

Ask HN: How to start programming? - pcora

How do I start programming, without any real knowledge about it. I have a great infrastructure background, managing servers and networks. But I don't know how to code.<p>Can anyone help me? Indicate a book or a web-site. Regards!
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Pistos2
It's easier to adjust than to create from scratch. Find an open source project
you admire or use a lot, and try to tackle some minor task. Or, search a
source code site (e.g. github) for a project with a relatively small codebase,
and just play around with the code, to see how changing something in the code
brings about a change in behaviour or output. You could begin by changing
hard-coded data first (such as strings, or initialization values), then move
on to change actual logic.

Make it a point to explore more than one language -- hopefully at least three.
It's easier to work with higher level languages; I recommend that your list of
languages to try includes Ruby or Python.

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kls
What kind of programming are you going to do? Web, desktop? What are you doing
it for? career, hobby? If you are doing it for personal enrichment then get an
arduino and learn embedded, embedded is far more rewarding than any other form
of programming.

If it is for money than web and mobile is where it is at and for web there is
no better language to learn right now than Javascript. Get a Javascript book,
a web server, and go to town.

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nolite
This book has good reviews, and its also online for free

<http://pine.fm/LearnToProgram/>

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pcora
Yeah, this is one of the links that I have here marked as a starting point.

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Geee
Carl Herold provides excellent programming lessons at
<http://www.highercomputingforeveryone.com/>

