beginner

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Hi all when i first come to this site it was to get advice on books to teach me about my pc so i could go on to more advance stuff like programming, i have visual studio but no idear what to do with it so it collects dust.now im half way through mike meyers a+ i would like some advice on programming ie where to start which books would be good for an absolute beginner.

I know some of you are going to say finish the a+ book first, but i dont want to, i will finish it . programming has always intrested me but i never got round to doing any thing about it. no its not about the money its about the challange. so over to you now, i want to self train with books.

Cheers Martin
PS i hope i hav'nt posted in the wrong place again

 

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Myself and a lot of my friends learnt C from this book :-

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Learning-Program-C-BP-S/dp/0859342034

Its a pretty small non imtimidating book, I quite like the Babani books for hobbyists.

 

At £2.49 il defenatley have a look, will i need differant software for "c".
also is it like stepping stone up to .net or am i being stupid.

 

C is a programming language, so yes you will need C to be able to programme in C.

I studied C++ at uni which is really and higher version of C.

 

Depends if you just wanna dip your toe in the water or if you wanna go staight for C#.

You can get Visual Studio Express C++, works fine for C also.

Otherwise look at the Head First C# book and Visual Studio C# Express, I mentioned it in another thread.

You don't really need a stepping stone to C#, you can learn it direct if you like, might make life easier to learn simple procedural coding of command line apps before you learn all the other stuff, thats what I did.

 

Ok cheers for that i wont bother loading visual studio just yet, best go look for soft ware for C to go along with the book recomended. More expence, never mind.at least the book was cheap

 

Im going to go with the book in your first thread being an absolute beginner, and we will take it from there i am very keen on programming but want to walk before i run. good to see i can get advice from CF on this matter.

I believe i have visual express in the package i have, will have a look later

 

In case you're interested, the Head First C# book is reviewed here:

http://www.certforums.co.uk/forums/thread23824.html

 

Nobody's asked what you would like to program in the future - web apps? office apps? games?

Look into what you would like to code first so that your efforts will also be focussed on the techniques for developing the app as well as learning programming itself. This will also direct you to the correct language to learn.

 

Always interested and I will have a look at the review cheers

 

Dam good question office and web,my goal isto write a program for ordering photos online for my company.

 

If you have a full copy of Visual Studio then you have quite a few languages right there. C, C++, C# and VB.

There is quite a good 'dummies' book on Visual Studio that explains the differences between the various languges.

Harry.

 

Depending on which version of Visual Studio you have you should have all the components for such an app right there!

However - a word of warning - DON'T do anything about the financial side of such an app without a *lot* of experience. Getting it wrong could be very expensive for your company!

Harry.

 

Hello again
dont worry i wont dive in the deep end. I think i will try some simple programes first nothing that involves payments but if,or should i say when it come to the online program i will seek advice about security.
Hec you can order that print online then.

 

If you're wanting to go into programming, there's really no need for you to continue to torture yourself with the A+... it's not that helpful for programmers.

 

Ive read the review thanks for that, I think that should probably be the secound book i purchase.
if as you say it caters more for someone who likes to see visuals in a book. Video teaching or CD rom is my ideal method of learning, But they tend to be a tage expensive.

 

no thats quite right,but its is teaching me how to fix my own pc and I am finding it very intresting.
also helps me understand what you lot are talking about. LOL

 

That's not entirely true. I've never met a programmer worth their salt that didn't have a good handle on the hardware side of things. Writing and executing good code includes understanding how it will be processed on the server-side of things. True, knowing how to change a PCI card isn't particularly relevant, but I would hardly say understanding hardware in general is a total waste of time for a programmer, either.

 

You haven't, but I've met some. Most of them had some knowledge due to their love for computers... but there were a sizeable number (of GOOD programmers!) who could care less about the internal workings of a computer.

My point is this: you don't NEED hardware knowledge to be a good programmer. Does it help? Sure. Do you HAVE to have it? No.

 

It really depends what type of programmer you're talking about, I'd say they can't be much more than average without at least a rough understanding of the OS and hardware.

You can't code assembler without understanding the machine.

How can you code a device driver if you don't understand the device ?

How can you write systems level or OS code without an understanding of the OS ?

If you don't understand threads, CPU cycles, the stack, the heap, memory management, etc how can you performance tune your code ? How can you find and avoid problems and bottlenecks ?

How can you design and code network applications if you don't understand the network, the protocols and TCP/IP ?

How can you use the OS, Network, Services, heap, filesystem, registry, etc if you don't understand it ?

How can you understand double buffering if you don't understand basic fundamentals of video hardware and what a vertical blank is ?

Modern high level languages and operating systems can hide a lot, but the same stuff is still there and you won't be a GOOD coder if you don't understand it, you will only be AVERAGE at best.