Learning Programming - Forums?

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MrHood22

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I would like to start re-learning some stuff I was taught in school. In my experience, I feel the best learning method for me is lurking on forums. I feel like [H] has taught me so much about hardware just from lurking and making the occasional post when I have an issue. I would like to apply the same learning logic to other hobbies/skills.

I've done some browsing and I can't find a good fit. Either the topics are focused towards people with a higher experience level, low amount of members, or low activity (0-3 responses for most threads). I think i'm leaning towards Java but I would be open to other languages or a forum that is based on the "programming mindset/theory" as opposed to a specific language.


I'm also open to other suggestions to other methods of learning. I don't feel like books work for me but I would not be opposed to reading an online tutorial.
 
Looking at and reworking/fixing other people's code is a good way to learn. Trying to do something and you can't figure it out.. do a google search and look at the different ways other people are doing it.

Sometimes you come up with good ways to do stuff.. other times it is just super cludgy and it is best to see how it can be done and then rework it yourself to make it better.

It is also helpful to download open source code.. say from planetsourcecode.com and work through the code to understand how things are done.

Remember to always take other's coding practices with a grain of salt though. Sometimes you will find really nicely coded stuff, but a lot of the time it is super messy and inefficient.
 
OP Here-

Thanks for the suggestions. I saw StackOverFlow.com before but I forgot about it. I do remember that is a good resource and I have bookmarked it.

I also have this:

http://www.kodejava.org/topcode/100.html


That place has a question on how to do something in Java and then a small explanation and example. Kinda random but still helpful. Are there other places like that?


As far as googling for solutions. I usually always find multiple ways to do something. I might find 10 ways to do something and 9 of them will be 100-150 lines while the 10th one might do the same exact thing but in 10 lines. It gets very confusing when you're new to it because it's hard to fathom why someone would need the extra 90-140 lines so I can't always figure out when I should take the short cut or the long way.
 
Koans are a great way to start learning the basic mechanics of a language. I'd check out Java koans paired with a good starter book- I'm not familiar with any. If Ruby interests you, I work with it daily and I found it and it's community a great resource.

http://rubykoans.com/

and if you find those interesting, consider picking up The Well-Grounded Rubyist.
 
omegadot said:
The MIT OCW has a lot of the CS courses online.

Also, http://www.thenewboston.com/ has phenomenal tutorials.
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GoldenTiger said:
Speaking of which, I think Stanford's courses are online as well for free viewing and download.

Nice site by the way... very nice!
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I'm not sure if I looked at Stanford or MIT but I looked a few months ago and all I could find was the introductory course. I liked the prof but he didn't really get into too much. Could someone provide a link to them? I look for it but I think the place I end up is some student portal where I need to log in.


Maximus825 said:
StackOverflow is great but can be a bit intimidating.

Try these:
http://www.codingforums.com/
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I agree. A lot of the stuff are above my skill level at the moment. Looks like a great resource later on.
 
PTNL said:
Not trying to troll or incite, but.... What is it about SO that you feel is intimidating?
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I'm not sure what he thinks but to me it's just the lack of structure. One post might have concepts that are on my level and another post might have something I won't find out about for a long time.
 
MrHood22 said:
I'm not sure what he thinks but to me it's just the lack of structure. One post might have concepts that are on my level and another post might have something I won't find out about for a long time.
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You're describing a common observation of any programmers' forum, and not something that is exclusive to SO.
 
PTNL said:
Agreed. But I'm uncertain whether you're just making general comments, or are still looking for suggestions.
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I'm always looking for suggestions.


I was just justifying what I had said previously because you inquired about it. To reiterate what I said before, I think StackOverflow is an excellent resource but it's a little too advanced for me to fully take advantage of.
 
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