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I started programming when I was 24 (11 years ago) and working at my first job. A coworker was my mentor early on, and we pair programmed frequently for a coupl

I started programming when I was 24 (11 years ago) and working at my first job. A coworker was my mentor early on, and we pair programmed frequently for a couple of months. I read a couple of Wrox Java books and just learned by writing a lot of code and reading as much as I could. Luckily, I was tasked with developing a whole bunch of forms for a client-server application, which the IDE helped me out with a lot with its WYSIWYG editor, and the programming work was relatively easy (no I/O, no DB access, etc). The keys for me were: 1. Having a mentor early on 2. Flattening the learning curve with an IDE. 3. Choosing the right project

freshfey 15y ago
Can you define #3? Meaning going from easy to difficult? Or starting with a difficult task and trying to solve it (at the beginning everything seems difficult, but yeah :).
- MikeMacMan 15y ago
  I meant choosing a project that is not too difficult, but is interesting. Solve a real problem, even if it's small. One advantage you have is that instead of being a programmer, you have expertise in something else. Are their any problems in your own field that you can solve with software?
- carucez 15y ago
  I implemented a lot of statistics functions to learn how to program in a language. Some of the things I've learned on include: * moving averages * linear regression * matrix operations * matrix lu factorization * polynomial interpolation. * multiple linear regression * cubic spline interpolation * variance, covariance, correlation * gamma function * t-test, t-value calculations One limitation of the above is that it doesn't explore all of a language's features. The above are mostly interested in array processing. There aren't any classes or generic types or what-have-you.
araneae 15y ago
IDEs all the way! I started with Matlab, which was a super gentle way to start. Then I moved to Java+ Eclipse. Now I mostly use geany (linux TextMate). I'm not quite at vi level yet :).

freshfey 15y ago

Can you define #3? Meaning going from easy to difficult? Or starting with a difficult task and trying to solve it (at the beginning everything seems difficult, but yeah :).

MikeMacMan 15y ago
I meant choosing a project that is not too difficult, but is interesting. Solve a real problem, even if it's small. One advantage you have is that instead of being a programmer, you have expertise in something else. Are their any problems in your own field that you can solve with software?
carucez 15y ago
I implemented a lot of statistics functions to learn how to program in a language. Some of the things I've learned on include: * moving averages * linear regression * matrix operations * matrix lu factorization * polynomial interpolation. * multiple linear regression * cubic spline interpolation * variance, covariance, correlation * gamma function * t-test, t-value calculations One limitation of the above is that it doesn't explore all of a language's features. The above are mostly interested in array processing. There aren't any classes or generic types or what-have-you.

araneae 15y ago

IDEs all the way! I started with Matlab, which was a super gentle way to start. Then I moved to Java+ Eclipse. Now I mostly use geany (linux TextMate). I'm not quite at vi level yet :).