should i learn to program?

[variant]

I have no programming ability whatsoever unless you count html and css to a reasonable standard.
I dont have any specific goals in mind that would require me to be able to program but i get the impression that it would be usefull. And maby fun.
How hard is it to learn for a compleat novice, is it worth it for me to try and is it something that i could learn myself without going too college or some training school?

[Dolda2000]

I can say that it's certainly possible to learn without taking classes on it. I have admittedly taken programming classes, but I didn't learn anything new from them. All the people I know have also learned programming by themselves.
That being said, I have been learning it since I was five years old, so I can't really say how hard it is to begin learning how to program, since I don't remember that. =)
I guess that it would help if you have at least moderate knowledge of symbolic algebra, but I can't say that it's necessary in order to learn programming.

I can certainly say that it's useful, though. By knowing how to program, I can get my system to do precisely what I want it to do, and often a little more than that, that I realize while actually writing the program.

[variant]

algebra? *DOH!*

anyway.. where would be a good place to start learning?

[bpark]

I'd say start with C++ (Dolda, I know you hate it but I think C++ might be a better place for starters). Once you feel comfortable, you can go two ways. 1. learn C. C is more on the structure programming. 2. learn an OOP language such as C++ and Java.

[fragment]

I'd say start with C++ (Dolda, I know you hate it but I think C++ might be a better place for starters). Once you feel comfortable, you can go two ways. 1. learn C. C is more on the structure programming. 2. learn an OOP language such as C++ and Java.

hehe are you down with OOP yeah you know me. ok ok enough playing around i need to know ive had some programing exp with VB in winblows i use to make automated warez servers for AOHell back in the day (im talking aol 2.5) anywho i have the basics down on if then else's and such and when i look at C code (well im not sure its C code it really could be anything) but when i look at more complex code theres a lot of familares is ther a good book that will help me make an eazy transition from a GUI programing tool to a compleatly text based compiler im planning on takeing a C++ course in college but you need a high lever of math, a level that i just dont have yet(and i thought i would never have to step foot in another math class). anyway i would just like to know what you think of all this

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[scientica]

I'd say start with C++

I remeber staring with Basic (QBasic -- yes, it was on a DOS machine... ), but then I learned C++ (then assembly (intel syntax, not GAS), and just recently begun with java).
If you learn C++ it will get you far, because a lot of code is written in C++ (and if you know C++ you can make sense out of C code), also C++ is intended to portable (ie. making porting between different computer types easier). On top of that most of the API/library references are using C/C++ when giving examples on how to use it (when they're not using some kind of basic like pseudo code).
I learned C++ using a book, experementing with the examples in it, looking at other peoples code. I haven't taken any class in C++ programming, I've learned the most from looking at others code and changing in them to see what happens if I do this or that, sometimes it works, sometimes not - and then finding out why it didn't work is also educative, debugging it's called

[andutt]

I would suggest you to learn to program easy shell and Perl-script from the starters and then if you feel up to it, learn C or C++ for more hardwarebased programlanguages.

[bpark]

Funny, although I might advise on shell scripting, I'd definetly not advise you to learn PERL as the first programming language. I find that PERL syntax is harder than C/C++ to grasp therefore, it might be harder for a novice to grasp this.

[fragment]

hummm i guess ill look into both and see which one i like BTW is there any good o'reilly books on shell scripts??

thanks once again
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[andutt]

There are good bash-scripting howtos on http://www.tldp.org you can look at.