test
24 Oct 2013, 2:29 am
24 Oct 2013, 12:01 pm
30 Dec 2013, 6:01 pm
Vectorspace wrote:
It depends a lot on what you want to do. If you want to program microcontrollers, you need to learn about electronics. If you want to calculate things, you need to learn about algorithms. If you want to process data, you need to learn about data structures. If you want to do something that involves floating point computations, you should learn the basics of numerical mathematics.
Those aren't really "pre-programming" skills – you can learn a lot on-the-fly.
In a professional environment, knowledge about quality management, unit testing and project management is often demanded.
You need a lot of experience to learn how to write good code. I see a lot of bad code written by people who have no knowledge about computer science. Such code may or may not work well, but it's very hard to read and to maintain. A common reason for this is that the code uses bad abstractions or none at all ("spaghetti code").
Those aren't really "pre-programming" skills – you can learn a lot on-the-fly.
In a professional environment, knowledge about quality management, unit testing and project management is often demanded.
You need a lot of experience to learn how to write good code. I see a lot of bad code written by people who have no knowledge about computer science. Such code may or may not work well, but it's very hard to read and to maintain. A common reason for this is that the code uses bad abstractions or none at all ("spaghetti code").
Interesting. I have learned the bare bones basics of C and have tried to understand algorithms such as writing a matrix, palindrome, prime number, various sorting algorithms etc. etc., and just can't get the mathmatical aspects at all.
Some of the object-orientated stuff in C++ or Python like constructors/destructors, and operator overloading are just beyong me too, and WTF is a 'this' pointer fs?
I do admire those who can code long programs, but I'm such a slow learner, lol.
30 Dec 2013, 7:24 pm
Cynic wrote:
Some of the object-orientated stuff in C++ or Python like constructors/destructors, and operator overloading are just beyong me too, and WTF is a 'this' pointer fs? I do admire those who can code long programs, but I'm such a slow learner, lol.
I do admire those who can code long programs, but I'm such a slow learner, lol. Object-oriented programming is probably the most overrated concept in the world. It's certainly useful, but there are state-of-the-art programming languages that deliberately do not use it, and OOP doesn't stop people from writing bad code, either (nothing really does).
Pointers are something you only need in C, assembly (of course), and other low-level languages; they also exist in C++, but they should usually be avoided.
Python probably provides a good start; it is object-oriented, but you don't need to use OOP so explicitly if you don't want to. Plus, it does all the memory management for you.
30 Dec 2013, 8:19 pm
31 Dec 2013, 1:50 am
31 Dec 2013, 8:05 am
31 Dec 2013, 10:43 am
01 Jan 2014, 1:22 pm
Abstract_Logic wrote:
You can try the various projects and exercises at CodeAcademy.com. There are also Zed Shaw's wonderful tutorials for Python, Ruby, and a few other languages; just run a Google search for Ruby the Hard Way or Python the Hard Way. Hint: It's not really the 'hard' way.
Yeah, I have browsed some chapters on Python and C 'the hard way' and it does look interesting, albeit difficult. I tried Python and Javascript on Code Academy, got so far to where I got stuck, and gave up.
Abstract_Logic wrote:
As for mathematics, I recommend the same as FrostSA, the books by Donald Knuth. Concrete Mathematics: A Foundation for Computer Science and the Art of Computer Programming series. You don't need to read them all from start to finish of course, but at least read a lot of Concrete Mathematics and get the gist of algorithms. You don't really need a background in mathematics to become a programmer, but it will certainly improve your skills. You should try doing one of the Python or Ruby tutorials by Zed Shaw (mentioned above) first before you start on the math books. The math is meant to augment your learning process.
Cheers mate. Duly noted.
04 Jan 2014, 1:24 pm
04 Jan 2014, 1:38 pm
06 Jan 2014, 1:05 am
06 Jan 2014, 9:57 pm
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