Programmers: Did you have a hard time when you started learning to program?
 

I've been taking a programming course for about 7 weeks now and it started out great and easy but now its super complicated and I'm so lost. I was wondering if this happens to everyone or if its just me.
I was thinking maybe I should quit and switch to an easier language, or theyre all hard lol.

Just wanted feedback on how long it took you before you got good at it, and if you struggled with it at first?

What language are you studying?

It takes time learning how to properly code, i guess it also depends on each individual's background, it helps if you have your mind used to math logic, algorithms, etc...

Once you master a coding language though, it gets a lot easier learning new ones. Having your mind set and used to programming thinking, that is the key.

Yes. I've been programming for 15 years now, and I would say I didn't really get to "professional" levels even though I have been a professional software engineer for many years probably until roughly 4 years ago.

Don't get discouraged, even with my skills and history I still check docs on my languages of choice daily while working. A lot goes into muscle memory but there's still other stuff you cant know all the time.

I wish I had the tools people have today back in 1999 when I started programming. Codecademy.com is a god send.

I was asked by my brother to create a web site to sell his friends surf videos. This was back in 2001 or so. I didn't have a clue, but bought some books and threw a functioning site together in 2 weeks. Got paid about $1700.

So I turned around and coded a porn review site. With in months I was making $1500 from my little site with its crap graphics and crap layout.

Then I reverse engineered a system I saw somebody else doing and it made me $10k a month. And I quit my day job and programmed things for myself as my own boss and employee.

Lately I've been going back in and coding things the "correct" way.

Along the way I learned a lot of programming languages and web related stuff. It really helps to put what you are learning into something functional so you can see it in action. Especially when doing object oriented programming.

What language?

You guys have it so easy these days. The first program I ever entered into a computer was called kill the bit and had to be entered in binary, one byte at a time into a front panel on an 8080 based computer.

This was the code in Octal:

000: 041 000 000 026 200 001 016 000
010: 032 032 032 032 011 322 010 000
020: 333 377 252 017 127 303 010 000

Now when I code in Objective C, a PHP Framework or even plain old C I never forget how much easier programming is now than it once was.

No, it was very funny on start, now is hard time because it's not funny anymore.

It takes time to become good at programming - no matter which language you have chosen.

Actually learning the language itself is the easy part. The real challenge is to gain experience by learning the various algorithms and apply the correct solutions to the right problems. Don't give up, it becomes more and more fun as you progress! :thumbsup

just fork a repo on github and all will be dandy

thanks for the advice youre totally right, its a muscle and after a while you just get better the more you do it.

Im doing Swift which is supposed to be easy but we're doing things with Json and Concurrency and data modeling and it got hard real fast.

Im not ever going to be a developer Im just making my own social app and starting to think I bit off more than I could chew. Anyways I just found a good Udemy course was reduced today for $10, I just bought it and Ill plow through that in the next 5 days to get up to speed.

Years ago I did some asp and javascript. If I knew then what I know now I never would have stopped learning Javascript and would have stuck with it. Live and learn

Fuck, you had Octal to work in. Cry me a river.

Back when I started programming we had to do everything in 0's. They hadn't even invented 1's yet


And we liked it dammit :mad:

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Does anyone program in perl anymore?

Had to walk up hill both ways in the snow just to get the paper the 0's were written on!

You had paper???

Fuck that stuff. We had to etch the 0's into rocks.


And we liked it Dammit :mad:

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omg you are so funny :)

I hear you. And we forked repo on github with a wooden spoon B)

http://s12.postimg.org/m7ykvnxel/perl_small.png

:winkwink:

It's normal because you put so much in your head at the beginning and your head is just getting started around these new concepts. I started with Obj-C and now doing Ruby on Rails and web frontend dev too.

What is the most important thing is to learn the concept more than the language. Stanford has a good objective oriented programming course on iTunes U that you can watch for free. CS108 for objective oriented programming concepts, and CS193 for iOS development.

The language is just the tool, learn the concepts and it gets easier.

If you are building a house, knowing how to use a hammer is important but you don't go far. Learn the engineering concepts of how to build a house first.

Don't worry when you get confused. At the beginning I was looking at lines of code I wrote the week before and did not remember what I was thinking then.

Sorry for my English I'm French Canadian.

FYI, the brain is not a muscle. It's mostly nervous tissue.

thanks! and your Chloe TV website is beautifully done.

Good advice on the free Stanford courses. Now this is sexy! :thumbsup
https://twitter.com/newchloe18/statu...67565443538944

I'm also trying to learn programming, and your website makes me want to give up and go home :)

Doubt if I'll ever be able to produce something that looks as good as that.

Aww thanks! Just keep working hard. I'm coding maybe 10 hours or more per day (except the days I go on cam) for the past 2 years. After my first year it started to be easier. Also the sites like Treehouse, Lynda and CodeSchool they help a lot with learning some languages but that should be only after learning the concepts from CS courses like the ones from Stanford that are free online.

:winkwink:

Calm down gramps.

it's not supposed to be too difficult, especially not some introductory class...

Ironically, failing at programming is how I wound up as a webmaster.

During college I wanted to major in programming cause I liked computers. Had to withdraw from my first C++ programming class cause it was too hard, moved too fast and I couldn't keep up. Was soooo discouraged I decided to switch to a business major thinking it would be the easiest way to finish school. First biz class was Economics 101 where we had to read the cover of the Wall Street Journal daily and discuss an article.

This was 1998 and I was 22. After the 3rd time I read "Seth Warshawsky 23 year old internet porn millionaire" I decided to build a porn site.

And here I am 16 years later. If I didn't fail programming I wouldn't be here :1orglaugh

I've noticed it's a lot like playing guitar. For the first few years, you'll learn and have small successes, but still won't feel like you can truly "play". It simply takes time to master your craft :).

Afters a few years of grinding out projects, you'll hit milestones where things just kind of click and concepts become way easier to understand.

Definitely never stop reading books / online resources either. If you're learning PHP, i'd recommend OOP design pattern books, or learn to use frameworks like laravel, yii, etc so that you'll be conditioned into only using best practices when you code


.... and if you're truly passionate about this and want to make it your career, learn test driven development (ie unit testing), then you open doors to mainstream where the real moneys at hahahah

So true. Writing tests before implementation helps you figuring out how you will build your feature. It's a good exercise and force you to understand your domain before you rush too fast coding a feature.

You can find XCTest tutorials on YouTube for Swift.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

Programming it's plain boring ...

I disagree, I'm at my happiest while I am coding.

Eat, sleep and breathe code. :thumbsup

I have learned coding back in C and Pascal days, so I have some background. As a designer nowadays I get to use bits of JavaScript, CSS, HTML - basically bits of front dev - without a HUGE problem though it does not make me a guru at all.

And yeah, I used to code Prolog and Lisp LOL

Oh my God that's you?? I thought you were a model working with a web designer but youre a model who does her own coding, her own marketing, building her own brand from scratch? That is so fucking cool and smart. I wish I did that when I was young. I have immense respect for that. I hope you go very far. :thumbsup

How'd you like to go home and tell your momma that Gramps just whupped your ass, Sonny boy?


;p

.

Yes that's me! And thanks for saying that :) Now if only the App Store was more open to adult content :Oh crap

I have hard time to put codes in head, but its not that hard to learn basic stuff

:1orglaugh