Beginning Programming
Many people would like to master programming, but few will ever be able to call themselves programmers. Is it really that hard to pick up? Computer programming is a skill that anyone can pick up, given enough patience and practice. My purpose in this article is to furnish you with a starting point for learning how to program a computer.
Why program? Programming exercises the mind. It is a great tester of patience and perseverance. Programming can deliver a feature-packed, well-designed, bug-free software. This could contribute to making life, or using the computer, easier for yourself or others. If you are looking for a good source of income, programming could be it.
What are the requirements to be a programmer? If you were to attempt to answer this question, I expect that you would say time. This is correct. If you don‘t have time, you won‘t be able to learn programming. However, I believe your effort, which is put into programming, is an even bigger requirement to learn to program. What about money? It depends on your target language. Typically, if it is a Windows language, you will have to purchase it. However, Linux languages are generally free. The knowledge of how to get around on the operating system that you are targeting is the biggest prerequisite of learning to program software. Without it, you will be lost not knowing what various functions or procedures do. All you need to begin programming is a brain, a computer with an internet connection for research, and some spare time.
Your next question might be, “Is that all that is essential?” There are even more pieces that, although not necessary, will help you if you have them. The first one is that you need to enjoy stationary jobs since programming involves sitting at a computer. The pre-programmer should like using the computer. Programmers must be drawn to solving hard problems. Programs have bugs, or problems, hidden below the surface, and digging them out can require a great deal of time, effort, and brain work.
To determine what language to learn ask yourself, “What am I going to do with my software?” PHP (Hypertext Pre-Processor) is a language designed for web programming. This language can do anything from powerful operations, such as manipulating databases to low-end functions like working with characters (strings).
Object Pascal/Delphi is a language wonderfully suited for programming Windows software. This language is very powerful when it comes to almost any kind of database, including, but not limited to, Paradox, Access, SQL, and many others.
Visual Basic is the industry standard. It’s wide array of target audiences range from Windows to PocketPC and .NET applications.
Even though we have briefly touched on programming languages, I am now going to go into a more detailed look at this subject. One thing that programmers need to watch is what the “industry standard” for programming is. FoxPro and Fortran are out-dated languages. While still in use, their demand for programmers is low because there are other more powerful languages. As long as you keep with the industry standard, and have experience in other languages, you will have a lot better chance at having your job be programming. These three languages that we are going to look at now are relatively easy to learn, have their pro’s and con’s, and are very close to the industry standard in each of their target audiences.
When I turned 10, Dad announced that he was going to get Delphi 4, and I couldn’t wait until I could start programming. Within minutes after I had installed it, I had written my very first full-fledged Windows application. Each time I opened Delphi, I learned something new. That is how easy Delphi is to learn.
I think that Delphi is the easiest language that you can start out using.
It has a awesome form creator, fantastic debugger, and a creative code
designer, where you write your own code. The operating systems that Delphi
runs on is Windows and Linux. Borland, Delphi‘s producer, is coming
out with the compatibility with new technology, .NET (the bridge between
the Internet and your computer), which will allow applications to work
on the internet, Windows, Linux, and PocketPC 2002 .NET.
There is only one negative with Delphi. Cost! Delphi is expensive and so are some of its components. The components price is quickly overridden by the number of free components. Expense if the only negative I find with Delphi.
What are Delphi’s positives? Debugger, form creator, code designer, and, flexibility with operating systems. Object Pascal, Delphi’s language, is a great stepping stone into PHP, Visual Basic, or almost any other language. Object Pascal is a strongly typed language, which means that when you declare its variables, which is like a container where you store a value for future use, you must declare what kind of variable it is.
My recommendation on Delphi books is:
The Tomes of Delphi Win32 Shell API - Windows 2000 Edition - This book has really supported me when working with the Shell API, something that almost all programmers have to do.
Borland Delphi How-To: The Definitive Delphi Problem-Solver - This book has been greatly helpful to me in some main issues in programming
Websites:
http://bdn.borland.com - The official Borland Developer Network.
http://www.torry.net - A huge area of hundreds if not thousands of components.
I think that PHP is the best web programming language available. This language is a widely used, general-purpose language. It is designed for Web development and can be embedded into HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language).
PHP has unlimited resources, great documentation, and easy-to-learn syntax (code). Web programming could not be better than with PHP. The power of MySQL (a free database) is right at your fingertips with PHP, and using the functions included with PHP, is unleashed with a couple of lines of code. I have greatly benefited from this language. PHP runs on a variety of operating systems, including Solaris, Linux, and Windows. Even though PHP is not object oriented, you can manipulate HTML or JavaScript, not Java, to work with PHP. I recommend this language for anybody who wants to do web programming.
What about ASP, ColdFusion, and those other web languages? ColdFusion is thousands of dollars for their cheapest version. ASP is very pricey too, because in order to develop for it, you must have Visual Studio, or Visual Basic, which retails over a thousand dollars. You would have to run these languages off of a Windows computer, and Windows isn’t inexpensive either.
Websites for PHP
http://www.PHP.net - A handy feature on PHP.net is to type in the function name, after the website. For example, for the more information on the function “strpos”, you would type http://www.PHP.net/strpos.
http://www.Zend.com - A website with plenty of articles and tutorials on PHP.
Visual Studio .NET, is a great tool for Windows and web development, today. It has incredible features, such as ASP (Active Server Pages) development, excellent code insight, feature-packed debugger, and a fancy component palette. Visual Studio .NET definitely is a attractive piece of software, fantastically designed to make programs that look even better. Even though its Help file isn’t very good, other features override this. I have really enjoyed working in Visual Basic .NET. Because Visual Basic is an “industry standard,” and has been around for quite a while, it has a huge amount of resources on the web. One major disadvantage to this language is that it is not strongly typed, so it is harder to learn because not being strongly typed provides for sloppy coding. Another disadvantage to Visual Studio .NET is the price of the components. Very few components are free with Visual Studio .NET.
I hope that this article will
be a help for those who are interested in programming, to give you starting
point in programming. In conclusion, I would recommend that if you want
to begin programming, you start using Delphi. It is a very easy language
to learn and has a lot of available material. After you learn Delphi,
I would recommend adding on another language, like PHP or Visual Basic.
Now to Amazon.com to order your first
programming book!