How did you start to learn programming?

[lucy Wyling]

I am a freshman in learning programming. I met lots of problems. Sometimes I want to give up because I felt very boring and headache about some problems. Can anyone tell me an easier way to learn programming in a short time?
Thanks!

 

[kellys_eye]

There are no short cuts.

Good books and/or a good tutor are essential requirements. Doing ACTUAL examples whilst reading/learning also helps.

 

[BobK]

If you think learning to program is difficult now:

I took a programming course in my first year of college. At that time (1970), programming was done using punched cards that you submitted to be run through the one computer that my large university (U. of Maryland) had for student use. About 3-4 hours later, you got back a printout. Usually the result was a list of syntax errors. Correct, resubmit and wait another 3-4 hours.

And yet, I learned.

Bob

 

[duke37]

My experience was similar except that pundhed tape was used. This had the advantage that you did not have a half hour job sorting the cards if you dropped them. The language was ALGOL.
We eventually got an Apple11E (48k) and used it to control a large brake dynamometer. BASIC and 6502 assembler.
My favorite language was TurboBasic, partly due to the editor and also that it could be structured like ALGOL unlike early FORTRAN.

The first thing to do is to decide what needs to be done and then programming each part. Do not just dive in, you will get into a mess. Make sure that your syntax is correct.

 

[Stephen Olstein]

I'm also an old programmer...

It was a cumbersome task to get your programs running back then but the system and languages were much simpler. You could more or less have an understanding of the complete system from hardware to software by yourself.

Today it is easy to program, but the development systems are more complex and you might have to learn multiple hierarchies of libraries. To make it simple, pick a language and a development system that is small and easy to comprehend. Start off with small easy problems that only introduce a few basic language features at a time, and I'm sure you soon get the hang of it.

If you don't have access to a teacher/mentor learning how to debug is necessary somewhere down the line to understand why a program doesn't work as expected.

 

[Bluejets]

Most these days want the "easy" way. There are systems like Arduino where libraries are included in which some of the hard yakka is done. No matter which system, if you want to be any "good at it" you have to put in the long haul just as most here have done.