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[diane2jsmith55]

Well...the tug is becoming a bit much.  I think I'm ready to start learning how to program slowly.  I feel too limited by my current computer skillset and I'm having way too many ideas and becoming too frustrated with how to deal with it.  I'm thinking of getting into dot Net and C sharp.  I think that's a good beginning for a newbie and the combo will mean fast applications I think.

I've held off on this for years.  I'm totally the kind of person that is drawn to programming.  I've become such a software geek over the years, I know exactly what I want in programs.  I programmed the TI calculators back in high school and got pretty good at it.  I took an introductory class in my freshman year in college for programming.  I did very well in that.  I've just never plunged in because of my other hobbies and I knew it was the kind of thing that would suck me in in a dangerous way.

One thing that I've learned over the years about taking up new things is to just dive in and do it.  I'm inclined to study a lot up front and ask a lot of questions before even getting my hands on something.  But as an adult, that can prevent you from actually starting and I end up in a perpetual state of learning and never doing.

[amahoney]

Good for you!  Programming can be fun -- it's creative, in a way, and you can control exactly what you're doing.  It can also be awfully frustrating, though:  be patient with yourself.  I worked in the software industry for years and, as a job, I found it soul-killing, painful work.  But as a humanist, I find it really useful to be able to mark up a text, foodle some conversion programs, generate LaTeX or RTF from a marked-up text, crunch statistics, whatever.  Programming a few hours a month is enough for me, but I couldn't do what I do without it.

As for what language to start with, it doesn't matter -- pick something you can use at once, and branch out when you need to.  C# is fine;  Perl is convenient too;  heck, good old Fortran has its uses as well.  (OK, that dates me, doesn't it?)

Start with a task you want to do and learn enough stuff that you can do the task -- then worry about fancy refinements.  What's your main field?

[polly_mer]

heck, good old Fortran has its uses as well.  (OK, that dates me, doesn't it?)

It doesn't date you as much as you think.  With the rise in the supercomputing clusters and the millions of lines of legacy code, someone who is proficient in FORTRAN77 is in good shape in the scientific computing world, although most people also have a scripting language (or six) and C or C++. 

OP, I would suggest learning python if you are just programming for the fun of it or figuring out what would be most useful in terms of what you want to do in the classroom.  Would html be useful to make that CMS do what you want it to do when clicking the buttons doesn't work?  How about java for nifty applets to have interactive things for your students?  Would programming a math tool like Matlab be of use to you and your students?

You are right that you will get better faster by choosing a specific thing you want to do and then figuring out how to do it rather than taking a lot of classes.  On the other hand, I've had good results with getting a "Learn Whatever in X days" book and a reference book, working through the first several days as expected in the learning book (often in a single afternoon), and then jumping in to do what I want to do while consulting my books or doing internet searches to dig up the terms to look up in my books to make it work.

Good luck and have fun!

[nebo113]

I regret that I avoided learning a programming language, as I think it would have benefited my brain...seriously.

Go for it!

[professor_pat]

Maybe this thread would be better placed in "Tech Talk"?

[pocksuppet]

Maybe this thread would be better placed in "Tech Talk"?

No, this is as good of a place as any for a spam set-up. 

(Come on people, this one is obvious ...)

[professor_pat]

Yeah, that was my thought too, but I usually try to give the benefit of the doubt until that first link appears. We'll see how long that takes in this case.

[pocksuppet]

Yeah, that was my thought too, but I usually try to give the benefit of the doubt ...

I stopped doing that long ago, when I realized that I am always right.

[nebo113]

Yeah, that was my thought too, but I usually try to give the benefit of the doubt ...

I stopped doing that long ago, when I realized that I am always right.

Oh darn!  I wondered but since the last time I told a troll it was a troll and was reprimanded by my dear foramites, I was giving this one the benefit of the doubt.

Hey, where are the Foraoombas????

[daniel_von_flanagan]

I think I'm ready to start learning how to program slowly.

So, what new course or book or website do you recommend for someone who wants to learn to be a slow programmer?  I can think of a few resources for learning to program quickly, but none for learning slowly.

(Though I do have unfond memories of writing programs in COBOL on cardpunch machines - that was about as slow a programming process as I've ever been through, exacerbated by having such low priority that they'd only run my jobs in the middle of the night.) - DvF

[mystictechgal]

I think I'm ready to start learning how to program slowly.

So, what new course or book or website do you recommend for someone who wants to learn to be a slow programmer?  I can think of a few resources for learning to program quickly, but none for learning slowly.

(Though I do have unfond memories of writing programs in COBOL on cardpunch machines - that was about as slow a programming process as I've ever been through, exacerbated by having such low priority that they'd only run my jobs in the middle of the night.) - DvF

Overall, I hate programming, which is why I got into the systems and operations side of IT. I can do it, I just don't like to. I loved COBOL, though. Picking up enough about it, as a keypunch operator, from keypunching the programmer's cards, and checking with them to correct their code as I punched (one guy didn't appreciate my temerity, everyone else appreciated it--and his code never compiled correctly, anyway) is what set me on the path to my career, and my former marriage. Without COBOL I would not have realized I could make it on my own amd inspired me to dump my first husband, i would not have subsequently had 26 wonderful years of marriage (the dumping and the getting together took more than a year--no causality), nor a 30+ year career that led to vacations and adventures around the globe. If it would bring it all back, I would program in COBOL 12+ hours a day for the rest of my life. And, I hate programming. (My husband loved to program. We were the perfect IT match.)

[daniel_von_flanagan]

I loved COBOL, though.

COBOL was an entry for many women of our generation into IT departments, which often led to management jobs in good companies.

Still.

000100 IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
000200 PROGRAM-ID. PRODUCT.
000300 PROCEDURE DIVISION.
000400 ACCEPT X.
000500 ACCEPT Y.
000100 MULTIPLY X BY Y GIVING Z.
000100 DISPLAY "THE PRODUCT IS", Z.

Ugh. - DvF

[polly_mer]

I loved COBOL, though.

COBOL was an entry for many women of our generation into IT departments, which often led to management jobs in good companies.

Still.

000100 IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
000200 PROGRAM-ID. PRODUCT.
000300 PROCEDURE DIVISION.
000400 ACCEPT X.
000500 ACCEPT Y.
000100 MULTIPLY X BY Y GIVING Z.
000100 DISPLAY "THE PRODUCT IS", Z.

Ugh. - DvF

When I was job searching and interviewing around the year 2000, I was frequently asked whether I could program in COBOL in addition to the languages listed on my resume.  Unfortunately (fortunately?), I could not and I wasn't interested enough in getting a pure-programming, definite-short-term job with a business to volunteer to learn.

[mystictechgal]

I loved COBOL, though.

COBOL was an entry for many women of our generation into IT departments, which often led to management jobs in good companies.

Still.

000100 IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
000200 PROGRAM-ID. PRODUCT.
000300 PROCEDURE DIVISION.
000400 ACCEPT X.
000500 ACCEPT Y.
000100 MULTIPLY X BY Y GIVING Z.
000100 DISPLAY "THE PRODUCT IS", Z.

Ugh. - DvF

Well, it was developed by a woman... When I started as a part-time key puncher my voices were limited. The programs that came t me were either RPG or COBOL. I knew nothing of either. Imagine the reaction of the programmer on having his entire program fail spectacularly because no one told me that RPG was position specific. I only made that mistake once. My interest was piqued' originally, because COBOL used real words, yet, depending upon section, the definitions meant that they could no be spelled the same way. I started out wanting to correct spelling. After an explanation I could catch where they might have wanted misspelling A, when they'd made misspelling B, where B was perfectly appropriate if they'd spelled it that way in section C. When I eventually took both RPG and COBOL I earned A's in both. (My boss thought using a template for RPG was "cheating". He would randomly change numbers in Payroll just to see what they would do, and threatened to fire any of the programmers who encrypted their code so that he couldn't change it.  He was an a**hole. See venting.)

[daniel_von_flanagan]

My interest was piqued' originally, because COBOL used real words

The real words had a point - as the standard language for implementing accounting applications, having the commands be easily human-readable made it easier to find errors, especially if it was being checked over by an accountant.  The scientific-computing FORTRAN equivalent for making sure the code was correct was just hubris.

I did my first serious computing on a 360/70, and had the choice between COBOL and PL/I.  I learned both and then, faced with the prospect of programming in one or the other, shot myself.

Your boss was an idiot, and probably cost your company a ton of money. - DvF