Thanks, and thanks for the cheering too :)

However, I think I need to get my hands on some sort of "programmer's dictionary for dummies" and some understanding of how a program (any program) is structured, from the very basic level of programming.

I come across words like "register", "class", "library", "pointer" and that sort of things, but I have no idea what they all mean. Reading is for me extremly time consuming so I have to look for books with lots of pictures in them or, better still, sites that will explain all this without filling the monitor with text. PS: I'm not dyslectic :D it's just that I find it difficult to read large blocks of text.

I remember from primary school one teacher showed us these logical diagrams with triangles and all sorts of shapes, that would explain how a program would work. But I can't for the life of me remember what it was called. Seeing and learning to use that diagram would perhaps be a start.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(carpetsmoker @ Jan 19 2007, 12:08 PM) [snapback]275665[/snapback]</div>I've been developing with PHP professionally for nearly 10 years. I love the language and I have a ton invested in it. However, it's no where near a "drop-in replacement" for perl. Perl still absolutely spanks it in terms of string and file handling, among many other things. Much as I love PEAR and PECL, they don't yet hold a candle to CPAN. The list goes on and on.

My point is that choice of language is appropriate. A beginner would probably be better suited to learning a higher-level language which handles memory management and has a more traditional, procedural model. Tcl, Perl, and PHP are all fine choices (Python is an excellent first language, but not really suited to that list). Someone with a stronger background in math (discrete math, lambda calculus, etc) may find languages such as Haskell, Lisp, and their ilk easier to learn. OOP is not the easiest paradigm in the world to wrap your mind around and writing garbage that's object-oriented just for the sake of it is counter-productive. Ever see a long-time C programmer's early stabs at Java? It's not pretty.

Personally, it all comes back to the functional languages for me. I'll always love C, but there's little in the programming world as expressive and elegant as Lisp.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mighty Midget @ Jan 20 2007, 03:01 AM) [snapback]275717[/snapback]</div>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowchart

I think you should just choose a language and get a book or a tutorial on the internet and just start with simple stuff. Don't try to make something that is verry complicated at first because you first have to learn the basics.
If you are going to make a command line RSS reader you will need to

• Open a tcp/ip socket
• implement the http protocol
• parse xml data
• print the result on the screen

I am not talking about storing the messages on your drive or creating a nice gui.

If you want some nice programs to star with then Try the exams posted in this forum. Once you have done a few of those then you will know some basic stuff and you can try to make something bigger.

My very fisrt program was a small game where you had to guess a number between 0 and 100 and the computer would say if the correct answer is higher or lower.

Good luck and let us know if you have made something.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mighty Midget @ Jan 20 2007, 12:10 AM) [snapback]275695[/snapback]</div>
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mighty Midget @ Jan 20 2007, 03:01 AM) [snapback]275717[/snapback]</div>
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Nitro @ Jan 20 2007, 07:36 PM) [snapback]275793[/snapback]</div> :huh:
Like I said, I am a newbie to the extreme ;) so all this made practically no sense at all. Sorry.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mighty Midget @ Jan 20 2007, 09:05 PM) [snapback]275798[/snapback]</div> :huh:
Like I said, I am a newbie to the extreme ;) so all this made practically no sense at all. Sorry.
[/b][/quote]
I didn't want to scare you. I just wantd to point out that writing a big usefull program is not something you can do when you are learning how to program.

Also words as class, pointer and library are things you don't have to worry about yet.

As for a language to use. C++ is one of the most powerfull languages, but also one of the most difficult. Java is a lot easier and is better for learning the basics.

Good luck!

I don't think that math be viewed as an end-goal for programmers.
I know that almost all, if not all, non-trivial programs have some degree of math, but math is just one of many means to reach a goal, and should not become a goal upon itself.
Sure, math is useful when dealing with RSA encryption, or JPEG compression, but just how many programmers deal with that? (you just use libssl, or jasper)

For example, when a kid learns to ride a bike, he learns to ride a bike.
He doesn't learn how to steer, or how to to peddle, or to watch out.
He just learns to ride a bike.
The steering, peddling, and watching out comes as a part of that, or with experience

I finished high school, never went to college.
Although I do quite a bit of reading on physics, math never really interested me, and never did any serious reading on the subject.
I won't say I'm a top-of-the-line programmer, but I'd like to think that I'm "ok", even though I keep writing stuff, never release it, and eventually just delete it :/

Mark Twain once said:
"I never let schooling get in the way of my education"

Schooling and education are two different things, if you can learn stuff on your own without listening to crap teachers and paying enormous college bills then that's a good thing.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(carpetsmoker @ Jan 21 2007, 01:55 AM) [snapback]275844[/snapback]</div>All programming is predicated and modeled upon various disciplines of mathematics. If you can't pedal, steer, and maintain you balance you can't ride a bike. Playing a game of semantics doesn't change the fact that your grasp of discrete mathematics, lambda calculus, and formal proofs will have a significant impact upon your skills. The only forms of math you even mentioned were continuous, which is a very handicapped view of the subject.

Sure, just sort of throwing your feet out to the sides and using them to push the bike forward and maintain balance could probably be considered "riding" the bike, learning how to pedal and steer makes riding said bike practical.

Here ya go (tutorial for C++, starting from absolute scratch):

http://www.eggdisk.com/files/181125_nmpkj/...l%201-19-07.zip]Jonny D's C++ Tutorial 1-19-07.zip

Thanks for sharing that with us GrimFang. I'm interested in reading this document just as a matter of interest, but I'm having trouble unzipping it - I think there might be an error. Could you check it?

Also, I came across an interesting article which sort of fits in with my general instinct about the time it takes to learn new things:

http://norvig.com/21-days.html

While the points made probably don't apply to all the people all of the time, I find that with my own attempts to learn new skills (especially music) my ability has taken years rather than months to mature, seemingly irrespective of the intensity of the effort applied.