How I Failed, Failed, and Finally Succeeded at Learning How to Code

Am I alone in thinking Project Euler is not particularly well suited to learning to program?<p>When I looked into it, many of the problems may be tackled in a programming language through brute force, but cleverer approaches usually come from mathematical manipulations rather than programming insights. The mathematical emphasis didn't seem to lead naturally to higher level programming techniques involving modularity or abstraction beyond the functional level.

Because I'm OCD like this: that code in the banner: the "Hamming" class from _The Laws of Cryptography With Java Code_.

Succinctly explains why programming can be rewarding to do.<p>It also describes the playground people of a certain age had: 'READY&#62;'<p>I hear kids these days can do well learning Python - if they can get an adult to install the dev tools. There's got to be something as accessible and interactive as BASIC was, and that should be everywhere.

Surprisingly good article on how someone learned to program.

<p><pre><code> It's tempting to generalize: If programming is best learned in this playful, bottom-up way, why not everything else? Could there be a Project Euler for English or Biology? </code></pre> My biology book from farming school 10 years ago: On each page there would be questions that you were supposed to think through before continuing. On the next page there would be answers.<p>Most of the questions were serious, but in between there where jokes like "What is the white stuff on the outside of chicken poop?" to which the answer was "It's chicken poop too!" and then a longer explanation about how they get rid of uric acid.<p>(<a href="http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_that_white_stuff_in_chicken_poop" rel="nofollow">http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_that_white_stuff_in_chicke...</a>)

This essay is brilliant! I think the most important takeaway is the last part: it is possible to learn cognitive skills using well-designed software (software coaches would be useful but less so in learning physical activity, e.g. Learning to play tennis).<p>Couple this idea with raw informational input like that offered by the Khan Academy or Wikipedia and you can generalize Kasparov's point to many other fields. This is the future, somebody should do this.

I loved reading this article! While I cut my teeth designing Excel and Access applications using VBA, I ended up using Project Euler to teach myself C#. It was a perfect environment to learn syntax and program flow for the language and ultimately gave me enough confidence to be able to land my first real programming job a few months later.

In the last of the article, the author is basically describing what was depicted in The Matrix - Need a skill? Give me a few seconds to download it and we'll get started...<p>Edit: Among many, many other examples (William Gibson, Star Trek, even Douglas Adams comes quickly to mind)...

I smiled as I saw this at the top. I know web programming's where it's at, but learning Django's been kind of a chore for me. And with an ok math background, Project Euler's been fun so far. Now working on Problem 11 to compute the highest product in a 20x20 matrix. Think nested lists might do the trick.

I could definitely relate to the whole "let me start with a 1500 page tome". I also tried my luck with a Visual C++ brick about 10 years ago, that worked out exactly as described in the article. To some extent I don't feel those books were ever meant for total beginners.

Pointless note: Another way to solve that triangle is to flip the left-most leg of it counterclockwise until it's exactly parallel with the rectangle. It is then plain to see it's half of the rectangle.

Project Euler reminds me of my high-school programming classes in the early 90s, especially the "computer contests". Lots of puzzle-type problems and string manipulation.

while i like project euler, i find rosettacode to be more down-to-earth. in everyday life you're much more likely to have to solve rosettacode's tasks (eg download a page from the web, parse something, generate a bitmap, send a mail) than project euler's math-based tasks.