self-taught programmer or schooled?

[kraylus]

im 21 and im trying to teach myself how to program C out of 3 different books. one is mentioned in a previous thread which is aimed at dos users (it's an old book). im starting with that because it's very dumbed down and it's exactly what i need. the other book is a linux programming for beginners book. it assumes you already know basic C though it claims that it's not necessary. i intend to get into that once i actually do know basic C

i find it very slow going primarily because i have very little free time in which i can do this... i was just wondering if i should consider taking classes on the weekends at some local community college.

i know, it all depends on the person and how motivated blah blah blah. im just wanting to know how many of us out there are fully self-taught (perhaps books dont count as self-taught?) but are able to make those incredible apps like vi or emacs. or are the self-taught programmers destined to making hello world programs?

in a nutshell... am i wasting my time or should i press on?

ryan
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[garo]

c/c++,perl,bash,... all from the books
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[Valen]

I've learned Scheme/Lisp,C,C++ and Java from examples (mainly) and books/online sources (supplementary).
At school I was taught Pascal, and at work I was sent on course to learn JSPs and servlets.
I would say my skills in both classes are equal (although it should be noted that when you are learning one language your skills in all others increase as well). I have made good (IMHO, but not incredible) programs in C++ and JSP/Servlet with java. My only advice would be to avoid focusing on the syntax (which you tend to do when using books for a specific language) and focus on the algorithms and concepts.

[eyevee99]

c/c++ and assorted scripting languages (php javascript asp) all self taught. I now develop games for a living in c/c++.

[rac]

I'm completely self-taught, and I've been programming for 20+ years. A couple of bits of advice: find a project, something that sounds fun to you, and use that as a hook. One of my favorite early programs was an adaptive tic-tac-toe playing game - it modified its own percentages for making different moves based on how it had done in the past. Also, don't be afraid to rewrite things. Try something out, then take another look at the design once you get close and see if there's a clearer way to do things. Try building things both from the top down and from the bottom up. See which sort of problems are suited to each style. Don't let yourself get paralyzed. Just write and write and if you get a block, switch to some other project or some other part of the program. Hang in there.
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[Lovechild]

I'm studing to become an Information- and Communications technology Engineer. I'm being schooled in C++ and x386 Assembler, later in the course we will be replacing C++ with Java or C# (the management hasn't decided yet).

So schooled.

[mihochan]

I'd say that teaching yourself is the way to go, but why start with C?

You'd be able to accomplish more with a higher level language.

Java is not a bad place to start in my opinion. It is simple, well-documented and Sun procide some really excellent tutorials over the .NET (oops!)

Tom
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[eyevee99]

I'd done the basics in high school, and some cobol at uni (while becoming an accountant, ack!). Then I started with Javascript. That gave me the basics of the c style languages and I moved into C/C++ development from there.

:D

Only been doing that for around a year, had been a dabbler forever prior to that.

:)

[cvk]

I'm an application/database developer and I learned about 90% of what I know now in everyday project work. As I started to work, I knew some C and was quite good at Pascal. Right now I don't program neither C nor Pascal anymore, but it has helped me much to understand the basics.

If you feel stuck, you could of course take a programming class, although my experience shows that they barely help, because most of the time I felt either bored or completely clueless, but that's just my opinion...

Btw: Three books worth buying:
- "The C++ Programming Language" by Bjarne Stroustrup
- "The C Programming Language" by Kernighan, Ritchie
- "Algorithms in C" by Robert Sedgewick

cvk

[Zadeh]

I'm a senior computer science and math major and have also taught C Programming classes so I think I can give you some good advice.

As far as I'm concerned, just about every single person who programs is "self-taught." Whether they were introduced to it through their own curiosity or took a course, most of the "work" involved was done by themselves. Classes and instructors are primarily a guide in my opinion. They can save you some time, but they will cost you some money. :)

A few things I would recommend if you want to learn C are:
1) Lurk in some of the #C channels on IRC.
2) Lurk on comp.lang.c and read as much there and related ng's as you can.
3) Write lots of mini-programs to test any ideas that you come up with.
4) Study some fairly simple, existing code and then do something with it.

As for books, contrary to some of the recommendations above I wouldn't recommend anyone who's new to programming to read "The C Programming Language" or Bjarne's "The C++ Programming Language." Those books don't offer enough newbie hand-holding, in my experience.

If your end goal is to just learn programming concepts in general, you might be better off initially using a more high level language.

Also, the language itself is a fairly small part thats involved when you consider what goes into making a sophisticated piece of software like vi or emacs. (Just because I know the English language, doesn't mean I can write new book on general relativity :)

[mmealman]

I started programming when I was 12, was doing assembly at 15 and database apps around 18 or so. By the time I got to college I really didn't need the courses.

Taking a college course if you're new wouldn't hurt. Being able to self teach is vital though, because college won't be able to teach you 90% of the stuff you need to know. And you have to constantly self teach yourself new things as the computer world advances.

I'd also recommend against C as a starter language. Have you checked out Python?

[Warri0r]

Just a couple of points, some of which have already been posted by other people:

- class won't do you any good, unless you are lucky enough to get an instructor who really knows what it's all about, and chances of getting such a teacher in a public college are abysmally low, albeit non-zero of course.

- never, ever start with high level OO languages like Java, or you will have no clue how things work internally and basically will have no idea what the heck you're doing

- Get yourself a good book (K&R, as cvk already suggested, if you're going to learn C), go through it, if you have any questions about a particular topic, keep playing with it (i.e. writing small code snippets) until you figure out how it works. After your first pass through the book, start coding some kind of a project (something that you would consider interesting), the best way to actually learn is to apply whatever you got from the book to the 'real-life' code.

- Keep K&R around, it's called a "C programmer's bible" for a reason

- (If you're running some flavor of unix) man pages are your best buddies

- If you got really stuck on something, you can always get help on IRC or newsgroups, you can also always take a look at an open-source project similar to yours and see how other people solve the same problem.

- Stay way clear of VB unless you enjoy getting brain damage

- After you got comfortable with one language (whichever one you decide to start with), get some theoretical knowledge about how stuff is supposed to work (Data structures, Discreet math, Automata, etc. - check what courses are included in a comp. sci. program at your local university for details), knowing the theory never hurts and helps more often than not. For some of this stuff it might be better to take a class, as some of it is a bit complicated, although the point about getting good instructor still applies.

Just my $0.02

[idl]

I'm self tought from books, if i wasnt going to teach myself who else would have? School doesnt even teach me VB!

[cvk]

[kraylus]

thanks all very much for your support it's great to have gotten so many responses!

to those who've asked "why C", it's simple. well, no it's not, but yeah. i chose C because i heard gnome was written in C. i also heard that the linux kernel was written in C. i've been told by several sources that C is faster at some things than C++. i've been told the exact opposite too. i bought a 40 dollar C++ bible from IDG books and they said this:

[idl]

I allmost went mad when deciding to learn C or C++ so many people saying different things.. I finaly made up my mind to learn C++ and so i started, but now I have just started work on a project called HL-Q thats very similar to HLSW for windows as I thought xqf sucked. But anyway.. i'm writing it with GTK+ which ofcourse is C.. so bleh! just pick them out of the hat, that what i say!

[rac]

The difference between C and C++ is not the language so much (C++ is largely a superset of C, and you can write C-style programs in C++), as it is the programming paradigm: procedural vs. object-oriented.

Object-oriented programming is a completely different way of thinking. Very useful for certain types of tasks, but it's not a magic bullet.

Nobody should learn C++ as a first language. The only people who should use C++ are some C programmers that want more object-oriented support within the language. That's it. If you want to learn object-oriented programming from scratch, try to find a Smalltalk system (if they still exist) or learn Java.

One of C++'s design decisions was to maintain as high a degree of C compatibility as possible. This has led to all sorts of bizarre baggage that barely makes sense for people who know C, and for those without a C background it will seem completely through the looking-glass.
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[aja]

I teach programming (among other things) for a living. One of my opening lines when a new course begins is that you can't learn programming by listening to me talk about programming or by reading a book about programming. You learn programming by programming. Lectures and texts are a supplement to that (primary) task.

That being said, taking a course (or, better, getting a job) that requires you to program is an excellent spur to getting you down and actually coding. Self-teaching requires quite a bit of self-discipline, and is usually only successful if you have an actual project in mind. I.e - Not "I'm going to learn C++", but "I'll need to learn C++ in order to finish this".

And, raq, I disagree. C++ is a pain to learn, but it teaches you the low-level stuff at the same time as enforcing some basic OOP practices. Going from C++ to just about any language is much easier than just learning the language. Learning Java is a weekend project, etc... Course, YMMV -

[kraylus]

i was contemplating using the c++ bible for a bit and seeing how that goes, but here's an example of the first c++ program they have me write down:

[idl]

[aja]

Kraylus,

That code looks ok (well, compilable, I've got some notes...) to me. In your version, did you:

[cvk]

[cvk]

[BigRedDot]

[Zadeh]