then to delphi for Win3.1 and stopped.

Took it up again in Perl a good few years later, then bragged my way into a PHP dev job w/o ever having written a line and learnt it on the job.

I've not even owned a programming book in my life...

then again -- had i studied properly -- i could have been better paid, who knows...

 

[eugen]

Me too, self thought.

I've started with the old Qbasic ( primary school )
Then I've moved over to C++ ( high school )
At the faculty ( Computer Science ) I've made all kinds of programming languages: C++ ( again ), C#, Visual Fox, Perl, Java

All this time, I've learned for myself PHP, Databases ( mySQL, msSQL .. )

 

[smeagain]

I learned all my coding and programming skills at the University of Life.

 

[symbyo sem]

I personally think that either c++ or Java would be the most beneficial. Especially since you don't want to get into web programming, to which ruby is mostly famous for.

C++ will get you the basics as well as concepts such as pointers, references, memory management.

Java will increase your knowledge on the basics of programming as well as some ideas of Object Orientation.

I suppose that even though I'm a Java guy I would strictly suggest C++ as a starting language. It has a trickier scheme to it that will help you learn more about what is going on with other languages as well as teach you the basics of programming.

 

[NoisyTech]

I learn by myself using internet and college library.

 

[Acs]

Self taught PHP and a little .net via books and google.
Ive created some real munters of apps before which is why I tend to stick to infrastucture and employ someone to do 95% of my programing work

 

[deluxdon]

Learn everything myself using net

DON.

 

[markweyner]

I learned all the basics in school. And I myself enhanced it.

 

[billy_ben]

i had my basics in school and then learned more from reading books

 

[TheGambleSociety]

THis is currently driving me stupid.. i want to learn PHP & Mysql so bad it hurts.. but where to start..
how do you build a database.. what is sql injection.. how to prevent it.. do i go OOP. So many questions.. so little useful tutorials


- why didnt i go to college for this stuff

 

[myst729]

Learned Pascal and C in school, then the internet became my teacher.

 

[Arleigh]

I have learned some programming languages in my university such as Visual Basic, C, C++, HTML, Java, ASP etc.. But most of them, I only learned their basics.

So for me, it's a self taught.. I just read some free online tutorials which help me to understand them better.

 

[chingkkay]

learning in html is still ongoing for me.I'm more curious in css ,xhtml ,xml and other web developing languages

 

[surreypcsupport]

I was taught by Allianz on a graduate trainee program. Learned over a period of 12 years. A lot of that was self taught though. Started with Adabas Natural mainframe systems and JCL. Then moved into 'Client/Server' as it was known then and learned Visual Basic and SQL Server. Worked as a SQL DBA for a while. Also did some early ASP scripts about 6 years ago and began to learn about web programming. More recently I have been using PHP and MySQL.

Best way to learn is to do it day in and day out for about 3 years. In that time you should become quite highly skilled if you have an aptitude for it.