[billyhen]

Hello,

I am currently enrolled in a Computer Technology class in my local school district. The teacher there does not personally know any programming, but has books and tutorials, etc. to give me to learn with. In other words, I am teaching myself to code. I went through a book of Visual Basic.NET and am currently working my way through a Java book. I am getting the basic concepts of coding (I think), but there are some things that do confuse me. I plan on pursuing a career in programming, and was wondering if this confusion will hurt me in the future. I am doing my best to understand everything the book tells me, but sometimes I feel like I need a little personal explanation. Is this something I should worry about? Or will going to college and taking my classes maybe clear things up? I want to make sure I won't be too far behind or find out that programming just isn't for me. Which I hope is not the case.

Any tips or whatever would be appreciated. :]

[magusxion]

What are some examples of things that are confusing to you?

Java, Visual Basic .Net, and C# .Net are all great languages to get started with.
There are a ton of tutorials online and the best advice I can give is to read through the code until you understand it. Java and .Net can be a bit confusing as there is a lot going on in the background that you don't see, but that is also why they're great to get started with.

Studying code helped me out more than any lesson book on programming did, and there is no substitute for just trying bits of code out to see what they do.

http://www.codeproject.com/ is a great site that has examples and tutorials in multiple languages and I recommend just browsing through some of them and studying / trying them out for yourself.

Another great resource is http://www.gotapi.com/html, it has links to a lot of documentation on a variety of languages. You can of course find these via google or w3schools ( another great resource ) but gotApi collects some nice ones together.

Without specifics, thats all the help I can offer. Best of luck, go forth and learn the coding ways

[jcremeans11]

Well, if you do go for a degree in CS, or any form of engineering or math, they will most-likely recommend you take a beginner programming course because they treat everyone as if they have never programmed before, so you're good.

[Sethro117]

I too am self taught for the most part. Started out in HS, stole one of my Network teachers books he had for VB6 and began learning that. Confusion is natural at first, it will only go with practice. Keep practicing, keep developing small things with the language. Pick one you want to learn and begin with it, dont go out and start learning one language then a week or two later start learning another one.

Get the concepts and syntax of one down and you will begin to think like a programmer then able to pick up the concepts and syntax of another language easier. There is always someone here at DIC to help you and we have over 150 tutorials on here in VB.NET and other languages that might interest you.

This post has been edited by Sethro117: 25 February 2010 - 07:11 PM

[billyhen]

Sethro117, on 25 February 2010 - 08:08 PM, said:

I too am self taught for the most part. Started out in HS, stole one of my Network teachers books he had for VB6 and began learning that. Confusion is natural at first, it will only go with practice. Keep practicing, keep developing small things with the language. Pick one you want to learn and begin with it, dont go out and start learning one language then a week or two later start learning another one. Get the concepts and syntax of one down and you will begin to think like a programmer then able to pick up the concepts and syntax of another language easier. There is always someone here at DIC to help you and we have over 150 tutorials on here in VB.NET and other languages that might interest you.

Okay thanks for clearing some of that up for me guys.
It's good to here the

Quote

Confusion is natural at first

comment.
haha.
thanks again.