Im n00b! :(, (realbasic)

P

P!rate

Move Like a MoFo
Joined
Mar 16, 2009
Messages
6,073
Hey all,
So i got this Programming for beginners for dummies, and i still have no idea what its trying to convey, im pretty computer savvy, but i dont understand the fundamental (?) of it..

It says things like compiler, and stuff like that, but im just looking to code how i do in html.. is that possible with realBASIC? it made me download a program called REALbasic, which kind of resembles dreamweaver.. but i want to program by myself, some advice plz?
 
take a formal Intro to Programming course at your local community college. Judging from your current level of understanding of the fundamentals, you're not going to get anywhere near the info you need from a discussion forum; it's just way too many concepts that need to be covered.
 
ok, im taking comp sci next year, :S, so i guess its not possible to program by meself? even with basic/
 
Unfortunately maw is pretty spot on, there are a lot of details to cover. REALbasic is a proprietary extension of the BASIC language and it has its own set of tools (editors, compilers, etc).

Making a comparison to HTML is difficult because HTML is a markup language and REALbasic is an object oriented language. They serve different purposes.
 
so maybe i should just start with BASIC? and then c++ or something?
 
P!rate said:
so maybe i should just start with BASIC? and then c++ or something?
Click to expand...

find out what your compsci education will be using as language, and go for something similar, if you are new to programming, it doesnt make a whole lot of sense to teach yourself something completely unrelated to your future education.

If i can give some advice, avoid basic. It lacks some rather important stuff (depeding on the version), and in some cases you end up learning things the wrong way. Some computer boffin has even been quoted as saying that a student who has learned basic first is almost beyond recovery in terms of more advanced languages.

I personally like Java (my weapon of choice), and for beginners it makes some stuff rather easy. Java completely does all your memory management, which is one of the more complex things in c/c++
 
Python is also a good choice. Little simpler than Java, little easier to run script-style stuff when you're just learning syntax, but still solid object-oriented.
 
DrFreeze said:
If i can give some advice, avoid basic. It lacks some rather important stuff (depeding on the version), and in some cases you end up learning things the wrong way. Some computer boffin has even been quoted as saying that a student who has learned basic first is almost beyond recovery in terms of more advanced languages.
QUOTE]

Edsger Dijkstra said similar things about COBOL (while the business world BUILT itself on COBOL), and yet COBOL was one of the first immensly popular languages to provide constructs for the structured programming that Dijkstra advocated. Even the smartest people make silly statements at times... like suggesting someone avoid a language because someone else said to avoid it... similar things were also said about FORTRAN, C, and dare I say... Java. Fact is, if you spend 5 or 10 years of your life developing in one language, you have a difficult time breaking out of the paradigm that you used to code in that language.

imho, BASIC is a good language to start with if you know absolutely nothing about programming. TONS of people started this way. Java would be an absolute nightmare to thrust onto someone who hasn't touched a single line of code before and wants to teach themselves. I think that would be a fitting punishment for some criminals.

stick with something with very simple syntax that can teach you the basic constructs of any language: logic and comparisons, conditional execution, looping, modularization of code, etc. To this end, BASIC and Python (as suggested earlier) are fantastic languages to fit your need.

...in a formal class, i feel completely different about using these languages to learn programming, though.

edit: as a side comment, you really find Python's support of OOP adequate? i find it rather messy and also easy to violate the OOP paradigm even when attempting to use classes.
Click to expand...
 
Well yeah that is true, python sometimes crosses the line, at least when I last used it (2.4). Back then it could do some weird stuff with parent classes (i.e. the __init__ of a parent possibly not getting called in some cases is confusing and doesn't seem right). I don't know if that's true or not now with 3.0. I was mainly thinking that for someone who has no programming experience whatsoever, python would have a much lower barrier of entry than Java, but be a much choice than QBasic (which is actually what I started in, and wish that I wouldn't have spent so much time on that straight procedural stuff, LOL). From python, moving to a more strict and mainstream language like Java, C# or C++ would definitely be a good idea. Especially if you want to get a job.

Thinking more about this, perhaps Scala would be a good choice as a starter language. I haven't checked it out but should try it. It is like Java coerced into python-esque syntax, don't know how well it works out, but would be interesting to see.
 
nameless_centurian said:
imho, BASIC is a good language to start with if you know absolutely nothing about programming. TONS of people started this way. Java would be an absolute nightmare to thrust onto someone who hasn't touched a single line of code before and wants to teach themselves. I think that would be a fitting punishment for some criminals.

stick with something with very simple syntax that can teach you the basic constructs of any language: logic and comparisons, conditional execution, looping, modularization of code, etc. To this end, BASIC and Python (as suggested earlier) are fantastic languages to fit your need.
Click to expand...

i have to admit right here that the only basic i've coded is on my Ti-83 graphical calculator, but that version of basic lacks methods and relies heavily on gotos, which SUCKS. If the OP learns programming using GOTOs, and then transfers to something else, he will end up writing shitty code.

now java might indeed not be the ideal beginners language, but at least it teaches basic flow control right (method calls, conditional blocks etc..), and saves the student from memory management
 
i have to admit right here that the only basic i've coded is on my Ti-83 graphical calculator, but that version of basic lacks methods and relies heavily on gotos, which SUCKS. If the OP learns programming using GOTOs, and then transfers to something else, he will end up writing shitty code.
Click to expand...

yeah, i guess the important point here is that if you want to learn BASIC, you ought to use a modern book and modern version of the language that uses more structured programming to use modules and repeat tasks. it WOULD be horrible for someone to learn programming this day in age using GOTO to accomplish ordinaly repetition and the like.

There was only one time in my life that i needed to use a GOTO, and it was a pretty common case where GOTO is used... nested 3 loops deep and only under a specific condition that can only arise when a certain error state happens in the innermost loop because of a combination of values from each loop. 1 GOTO fixed it. it was clean and readable. the error prevention and recovery that would have been needed if a GOTO was not used would have been really nasty and non-intuitive... glad the Ada authors decided to implement GOTO ;)
 
HTML and Python.

I started with HTML became fluent in that, took VB for a year, and now i'm teaching myself Python.

Next will be C++ and PHP
 
not a bad suggestion.

OP, do you like web work? it may be a good mechanism to learn how to program... PHP, Python, etc... something serverside.
 
Python has some good web work and other applications. And getting started on that is soo easy.. There's tones of stuff on youtube!

I think though, before PHP, the OP needs html. html is a perfect thing to start with and to learn dynamics.. and PHP has a lot of the same stuff HTML does
 
nameless_centurian said:
yeah, i guess the important point here is that if you want to learn BASIC, you ought to use a modern book and modern version of the language that uses more structured programming to use modules and repeat tasks. it WOULD be horrible for someone to learn programming this day in age using GOTO to accomplish ordinaly repetition and the like.
Click to expand...

ugh, you have no idea. Back then that basic was pretty much the only experience i had, but somehow i already pretty much understood the idea of re-using code. However, TI-83 BASIC doesnt support methods, so most of times i ended up with a block of code i would GOTO into, using global vars as parameters, then at the end of the code, i would need a huge IF statement or somesuch to set the propper values and to GOTO back to the place in the code where i started out from... the thought just makes my skin crawl..
 
Well here is what programming is mostly about. If and than.

if something happens.
Do this;
else if something differnet happens
do this;
else
make everything else do this

This covers the if statement in most language

Now for loops

for ( start with 0 ; while less than thefinalsize; add 1 to 0) {
do something;
}

Now for whiles

while(something is true) {
do something;
}
 
TheBuzzer said:
Well here is what programming is mostly about. If and than.

if something happens.
Do this;
else if something differnet happens
do this;
else
make everything else do this

This covers the if statement in most language

Now for loops

for ( start with 0 ; while less than thefinalsize; add 1 to 0) {
do something;
}

Now for whiles

while(something is true) {
do something;
}
Click to expand...

far, far more important is knowing WHY you'd want to use a loop or conditional in a particular instance. When you can look at a real world problem and translate the solution into code, then you can call yourself a programmer. It's not as easy as it sounds.
 
I'd look into picking up an O'Reilly book called Learning Python.. google some very basic projects you can code. It won't get you far, but it'll get you much further than puttering around on BASIC.

Though I'm not sure if learning from a high-level language like Python is the right way to start; perhaps C++ would be better?
 
I'd say a simpler language is a better way to start. Not necessarily Python, perhaps Scala or another dynamic interpreted language. Starting with C++ and then switching to Python is syntactically akin to first learning how to ride a 24-speed road racing bike, then switching to a Big Wheels tricycle.

That's exactly how I learned OO (C++ then Python), and I think it would have been better the other way around. A simpler starting language means less wrestling with syntax and "why the heck do I have to use namespace std and ifndef", and more understanding core OO principles. Then once you get those down in a semester or two, move to C++ to pick up the advanced topics like pointers and memory management and op sys goodness.
 
I think your main problem is that you started off with the wrong language and possibly the wrong book. I would recommend (and I'm going to get shot down for this) is Visual Basic, the language is very clear (I find it too verbose personally) and it will get you writing small programs and start you on process of thinking like a programmer.

As for a book the the learn X in 24 hours are pretty good for beginners also Microsoft has a number of tutorials and guides start here.
 
Last edited:
I have no problem with VB. it's a fine language to use, but i don't think it's something you ought to tackle yourself if you've never touched a line of code before.
 
It does look like the new version of VB (VB.NET) supports all the important object-oriented stuff. Might not be bad to start with that.
 
for html you cant beat w3schools for simplicity

i would also suggest you get hold of visual studio express (free) (web and language of your choice c# is easy enough)


this is a decent place to start
 
i am overwhelmed :p, id like to program small games to begin with <-- CHEESY, and then maybe find something to inspire me later, right now its just for fun, as a hobby id like to program, could smoene tell me which would be good for me to star tiwth, and ill make a poll? im super noob, btw, i know some html.. not SUPER in-depth, i just havent foudn the need to interest myself in website design
 
Visual Basic is pretty good for games, at least it was when I was using it (long time ago the only thing I wrote was games, it was funner than insurance software, LOL). Very easy to create and work with the user interface and the graphics, it was pretty simple for me to create a tile-based RPG in VB. That was good times!
 
Am I the only one out there that taught themselves programming through the visual basic editor built into Word? Boy was I psyched when I discovered that 11 years ago!
 
i wouldnt mind starting off with anything, just games came to mind i guess :p, just making programds would be fun for me..
 
Depends on the kind of game...

If you have ideas of a first person shooter give them up :p
If you're thinking of doing something simple like pong, tetris, etc. Go for it. It'll be a great learning experience :)
 
you can certainly get a start with C. its structured, has a pretty easy syntax, and it is fairly easy to compile simple programs. you can get older copies of borland c for free(or with books), the ide is pretty intuitive. for simple things its as easy as writing your code in the editor window and hitting a run button.

if you want to go the basic route you can get an old copy of qbasic. its not much simpler than that really, but it is limited. Visual Basic will allow you to write structured, and event driven basic programs almost rediculously easily. you can use it to write command line or graphical programs. It is generally a toy language, but in a business environment where you have to do things with databases and microsoft products, it really is the fastest way to get some things done. so to argue the folks who look down on BASIC, it can be a very useful tool. you can code properly structured applications in VB as long as you know how to program.

i cant speak about perl or python, but they are highly regarded, and perl may also be a good choice to start, as its freely available and widely used.

i am about to dive into lisp, just for kicks.
 
dave_p said:
i cant speak about perl or python, but they are highly regarded, and perl may also be a good choice to start, as its freely available and widely used.
Click to expand...

If he's wanting to experiment with a scripting language I'd suggest that he stay far away from perl and go with python instead. perl is powerful; it's also not what you want to dive into as your first exposure to programming.

Personally I'd suggest going with Pascal or C, maybe with a DOS 2D graphics library if he's focused on doing simple games for his initial projects.
 
I think a game is way too ambitious at this point. You really need to know your basic programming constructs and data structures inside out before attempting something like that, and you probably want enough programs under your belt to get a feel for higher-level design.

Python, IMO, is both a very good and a very bad place to start. The clean syntax and the lack of peripheral crap in simple programs make it a great place to pick up the fundamentals. The danger is in taking its high-level features for granted. Python makes things like array partitioning and concatenation look as simple as integer addition. When you move to a language where you have to do these things for yourself, you're probably not going to like it...

dave_p said:
i am about to dive into lisp, just for kicks.
Click to expand...
If you want to learn a functional language for fun, I'd recommend taking a look at ML. Ullman's Element's of ML is a fantastic introductory text.
 
LuminaryJanitor said:
I think a game is way too ambitious at this point. You really need to know your basic programming constructs and data structures inside out before attempting something like that, and you probably want enough programs under your belt to get a feel for higher-level design.
Click to expand...

Well, personally I deal best with undertaking an ambitious project and figuring out how to accomplish it than I do with undertaking dinky tasks designed to teach you some small lesson.

It's up to the OP to understand what motivates him and how he best learns... and then pick the path best suited for him.
 
i started python, i think its fun, gets me into programming, thanks for the help guys, ill probably move to c, then go to java :) <-- if thats not nub order..
 
the order is pretty irrelevent. if you know about 300 languages but can't design software that actually does something, it's pretty worthless.

stick with one language. learn to program. learn about how computers work. learn how to construct algorithms and provide convincing evidence that they are correct. you've picked a language, now let things run their natural course. keep focused. at this stage in your programming career, if you can't do it in python then you're not going to be able to do it in another language. as you get MUCH more mature, that will change.
 
Khanmots said:
Well, personally I deal best with undertaking an ambitious project and figuring out how to accomplish it than I do with undertaking dinky tasks designed to teach you some small lesson.
Click to expand...
If you're learning a new language but have previous programming experience, then an ambitious project is certainly a possibility.

If you've never heard of variables, data types, assignment, iteration, functions, arrays or conditional statements, then it's going to be a disaster. We get a lot of posts in here from first-semester CS students who struggle for days with these "dinky tasks", and who wouldn't have a hope in hell of implementing a game, let alone designing it.
 
game was just a focus point, i think ima start small.. trying to find python books or somtin
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top