Advice New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg takes coding course

[opticle]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16440126

Now, when I first read this I thought "Pffffffffft", but then I realised it's something I've always wanted to do and have regretted not playing around with it when I was younger..

.. Now, the above is about this guy I've never heard of learning Javascript..

.. What's worth trying to learn / play around with ? Is Java the best place to start ?

I'm well aware this may be an entirely ridiculous endeavour.. but I figure I've got a lot of years left to potter about, or at least statistically more than that guy.

Ta !

 

[rynnor]

It cant hurt - javascripts pretty high level and should let you do interesting things quite quickly - try it

 

[Wazzerphuk]

seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeplusplus

 

[Aoami]

no point learning js if you dont know css/html imo

 

[- English -]

asp.net / c# is the way forward imo!

 

[Cadelin]

It depends what you want to do and how much time you have.

You will only actually properly learn how to code if you are forced to use it to solve problems. You can take a course which will have some contrived problems in it but that is unlikely to keep you interested.

So is there anything you think you might want to be able to do? What are you hobbies/interests?

Without anything else to go on I would suggest trying python.

 

[- English -]

It depends what you want to do and how much time you have.

You will only actually properly learn how to code if you are forced to use it to solve problems. You can take a course which will have some contrived problems in it but that is unlikely to keep you interested.

So is there anything you think you might want to be able to do? What are you hobbies/interests?

Without anything else to go on I would suggest trying python.

That's one of the problems I had when 'learning' Java/C++ at Uni .. you did the assignment and that was it. There was no passion outside of having to do it, and not having a job in it like you said mean I lost interest (why would I need my own program at home). However i've been playing with ASP.net recently as I have been learning about websites for a couple of years, teaching myself CSS HTML and now moving onto other things. The difference is I can build a website for myself for something useful, so i'm willing to learn more with it. Starting my course in web application development in feb, so looking forward to it.

 

[opticle]

It depends what you want to do and how much time you have.

Yeah this is the problem Tbh life at the mo is fexxing busy, and I really have no idea what I would do with it - I like making things and problem solving, but I know that's a pretty limited plan . I just saw the news story and after the initial douche-yness, I realised I quite liked the idea and was a lil jealous :X.

I was hoping if I found "the right one" then did a course or found some problems online, I'd find out the kinda things you could do and play around with it.. I know that's pretty simplistic.

Any one able to summarise the basic differences between all of the above languages and what you can and can't do with them ? There's so many out there now it's pretty interesting, let alone how tf the words displayed on a screen, stored inside a disk and read via a circuit board makes pretty pictures appear back on the screen

 

[rynnor]

Scripting languages are not full programming languages but they are quite powerfull - i.e. you can do a lot with a few commands.

C++/C# are high level programming languages - you can do more but you need to be more aware of storage and other programming ideas and you need to use more commands to do interesting stuff.

C is a level 3 - medium level programming - you really need to understand a lot more concepts at this level.

Assembler - the daddy of them all - very difficult language, you really need to understand a lot of pc concepts and it takes ages to program anything cool but it is the fastest by far. I love it though personally All the languages after assembler have to be compiled into assembler to run (sometimes rather poorly).

I would start with scripting and see if you like it.

 

[Cadelin]

I was hoping if I found "the right one" then did a course or found some problems online, I'd find out the kinda things you could do and play around with it.. I know that's pretty simplistic.

There is no "right one". If there was we would all be using it. Computing languages are like tools, they are designed to solve certain problems. This is not to say all computing languages are good.

You can do so much with computing languages. As long as there is logic behind what you want to do, you can get a computer to do it.

If you want a summary of what a language is for I would suggest you check the wiki page for it (or the official page) there is normally a brief summary of the important points. For the moment all you need to know is that programming languages are often described by a level, normally high or low level (as rynnor described). You want to start by using a high level language.

 

[old.Tohtori]

/goto 10
10 drink beer
/goto home

That about all you need.

 

[Zarjazz]

Frankly it all depends on what you want to write as many languages are targeted (or evolved) to fit a certain niche - Windows applications, mobile apps, web pages, system services and so on. Of course any of them can be used to read / write some simple "hello world" type applications. There isn't really an equivalent to BASIC anymore for "hobby" programmers.

Anyway, here's my own and completely biased overview of the most popular languages around today.

---

Javascript : a few years ago I wouldn't have recommended this for a beginner but a lot has changed since then. JS is no longer just a 'web page' tool what with all the fast javascript engines people are writing client & server applications in it now. However knowing basic HTML & CSS is probably a prerequisite.

ASP.NET / C# : While C# isn't terrible avoid if possible. Only to be used if you're hired in a firm that is Microsoft centric or want to use the XNA games tools (C#)

PHP : Probably the easier for a beginner to learn to quickly knock up dynamic web pages or simple scripts. The language itself has a lot of faults but it's still insanely popular.

C : The grand-daddy of all languages and still one of the most important. It's more "low-level" than all the rest so it requires more effort and understanding to do anything but if you become a competent C coder then usually little effort is required to learn any new language after than as you know all the fundamental concepts.

Java / C++ : Great on the CV to get you hired but horrible languages to learn as a beginner IMO as they teach so many bad practices - all the worst coders I've met were taught these first! Not that there aren't many good programmers who use them but I think they are just too complicated for a lot of people to use them correctly from the start.

Python: A high level scripting language that is very object-oriented with an emphasis on structured coding - the functional programming aspect would teach anyone some interesting concepts. The language syntax is very unique and people either love it or hate it. Google really recommend Python and have a lot of online teaching resources and videos they made themselves.

---

 

[CorNokZ]

asp.net and C#

Everything else is outdated(what my teacher told me, dont flame me)

 

[Job]

Get program for writing market place apps, learn it to the death and make zillions.

 

[Zarjazz]

asp.net and C#

Everything else is outdated(what my teacher told me, dont flame me)

If that's true then your teacher is an idiot with no real world experience and yes you can quote me on that

 

[Aoami]

If that's true then your teacher is an idiot with no real world experience and yes you can quote me on that

thats what i was thinking. certainly for web development. ever tried ADODB? jesus christ what a pile of shit.

 

[Keitanz]

I started learning C# a few years ago.. Dawn of Light (DAoC server emulation) is written in C# and is open source, it helped me learn C# a lot faster than I was without it.... worth a look if you like DAoC and want to learn C# and have fun at the same time

I also started learning Java the other month for Minecraft modding, C# and Java have pretty similar syntax's so it's easy to go from one to the other..... looks like PHP/Python are next for me

So yeah if you want to learn a language and you are afraid you won't get in to it, look in to Dawn of Light.. it will help a lot

 

[Keitanz]

Get program for writing market place apps, learn it to the death and make zillions.

The market to make money from that is wearing thin now really.. best itme to do it was around this time last year, now everyone and their pet dog tinkabella are doing that :/

Still possible to make cash though.

Btw you shouldn't avoid C# at all, there are a lot of open jobs for .net developers at the moment and it's well worth learning C#.

 

[- English -]

asp.net and C#

Everything else is outdated(what my teacher told me, dont flame me)

My brother advised me on this as well as he believes its the way forward for the industry, so much he is learning it himself after being a C programmer for about 10 years. All companies want web application driven products nowadays.

Obviously it wont make everything else extinct.

 

[Keitanz]

Yeah since most applications are moving to the web it's probably best to learn php/javascript/jquery/java/asp.net !

 

[Zarjazz]

Yeah since most applications are moving to the web it's probably best to learn php/javascript/jquery/java/asp.net !

That list is actually in order of "what you should learn" for web development - interesting article at http://www.udemy.com/blog/modern-language-wars/ highlights this.

C# is waaaaay behind the rest in actual live implementations, discussion and job marketability. ASP.NET is so irrelevant it doesn't even get mentioned. As for Ruby, I've never even come across anywhere that uses it but it's popular in certain groups.

 

[Aoami]

A lot of web jobs ive seen recently want Ruby devs.

 

[Lamp]

A good friend of mine is a C#.NET programmer in an investment bank and is earning a fortune there. I'm not sure what else he knows tho. He's been coding for almost 20 years.

 

[Calo]

Well, there is a difference between procedural programming and object oriented. Java is very object oriented while c++ will be more procedural. Object oriented works with classes, objects and methods and abstracts etc while procedural is more like line after line till end of page. Then again, you can mix them both . hehe just trying to confuse you!

Atm i'm doing ABAP, its the programming language of SAP (biggest solution software in the world) and I like it alot. So far the best programming language for me but you are nothing with it if you don't develop for SAP company's or SAP itself

 

[Chilly]

A good friend of mine is a C#.NET programmer in an investment bank and is earning a fortune there. I'm not sure what else he knows tho. He's been coding for almost 20 years.

That type of job tends to be creating custom GUIs for traders and algo boys who decide one morning they need XYZ visualisation and want it by home time. It's not particularly difficult but you need to know the APIs inside out and be a ninja to do it well.

The most interesting coding (for me, anyway) are the API type jobs. Where I work (Betfair), we expose everything as a web service. We get peak loads across all services of 70k+ req/sec so you can imagine how hard it is to write software that not only provides the right numbers for the clients (website or direct api clients) but does it fast enough.

I generally end up writing very exotic caches and heavy network distributed systems. Language is largely irrelevant (we use Java, as it happens) but something with good frameworks and community is a must for serious/high performance work. So that basically leaves you with C, C++, Java (plus some of the newer JVM based languages) and maaaayyybeee C# - I say maybe because as pointed out earlier it simply hasnt been around for very long and had the same amount of love as the more mature dev frameworks. The language itself is excellent and has lots of very good features but the community around it is nothing compared to Java. Also, you can run Java on pretty much anything which is a massive bonus. I could actually spin up some of the components in betfair production on my phone with a bit of hacking