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> The #1 thing I told him to do is start by programming small, useless programs I couldn't disagree more. Seeing useful results on day 1 is a major motivator.
by leeoniya 12y ago
> The #1 thing I told him to do is start by programming small, useless programs
I couldn't disagree more. Seeing useful results on day 1 is a major motivator. Doing purely theoretical tasks for the sake of understanding is mind-numbingly boring. You only need to get into the details after you see the way to just get it working. I think this is why weakly typed, high-level scripting languages are so good at starting out with. Learning pointer arithmetic in C as a first exercise never made anyone want to program more.
- stevewepay 12y agoThat is the point I'm making: start small, make useless programs and see results quickly. If you start from scratch, trying to tackle something big will only frustrate you because there's too many things you need to learn before you can get a complex program up and running. No one needs a program that outputs the listing of a directory, but if you can get that working, then that's a huge accomplishment, especially for someone that hasn't taken formal programming classes.
- leeoniya 12y agoi guess everyone has their threshold and qualifiers for "useless" :)