Advice for begining programmers

I work for UC Berkeley Extension, advising students on which programming language classes to take. Can anyone give me some ideas on what the typical "day in the life of an entry level programmer" might be like? Thanks, your insights will be of enormous value to our students.

For a someone just starting out, I would suggest something like C or C++. Start with the basics then get into objects and classes. My order was C++, then C, VisualBasic, Perl, etc. But I think the best way to get better at programming is to do examples or just hack out code on your own, just reading books is not enough. Well that is my two cents.
tron

I started originally with C++, then Pascal and then Java. Tell them to learn Java. C++ is difficult for beginning programmers because of its often arcane errors and the whole issue of memory management. Pascal is great -- if you want to learn something that isn't going to be used, and want a regimented introduction. Java offers a kind of happy compromise, though the course has to be good -- the OO paradigm is so pervasive in Java that the material the course is taught from must be designed from the ground up for Java. Of course, for the web I would recommend Perl, though don't ever make anybody try to learn it as their first language. They may enjoy it, but the person who later has to maintain code they've written will not be quite so happy...

Hell, at the end of the day, most of the courses that are offered at an entry level are going to be pretty reasonable for a beginner (or they wouldn't be entry level). I'd nudge people towards Java, and away from more complex languages like C/C++/Perl, but then I'd also suggest that the theory behind programming is more important than the actual language they end up using.

I spent the last two years at University of Alberta studying Computing Science. The first language I learned was Turbo Pascal and I believe it is the best language to teach the basics of programming because it is so simple and it helps you to locate any problems in the program easily. However, Turbo Pascal is out of use, so it is not a valuable language at all. The University just made changes last year to introduce first year Computing Science students with Java instead of Turbo Pascal and I think that is the wiser choice because Java will prepare the students for more complex languages while they're just learning the simple stuffs. I wished I started off with Java rather than Turbo Pascal. I would assume that Java has some built in functions, so it would be a good idea to teach your students to create some of these functions before they can use them.

Based on my first year experience, I found programming to be very easy because the scripts we wrote were very simple and straightforward. Then the second term I learned to use recursion and pointers and more complex programming structures which became more frustrating because they are very difficult to learn, after that the rest is easy. Object Oriented language should come after learning recursion and pointers.

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Yanik!
Edmonton, AB

[This message has been edited by yduvoid (edited August 03, 2000).]

I personally started with HTML 7 years ago, then I got into Perl and learned the basics. If you know the basics in C programming you can do pretty much any kind of programming since Perl, PHP, Javascript etc. works simular.

I would recommend learning C first or Perl, depends what kind of programming you're planning to do. I just learned these for my domain and such but for database programming I would recommend PHP, it's easy to learn and logic.

Compare to Perl it's easier for beginners and not as much writting either but then you need to know MySQL too since PHP work mostly with that.

Toby

I'm doing first year at University of Waterloo, Canada. And right now, Java is the introductory courses, later on, I think for 2nd year, they will have C++ and Unix, then I have no idea!

Last term (Winter 2000), I took the last course offered in Pascal. Pascal disappeared from my school! And for beginners (and non-CS majors), I think they still use Turing

Anyway, anyone tells me Java or C has a greater effect/benefit?

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Son

I started of C, which is the basics to all modern languages. I then did Java, it was really nice to see the shift from sructured programming to object oriented programming.
Java is a good first object oriented langauge but recentlty Microsoft (without paying any tribute to the creators of Java) released a langauge (the same time they decided to drop J++ from their programming suite) call C# (C sharp) which is remarkably similar to to Java.
I recommend you review C# as it is still early days and you could grow with it, Microsoft calls it the "next generation programming language". It's also a part of the new .net Microsoft project.
So once again...Java is my langauge of choice, but there could be a big market demand for C# in the future.......

Hello...
How bout going in this order if u are a newcommer in Computers
Python or Pascal
Perl or C
C
Html
Java or C++
If advancement is required use some 4GL's
And dont forget to miss out SQL.

I am in High School and last year I took Computer Science for C++(It was the first year it was offered). I didn't learn much new... Since I had been toying with C++, HTML, JavaScript, and DHTML for a while. I then started messing with PHP and MySQL. All that my school district is offering right now is programming languages that are Windows based. It is like they are scared of UNIX and Linux... I was given two 266 Pentium II computers last year that I was allowed to install Linux on. My computer science teacher was thrilled and would watch as two of my friends and I had fun . However we were not allowed to hook these two computers up to the school network. So we could not download Apache, PHP, or MySQL...
I have decided that this year I will confront the school board about installing a backend programming language for all of the schools. I would like to see PHP and MySQL used but with my luck we will get Cold Fusion j/k
There, I have let off steam for the day...


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Hartmann

[This message has been edited by Hartmann (edited August 13, 2000).]

Hey, that sounds pretty cool!
I've never had a linux/unix box myself, just telnet as a terminal!



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Son

I suggest if you are new to programming to start right away with an object oriented language like C++ or Borland Pascal or the likes.

I have found that those who learn OOP right off take to it much faster than those learning a non OOP first then trying to grasp the OOP concepts. I come from the latter school (am I dating myself?) =).

Once you understand OOP and "how to program," any other language is only a matter of syntax and vocab and they are all very similar.

Good luck!
Daari