I ant to learn to code. I don't know where to start!
I did some Basic, PASCAL, C/C++ at school/college, but never kept going with it. I've read some books on Ruby, Python, Haskell, Javascript but don't know where to start to learn "properly". I know the answer to the question "which language?" is "whichever solves the current problem best!", but where does one start?
Do I just pick which one I like the look of best? IS there even a best place to start?
Any help and guidance would be greatly appreciated!<p>Dave
You will need to know HTML and CSS. They are basically easy, but you want to create some static pages first. Next, you will want to try using Ruby on Rails or PHP. PHP is probably easier to learn but its functions are less intuitive. You can find a plethora of information at <a href="http://www.php.net" rel="nofollow">http://www.php.net</a> and the documentation of the language is phenomenal. If you have a shell account with your web site, that would be good, but it is not required with PHP as any file ending in .php will likely run on servers that support it. Start with <? echo "Hello, world!"; ?> and go from there! You will need to know how to use an FTP program to upload your files and a web site where you can play, and you are good to go. Getting started is the easy part. Breaking bad habits is the hard part, but you must get your feet wet before jumping in the ocean.
<a href="http://learnpythonthehardway.org/" rel="nofollow">http://learnpythonthehardway.org/</a><p>I'm starting to feel like a shill for pushing this one on people, but it really is one of the best "learn to program" books I've seen.
I just launched <a href="http://peanutty.org" rel="nofollow">http://peanutty.org</a> - it's still very raw, but the point is to help people learn how to code. There might not be enough there, but I'd be happy to help you figure out how to code your own levels.