Where do you start?

[grunt]

Hi all, I'm very keen on CAD, I'm currently learning and doing a lot of 3d and 2d architectural and engineering design for my work and eventual career. I like the challenge and am keen to keep learning to keep myself on the ball and just to keep learning things which I think is important. While I won't use programming much it's something I've wanted to try since I got into PC's and it could become very useful with 3d design should I choose certain career paths. However I know there are a lot programming languages out there and many of them don't have heaps of uses. Not having much clue for programming at all I don't know what to start with and what would be a good base for moving onto harder (and much more widely used languages).

Cheers.

[shirasE_]

I'm probably going to cop alot of **** for this but I find the syntax for Visual Basic very easy to understand, it helps you to understand how programming works with the conditional statements, variables, switches, loops all that kind of stuff. In a simple language. Then you can move on using the same kinds of stuff in a more advanced language.

[blindside]

As a beginner your endgame should probably be the variants of C and Java. If you've got the mind for it, it shouldn't be too challenging. One of the easiest languages to start with is PHP, but it's probably not going to be very useful in the context you've described.

[grunt]

In what applications could VB be learnt. I struggled to just go and start learning a language myself because I didn't know what I could make with them, meaning I couldnt really write anything to learn...

[ren]

I started with java at uni before i decided computer science ftl : D

[shirasE_]

Originally Posted by grunt

In what applications could VB be learnt. I struggled to just go and start learning a language myself because I didn't know what I could make with them, meaning I couldnt really write anything to learn...

I had that problem when I first started. I was lucky enough to have met some guy who would teach me a few stuff. Then tell me to make something that would do this this and this and he kind of put me to the test a little and made me think.

As for doing it by yourself maybe set yourself goals?

[grunt]

Yeah I would like to but not really knowing what can be done with say VB means I dont know what I can set myself. I mean I could say...Okay I'm going to make myself a loop program. Well I can make anything lopp but it wouldn't necessarily be cool.

[shirasE_]

I was really turned off programming with thoughts like "why make something that isn't useful and has probably been made before or could be made 100x better by someone else, and they could make it in 5 seconds where as it would take me 2 minutes".

Then I thought otherwise...

...Lol sup? ^_^

[badkarma]

you could try out c#, its basically a mixture of c++ and java.

you can download visual c# express edition along with many other language versions for free off the microsoft site.

and to get into something cool straight away, you can try out xna which is a cross platform library which runs on top of c# to make games for xbox 360and pc.

plenty of tutorials and active forums for those. youll find yourself exporting your 3d models to some game code in no time. having said that, programming can be hard to get your head around to begin with.

glhf

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/ex...p/default.aspx
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/xna/aa937795.aspx
http://www.riemers.net/eng/Tutorials/xnacsharp.php
http://www.thehazymind.com/XNAEngine.htm

[Khaless]

My Suggestion is this.

Do not go down the VB track. C,C++ you may want to tackle but not quite yet. Java and C# are in the same boat, Java is more widespread however both are ghastly languages. If you know most languages you can hack together small things with php, so dont make php your starting point.

My suggestion is Python. You wont have to worry about memory, the syntax is not ghastly (looks @ VB) and hey, if it quacks like a duck...

It also has API's for CAD autocad etc etc.
So I think for having a good general purpose tool (yes that is what you are going to use it for) that allows you to parse XML/HTML, process data, collect data etc etc Python might be your bet. And its easy to learn!

[chemicalNova]

I went down the VB track and learned some 32-bit Assembly along the way. It helped me optimize my VB programs (as much as one can LOL).. but it also helped me understand how computers store things, how compilers work, how the Win32 executable loader works, things like that. I'll admit I'm not an expert on such subjects at all.. but I do have a basic understanding.

chem

[Walley]

Well, first and foremost depends on your aims. You seem to want to take a hobbyist approach, and as such I think the enjoyment is the primary factor here. That said, you'll have much more fun if you know what you're doing .

Anyways, the most important traits for a programmer are not how many languages you know or how well you know any individual languages, but rather how good you are with self-learning and adaptibility, and programming principles in general (abstract from language). Self-learning and adaptibility come largely from experience, so it's hard to prescribe any particular path in that regard - it will simply come in time. In terms of programming principles, it's ideal to start with a language that isn't going to bog you up with advanced features and complicated syntax. Whilst I'm an advocate for C# and C++ (and hate Java ), they're simply too complex to be good starting languages - you'll spend most of your time learning syntax and not programming principles, or even be learning the wrong principles as a result. As such I'd advise starting with either a scripting language (such as Python), or something like Visual Basic. Python's more likely to teach you decent programming principles in general, although Visual Basic is the easier learning curve (not that Python is hard in the first place). If anything, play with both and decide which you're more comfortable with.
Besides that, it's just time. And alot of it. Takes many years to make a good programmer .

[KeyDecoder]

Generally when I start using a new programming language, the first thing I do is to write something fun and reasonably simple, like Pong. Basically everytime I start a new language I write Pong in it.
Hello World is also the traditional first ever program that people tend to write (all it does is say Hello World to you).

Python is probably a good language to start with, VB is easy to get started with, but can tend to lead you into bad habits early if your serious about programming. Delphi is another language where the language itself isn't great, but its a good solid compiler and easy to create GUI apps with (plus plenty of support libraries).