Premier Rock Forum

I noticed a lot of programmers in the what's your job thread, so I thought I'd ask.

What's the best way to get into this stuff? I haven't made a page since middle school and that was all basic html. I always thought that programming would be fun, but assumed there would be way too many people doing it so it would be difficult to get a job. Recently I found out that is wrong.

So I started looking at a PHP tutorial but didn't understand a lot of it. Then went to a Javascript thing which made much more sense.

What would be something that's in demand now?

first thing - like almost everything else, it will be easier and more enjoyable to learn something with somebody else. so, if possible, take lessons, or find a mate that is also interested.
if you have some experience with html and the web, doing the JS / PHP route is a good idea. i'm pretty sure a nice "javascript for dummies" book will be a good start.

good luck.

10 INPUT "What is your name: ", U$
20 PRINT "Hello "; U$
30 INPUT "How many stars do you want: ", N
40 S$ = ""
50 FOR I = 1 TO N
60 S$ = S$ + "*"
70 NEXT I
80 PRINT S$
90 INPUT "Do you want more stars? ", A$
100 IF LEN(A$) = 0 THEN 90
110 A$ = LEFT$(A$, 1)
120 IF A$ = "Y" OR A$ = "y" THEN 30
130 PRINT "Goodbye ";U$
140 END


Commodore 64 mother fucker.

It's hard to say what the best way to get started is - I would suggest taking a class. PHP, Ruby/Rails, ASP.NET, Java are all in demand, but there is a learning curve and you will also have to learn some database stuff (MySQL) to really get a job using those technologies.

I would suggest learning HTML / Javascript as a start. All you need is a browser and a text editor. From there, I would go to PHP as it's probably the easiest to grasp of the server technologies - in my opinion.

I'm in classes. I've been enjoying Java. Javascript, not so much. HTML will help you in both of these, even though it is not a programming language strictly speaking.

Avoid Visual Basic at all costs.

Apparently there is going to be a demand for the old language COBOL, as a bunch of the original programmers are retiring.

lemur68 wrote:I'm in classes. I've been enjoying Java. Javascript, not so much. HTML will help you in both of these, even though it is not a programming language strictly speaking.

Avoid Visual Basic at all costs.

Apparently there is going to be a demand for the old language COBOL, as a bunch of the original programmers are retiring.

please don't study that.

Benny wrote:

lemur68 wrote:I'm in classes. I've been enjoying Java. Javascript, not so much. HTML will help you in both of these, even though it is not a programming language strictly speaking.

Avoid Visual Basic at all costs.

Apparently there is going to be a demand for the old language COBOL, as a bunch of the original programmers are retiring.

please don't study that.

Hey, I'm just going by what one of my instructors said.

C++ is mandatory...so much is done with it...

Red Square wrote:C++ is mandatory...so much is done with it...

I wouldn't start with C++ - if anything, start with plain ol' C. C++ is a bit intimidating - and if you want to do web stuff, you won't touch it.

Benny wrote:

lemur68 wrote:I'm in classes. I've been enjoying Java. Javascript, not so much. HTML will help you in both of these, even though it is not a programming language strictly speaking.

Avoid Visual Basic at all costs.

Apparently there is going to be a demand for the old language COBOL, as a bunch of the original programmers are retiring.

please don't study that.

It's my understanding that their is actually a shit ton of COBOL out there that needs to be maintained. Tons and tons of custom apps in the banking industry and such. Ugly ass language.

I don't even understand why Java exists, you get all the ugliness of C with all the speed of Lisp. Seems to be work out there for it though. C# appears to be the same thing with the added benefit of being locked in to Microsoft products.

Personally, I do a fair amount of music and DSP related programming. For working at the level of notes and higher I like Haskell. For working at the level of individual samples I like C or C++.

This is just stuff that works for me in my own endeavors. If you are looking to make a career of this I don't think Haskell will do you any good, although it is by far my favorite language. Amazing to work with if you come from a background in pure mathematics, the programs look a lot like proofs.