Programming advice

flynn_jake1 · n00b Joined: 08 Oct 2004 Posts: 32

Hey all,
I am looking to take my programming skills to the next level. I am a junior in a university Computer Science program. I have good grades do well on projects but, I really do not program other than just school work. I have read a decent amount of books and feel I have a good knowledge base but now I need to start applying my skills. I have check out sorceforge to try and work with one of those projects but most just overwhelm me. How have some of the all star programmers here gotten their experience. Anyone have any good recommendations of projects that a semi-rookie could join up on and partipate and actually know what is going on. Also what are some of the better programming books that you would recommend. Thank you for your time
-Jake

Akhouk · Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2004 11:48 pm Post subject:

What type of programming languages do you know? And what type of work do you want to do?

My advice is to start with easy languages like PHP. You can easily find small website projects that are written in PHP that are easy to add some code to. For example, TikiWiki, you could write a simple module for in a few hours.

After that, a script language like Perl or Python are great to know.

And then C/C++. The trouble with most C/C++ projects is that there is often a lot of other things you need to learn like Make files, automake, autoconf etc .

As for books, again it really depends what you actually want to do.

Halcy0n · Posted: Sun Oct 31, 2004 1:31 am Post subject:

I'd personally like to know if there is any good books/sites/anything that cover the autotools. I know GNU has their own documentation, but does anyone know of any other good resources?
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flynn_jake1 · n00b Joined: 08 Oct 2004 Posts: 32

I guess basically I am just looking for some general computer science wisdom. Anything that you have found to be useful and could not have made it without lets hear about it.
Jake

piffle · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 14 Jun 2004 Posts: 98

Books I recommend? Design Patterns by Gamma, et. al, and The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs by Abelson and Sussman. Code Complete from Microsoft Press (I forget the author) is also good. I could go on, but they would be domain- or language-specific.

I am a confirmed academic -- my ivory tower, though still under construction, is already leagues high -- but I can easily recognize that the most progress I made as a programmer came during my professional experience. The broad background from an undergraduate CS degree formed a great basis, but it was actually having to program every day that spurred me on to find the best ways of doing things. Determined laziness in the name of self-interest, really. So, yes, you should find a project to contribute to. Which one? That depends on your interests. Plenty of small-ish projects abound.

Akhouk · Posted: Sun Oct 31, 2004 1:11 pm Post subject:

Halcy0n · Posted: Sun Oct 31, 2004 4:11 pm Post subject:

Akhouk · Posted: Sun Oct 31, 2004 7:45 pm Post subject:

I think you will find it is not hopelessly out of date and might provide a reasonable reference and introduction. However, I probably wouldn't buy it myself

Sleeper · l33t Joined: 12 Nov 2002 Posts: 667

Akhouk · Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2004 1:01 am Post subject:

flynn_jake1 · n00b Joined: 08 Oct 2004 Posts: 32

Carnildo · Guru Joined: 17 Jun 2004 Posts: 594

The thing I've found that helped me the best in writing programs is to write programs. Lots of them. Usually, it's simple things like a utility to convert between arbitrary numerical bases (including non-integer bases -- base pi, anyone?), or an implementation of Minesweeper on the TI-86 (hey, I was bored in Calculus), but I've also written some medium-sized programs, like a multi-page notepad, and larger programs, such as RoboWar II.

Find something you want a computer to do, and write a program to do it.

piffle · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 14 Jun 2004 Posts: 98

teknomage1 · Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2004 4:33 pm Post subject:

On the contrast bandwagon, give scheme a try too. It can really sharpen your eye for algorithms. Sometimes phrasing problems eve simple textbook exercises in a new vocabulary can yield insight into your original solution.

johnnymac · Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2004 9:11 pm Post subject: Programming help

Okay...I've been a professional Software Engineer for a bit now...written embedded device drivers, Web-based enterprise software...blah blah blah....but they all revolve around the basis of learning three languages.

Java
C++
C

Once you learn those languages and have a strong understanding them you'll pick up other languages extremely easy. The biggest hurdle people have to face when learning about programming is how to think. You'll hear people who aren't programmers tell you...you have to be a bit "odd" to be able to look at code all day long....and yes...you do!!

But....the most important thing you'll want to learn is that each language has it's place and purpose. You're not developing device drivers in Java and your not going to want to build Web products with C....
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nightm4re · Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2004 9:36 pm Post subject:

look into doing some OpenGL stuff. Start with a simple GLUT based program, then eventually keep building on it to do cooler stuff. THat's how I got involved with doing spare time projects. My GL stuff evolved to forming a base in Win32 (ya, i was on it back then) instead of GLUT, coming up with ways to automate things, and eventually some game work as well.

Aim small from the start - check out nehe's site for tutorials, and then you can start building on things from there.
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nightm4re · Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2004 9:39 pm Post subject:

flynn_jake1 · n00b Joined: 08 Oct 2004 Posts: 32

I like this learn other languages to contrast to, have any specific ones that may also be useful in other arenas not just the academic one?

teknomage1 · Posted: Tue Nov 02, 2004 6:26 am Post subject:

Well not to be Paul Graham but LISP is sort of the renaisance language of computing. On the Other hand there're things like Ruby which is an experiment in a completely object oriented language building on the syntactic concepts of Perl and Smalltalk. Those are probably biggest change from C++ style coding while still remaining useful.