Developers of Nebulous - What got you into programming and how did you learn?

[Ammo Man]

I've been starting to get into programming myself since I am going to college soon and I'm planning on majoring in computer science.

I gained my interest in programming after I took my first AP Comp sci course in 10th grade. I learned how the internet and computers in general work and a bit about binary code. I also learned Java but my teacher taught us using code.org. I seemed to have a bit more talent for programming than others in my class and everyone used me to fix their errors, which I had a lot of fun doing but after the course was done, I was completely lost without code.org holding my hand. I ultimately lost all motivation to continue and got overwhelmed with my school work in 11th grade anyway so I stopped.

Now I'm in my 2nd semester of 12th grade, and I've been wanting to get back into it. I just thought I'd hear from others first.

 

[Freelok]

Got bored two years ago so I decided to pick up and old idea I had and tried to make a gamemode out of it. Taught myself along the way- got no real progress done. After that started developing for a few servers on the downlow and getting better at development with lua in general. Opened a few servers on my own and really got the hang of out, though I've slowed down quite a bit since the Summer. I taught myself completely, it was a learning process.

I'm back working with lua and servers in general, though I find myself helping my friends fix their shitty Python code more often than not.

 

[Goatson]

Started out trying JavaScript coding out of boredom, found it eh, felt like I needed to learn it properly

Now am studying infotech on a formal level, so far been working with C++, HTML+CSS, light JavaScript. Gonna be moving onto Java and C# next term.

Planning to study data security at Uni, and from the looks of it ill be doing my mandatory service in the Data Sec section of the army aswell. Very nais

code.org

my 10 year old sister uses this lul

 

[Ammo Man]

my 10 year old sister uses this lul

Literally all my assignments were on it. She didnt even teach us she just said “go on code.org and continue where u left off”. Useless.

 

[Zombine]

Literally all my assignments were on it. She didnt even teach us she just said “go on code.org and continue where u left off”. Useless.

code.org is a substitute for real programming training. It should not be taken seriously, and I'm disappointed how many schools here in California are relying on it; it paints a very false representation of programming, and while it can help stimulate interest and assist with some problem solving skills, it's only good at teaching coding, not programming.
I had to teach a high school's AP Computer Science class recently (it was a sham, long story short), and was appalled at how heavily they relied on this website.

To answer the post, I started programming with Python, and then started modding for minecraft and learned Java through that. Fooled around with making mods, plugins, etc. After that I found gmod and got into Lua. Now I'm going through university receiving actual instruction and pursuing a CS degree with a focus in Software Engineering.

There's no magic solution to learning programming, or getting into it. It's a very self-motivated and self-taught field at times, but what helps is having a consistent project to work on. Find something you're interested in creating or contributing to. For me, it has largely been gmod work, as it was simple and was aligned with my hobby of gaming.

However, from everything I've learned, I will not recommend modding as something to sustain your programming journey.

If you truly are serious about it, the advice I can give is to find an open-source project that you like. Read the code, go through it, try to understand it; simultaneously, try a course on codeacademy at least so you can understand the basics of how to actually write the code. The actual conceptual understanding will probably come from dissecting a real, well-documented and maintained project.

Pick a point and start. Anywhere. If you don't understand how it works, Google specifics, or use stackoverflow—which can be a great help, but don't overly rely on them, as they can be a bit strange.
Experiment, try things, make simple programs in a language of your choice, whatever you're comfortable with. The process starts with whatever you want.

What really helps though is actual classes. Many people are self-taught and some are successful, but in my opinion nothing beats having someone from the industry teaching a course. Having a consistent schedule and deadlines to turn in small projects and assignments really helps, and what I like to do is pointlessly improve the assignment. If you can make it better, do it. Assignment doesn't ask you to? Do it anyway. If you want a feature or you think it would enhance it, look up how to do it, and get it done. Make it your program.

I hope that's at least somewhat helpful, though I'm absolutely not an expert, and everyone learns differently, so do what you find to work best for you.

 

[Dr.Towers]

I've spent 5 years trying to program a 3d engine in Game Maker 7.0 simply because I was too stupid to directly start programming into an actual 3d engine. Then I passed to university assignments, Unity programming and currently am trying to grasp lua so I can do the gmod addonerinos

 

[Koch]

I found it fun and taught myself Lua, PHP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript. Now know C#, Python, Golang, Ruby and various other languages as well since I now program at work

edit: i have not done any classes, everything is self-taught or taught at work

 

[shibe]

a lot of people i know started with java or python
check out this epic finnish java course, knew some people that finished it and they were pretty excited about it, it's not overly simple as other websites or smth
http://moocfi.github.io/courses/2013/programming-part-1/

 

[Mic15000]

I'm currently learning with Python, and boy I'm starting to believe coding is just a big puzzle.

 

[Ammo Man]

code.org is a substitute for real programming training. It should not be taken seriously, and I'm disappointed how many schools here in California are relying on it; it paints a very false representation of programming, and while it can help stimulate interest and assist with some problem solving skills, it's only good at teaching coding, not programming.
I had to teach a high school's AP Computer Science class recently (it was a sham, long story short), and was appalled at how heavily they relied on this website.

Yeah, many schools in Florida too. It was apart of some One hour of code campaign they had going to get students more interested in programming. I think it's good to do a few assignments on it but to base an entire course on it is ridiculous.

What really helps though is actual classes.

The classes at my school are bad. I've find a few online that I'll be looking into. I heard they had courses at my local library too so I went to check it out and the instructor informed me it was a girls only class and they had none for boys I was like wtf. I'm close to college though so that'll probably be the time I actually peak.

I hope that's at least somewhat helpful, though I'm absolutely not an expert, and everyone learns differently, so do what you find to work best for you.

This is the best advice I've gotten and very helpful, thank you!

I found it fun and taught myself Lua, PHP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript. Now know C#, Python, Golang, Ruby and various other languages as well since I now program at work

edit: i have not done any classes, everything is self-taught or taught at work

Do they ever ask you to do assignments in languages you don't know? if so, do they teach you? How long do you have to learn it?

a lot of people i know started with java or python
check out this epic finnish java course, knew some people that finished it and they were pretty excited about it, it's not overly simple as other websites or smth
http://moocfi.github.io/courses/2013/programming-part-1/

Thanks, I'll be sure to check it out

 

[Koch]

No, I dictate what languages I want to use within certain limits (C#, Python, JavaScript/node)

 

[jamEs]

Self-taught here, I did cs for a few months but switched to engineering so I only had 6 weeks of assembler and C class last year. Before that I did JavaScript (jQuery and node.js), Java, PHP, Lua and Python.

I feel like classes are hit or miss. I have an intro to programming class which covers up until to some object oriented programming with Python, but it won't get you super far.

The real kicker is finding a project to play around with. There's about 3 obstacles you'll have tl get through:

1. Coming up with something. I think it's totally fine if you copy the idea of another project to recreate. Your own ideas are usually pretty broad, don't have a goal in mind, and if you do, they're gonna change over time.
2. The language. It takes a while before you start to feel the syntax and in some cases, objects. You can only learn by doing. Once you've got this down, other languages will be learnt faster too.
3. This is the main obstacle I had for Lua in gmod: knowing wtf you can use (honestly counts for all languages exept hooks). There's an insane amount of hooks and functions that I would've never known about had I never scrolled randomly through the wiki to check them all out at least once. You can't create an addon with just flow control and some objects. Your objects need to have particles orbiting around them, have them emit random sounds, shit like that. If you don't know those libraries exist you're gonna gave a hard time. Docs are so important and useful, don't feel bad about looking them up at all.

I started around the age of 9 (means jack shit, I didn't program hours a day up until now) but honestly I never was able to create something useful or meaningful until a few years ago.

Typed on phone so couldn't work out some partd properly, just quote if I need to expand on something

[doublepost=1547280166][/doublepost]

No, I dictate what languages I want to use within certain limits (C#, Python, JavaScript/node)

Aaaaa I want your job