I am a college student in China.My major is math，I want to go to learn programming，but it seems that I can't find a good way，I don't know the correct learning way.I think that I have been lost in useless learning.It's too terrible,my god!
lam_189 0 Newbie Poster
Andrew_104 commented: Check out the odin project - it's a free javascript course +0
Reverend Jim 4,968 Hi, I'm Jim, one of DaniWeb's moderators. Moderator Featured Poster
As a first language I highly recommend Python. It is free and comes with a simple IDE (idle). For something more robust you can use Microsoft vscode (also free) as the Python IDE. Python has a very friendly syntax and there are a large number of free online tutorials. And you can post questions here for things that are unclear. I've programmed in a large number of languages over many years and I now program exclusively in Python. It give me fast turnaround and is also fun.
If you learn better from books I suggest Magnus Lie Hetland - Beginning Python_ From Novice to Professional. It's slightly out of date but is an excellent resource.
Keep in mind that learning to program is not just about learning a language. It is also about learning how to design software. You can't learn how to build a house by merely learning how to use all the tools.
lam_189 commented: Thanks,sir. +0
Dani 4,329 The Queen of DaniWeb Administrator Featured Poster Premium Member
Python works as a first language, but I would also recommend Javascript just because it is being used just about everywhere nowadays!
However, I guess the bigger question is, as a math major, what’s your objective to learning programming? If you want to make web apps, you might take a very different path than doing some backend calculations for something or other.
Either way, have you taken any computer science courses? Specifically, I would recommend an intro to data structures course.
Andrew_104 0 Newbie Poster
Check out The Odin Project - free JavaScript course
tinstaafl 1,176 Posting Maven
I would suggest first off is examining exactly what you want to do with your programming. There are a great many areas to explore and most languages excel in only some of those areas. If your interest is as a hobby, you could do far worse than vb.net. Not only is it a robust, plain language coding language it also includes a WYSIWYG gui editor and is very good at learning how to think as a programmer.
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