How legitimate is CodeAcademy for someone just beginning to learn to code? Does anyone here have any experiences they'd like to share with it? Will it truly help me eventually find a career once I know what I'm doing and become certified in a few languages?
Personal events in my life have made it to where 4 years at a traditional school studying CS or something similar is not an option and those I know keep telling me that it isnt necessary. What are your thoughts?
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>cuckacademy
Alright. Then what would you recommend?
I'd rather use Khan Academy. I feel that there is a lot of reading and answering questions and then quickly moving on without reinforcement with codecademy. KA actually builds on top of the last lesson, and it's very interactive.
Step 1, acquire Linux (assuming not already have it.) if you don’t have a spare computer for it, dual boot partition on your main. Any ‘flavor’ will do, choose the easiest to use if you’re new.
2. Download ‘gcc’ with your new Linux package manager, you’ll probably come it with it installed but might not.
3. Learn C. Watch some tutorials on YouTube or read a little bit of a learn C pdf. Start following along.
4. Once you understand the bare minimum, read this tldp.org
5. Pointers will probably be confusing, but once you get to a situation where you actually need them, you’ll understand em perfectly.
You can not heed my advice, but I wouldn’t waste my time with anything but C to start with. Not at first at least
No
God help you if you’re OP
Lot's of people I've asked recommend HTML or CSS to begin with. Why C?
No? how come
their java course is absolute shit.
He isn't.
I'm not a pro at all but I recommend you start with C. A lot of other languages were influenced by C, if you understand C or most of it you will be able to pick up any other lang with relative ease
Code academy helped me greatly with html and css. Give it a try op.
HTML and CSS are not programming languages. HTML is a markup language and can only define the basic structure of a webpage. You will learn virtually none of the foundations of programming. CSS also is not a programming language, and can only define styles for a markup document, like HTML. C is programming, those are not.
SICP
This is based and redpilled advice. C is the ideal beginner language because of it's simplicity. You can learn the entire language from a short book (The C Programming Language), and it will be a solid foundation to learn more esoteric languages.
Listen to this guy. Start with C.
Use books, not cuckacademy.
Don't start with python.
Also this.
Why start with C? What's wrong with python before C? Redpill me and maybe I'll buy the meme book
If Python is so bad, then why did it replace Lisp in the MIT course which used SICP?
>gcc
Why? What did he mean by this?
My friends keep telling me to start with c#. Is that bad advice? I have ZERO experience.
>Don't start with python.
Why not? Teaching programming basics is the one thing Python is actually good at since it's basically executable pseudocode. Learning C afterward is very easy.
Because it's easier to teach.
I never said python was bad. I said don't start with it (or any dynamically typed language) if you want to learn how to program properly. The reason for this is because it will leave you with massive knowledge gaps.
gcc is the program that turns a text file (my_program.c) into a program that can be run
learncpp.com
As much as some people dislike c++, is a reliable, fast, and choice oriented introduction to object oriented programming, the instructions are great, and easy to understand, and there are quizzes almost every lesson to reinforce what you've learned, as well as a test at the end of every unit, you don't need an account for any of it, and you can go at your own pace. It's an amazing way to go from knowing nothing about programming to having a solid understanding of common object oriented concepts
don't listen to that C lowlife. JavaScript or Python are the way to go.
I forgot to mention, learning a lower level language like c++ is going to be harder than starting with python, but if you start from c++ (closer to the hardware) it makes it so much easier to understand other languages like python (farther from the hardware) and how they work, you'll also have to learn a bit about the hardware aspects of a computer, but I would argue none of these are downsides
>The reason for this is because it will leave you with massive knowledge gaps.
Only for shit langs that let you cobble things together in nonsensical ways, which is why web dev is such a horrible way to learn. Python will still yell at you for doing things that objectively do not make sense, so I don't think it's too bad.
> shit langs
programmers can be shit, languages not so much.
However, learning to manage memory, use pointers, implement interfaces for data structures and how compilers and pre-processers work will teach you a lot of things that in python are just taken for granted. Moving from procedural to OOP is much easier than vice-versa.
>programmers can be shit, languages not so much.
Look up BANCStar and MUMPS, see if you still feel that way.
>However, learning to manage memory, use pointers, implement interfaces for data structures and how compilers and pre-processers work will teach you a lot of things that in python are just taken for granted.
Duh, which is why it's important to learn it afterward. Python is useful because it spells out things that experienced devs don't consciously think about it, which makes the first hurdle easy to overcome.
>Moving from procedural to OOP is much easier than vice-versa.
I agree, but in idiomatic Python, OOP is fully optional anyway. You will need to warn to not use classes unless absolutely necessary, but considering how ubiquitous OOP is, I'd say this is inevitable.
>Look up BANCStar and MUMPS, see if you still feel that way.
You've missed the point.
>Duh, which is why it's important to learn it afterward. Python is useful because it spells out things that experienced devs don't consciously think about it, which makes the first hurdle easy to overcome.
If by "spells out" you mean "hides", and if by "first hurdle" you mean "starting to program", then I'd say sure, at the cost of ignorance and efficiency of learning.
>You will need to warn to not use classes unless absolutely necessary
You will need to warn about more than that - arguably, you will need to warn about everything that's hidden client-side.
>If by "spells out" you mean "hides", and if by "first hurdle" you mean "starting to program", then I'd say sure, at the cost of ignorance and efficiency of learning.
Every high level language "hides" things, in the strictest sense. You may as well teach people assembly if you think this is never acceptable.
>You will need to warn about more than that - arguably, you will need to warn about everything that's hidden client-side.
What makes you think this isn't also necessary with C?
learn
>C
>HTML
>CSS
the former to not be a brainlet, the two latter so you can flex your desktop to normies
This is good advice. I owe it to C, I don't use it as a primary language, but its how I got started before learning Java, C++ and C#. Now I program efficiently in each.
>Every high level language "hides" things, in the strictest sense. You may as well teach people assembly if you think this is never acceptable.
Learning assembly is a good idea. Learning math, too, is a good idea. Again, we're talking about starting to learn programming via a static type system here, as opposed to a dynamic type system. This will make the biggest difference with respect to one's depth of knowledge.
>What makes you think this isn't also necessary with C?
Arguably, it is. If we're to take this idea to it's logical (albeit extreme) conclusion, learning "everything" there is to know about Python will ultimately involve learning assembly, if not binary.
Obviously there are limits here. But considering the entire python language is a wrapper around C (the python interpreter is written in C) it would behoove a novice to have some knowledge of C before (or at the same time) as he learns python.
Is this book just a meme around here or is it actually a definitive resource still? Good starting point?
absolutely.
Also Kochan's "Programming in C", which uses K&R as a primary source heavily.
It's still a solid base for learning the language and concepts itself, but for actually doing full modern standard C project, I recommend 21st Century C
It's a good book if you've never programmed before. It'll teach the entire C language and fundamental programming concepts succinctly and quickly. Once you run through it, which shouldn't take very long, you'll have a very solid programming base to build on and can go to more practical books on C or other languages and start building.
Fucking based.
OP, here. So, Ive read everyone's responses up until this post. What ive gathered from it is that It would be good if I learned C and Python, with HTML and CSS as optional things that would help in niche situations. It would be best if I picked up "Programming with C: second edition" because its an effective foundation for learning, but after that, maybe pick up "21st Century C"