Where would a good place to start learning basic programing and scripting?

Game Pro · 03-03-2008, 09:55 PM

Hey all, I am 15 and for a long time I have wanted to learn some programming languages, stiles, and graphics design... ect basicly all of it. Normaly I would find it all out on my own or learn it in a class at school but I live unwillingly in a redneck town where most people don't even know what a terminal is. They have never even heard of linux!! Any way where would there be a good source of information on all this stuff? I have also need of free software for graphics design. Any idea where to get it?

Thx

pixellany · 03-03-2008, 10:29 PM

Linux has a large array of graphics SW--most of it should be in the Ubuntu repositories. Look at Scribus, GIMP, and Inkscape for starters.

To learn programming, you will get a bazillion answers. I am not a programmer, so my advice has to be kept in its place.
1. You can't go wrong learning C
2. Python is REALLY easy to get started with, but is also very powerful. I resonate with the notion of writing the framework in Python, and doing speed-critical subroutines in C.
3. BASH is a real pain to learn, but can be pretty handy once you are up on the curve.

The first book I would recommend is "Beginning Linux Programming", published by Wrox.

snowman81 · 03-03-2008, 10:36 PM

If you want to work with Linux someday (just assuming since you're on this site) I would highly recommend learning BASH. Also, universities seem to like to teach Java nowadays. (At least mine does)

PatrickNew · 03-03-2008, 11:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pixellany

3. BASH is a real pain to learn, but can be pretty handy once you are up on the curve.

I'll disagree with that. Of all the programming languages I've learned, I picked up bash the quickest. If you learn bash as an interactive shell first, learning it as a programming language is as easy as figuring out the odd syntax of the if, while, and case commands. I often find that when your program needs to interact with the "outside world", bash is often the easiest and most direct method.

I was in much the same boat as you. I'm 19 in a university CS department now, but I started learning C++ and Linux as a high school sophomore, in a little town in South Carolina. What helped me get through it all was to try to teach myself as far as the "For Dummies" book would take me. Then I looked for programs that I wanted, but didn't exist. I started to write them. I've never finished a single one of them, but that doesn't really matter.

A quick and easy book will take you 50% of the way there in any language. A good book can take you maybe another 10-15%. Some good-ol-fashion experience will get you up to about 85-90%. The last 10-15% comes from long hours of staring at a screen and asking yourself "WTF is going on here?". So definitely pick a project and dive in.

Game Pro · 03-04-2008, 12:59 AM

I would like to thank all of you for help. But also I was wondering if you could help me with my first very simple task that I just can't seem to get right. I am trying to make a link to a website appear as a link on a web page wich besides getting text files and other text related things to appear is my first project. so far this is what I type in.

<HTML>

<link Https://WWW.G4tv.com> http://www.g4tv.com/ </Link>

</HTML>

And when I open this up with a web browser I get this.

http://www.g4tv.com/

And it dose not act like a link where you can click and it sends you to the website.

Do you know what I'm doing wrong?

PatrickNew · 03-04-2008, 01:48 AM

Well, the proper html tag for a link is <a>, not <link>. It goes like this: <a href="http://www.g4tv.com>the_text_which_appears_underlined</a>"

chrism01 · 03-04-2008, 04:52 AM

You may find these useful:

http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz
http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/
http://www.php.net/manual/en/
http://perldoc.perl.org/

Game Pro · 03-04-2008, 02:46 PM

Ok thanks all for the help.

ta0kira · 03-04-2008, 04:41 PM

I'd look at these:
http://www.cplusplus.com/ (this one misses a few fundamental concepts, but it's very good)
http://www.cprogramming.com/tutorial.html (very long)

I'd also do a search for "bash tutorial" and learn the basics of bash shells (probably what you use to log into Linux,) but the real difficulty comes with knowing all of the standard command-line programs (like sed, grep, cat, bc, awk, etc.) and knowing what's a built-in command and what isn't. For that you really need a good Linux book, or if you run KDE you can go to KDE Help and look through the Unix manual pages. If you start to wonder if there's a program that will do something you want type in apropos <any word> and a list of related programs will come up. Pick one and type man <program name>. info in place of man also works for a lot of programs, but they are better viewed in Konqueror using the address info:<program name>.

Shell scripting (i.e. bash) is generally used to automate a tedious series of commands you could execute by typing them directly into a shell. Writing compiled programs such as C and C++ are for things like the command-line programs you call from the shell and more complex programs like the browser you use to get to this site.
ta0kira

sundialsvcs · 03-04-2008, 07:01 PM

Welcome aboard.

Your Linux system is full of scripts, in files that end with things like .sh, .pl, .pm, .php.

Find them. Read them. Do not change them.

"Look. Don't touch. Just look."

Be awed. Be inspired. Be confused as heck. "Don't Panic."

Buy a notebook and a nice number-two pencil. Keep a daily diary. When you run into something that you don't understand... write it down, in pencil, longhand. Then, now that you have "captured it," move along. Leave space for your answer when you find it. Ponder your diary from time to time.

"Welcome aboard, young padewan. May this be your life's calling. And if not, let it be a pleasurable experience."

(And, umm, we all live-in and/or came-from "a redneck town" where we feel that cluelessness is the norm. We all learn very quickly not to try to educate them. You're not alone. But remember, Rome was not built in a day. The tools you seek are, in fact, at your fingertips.)

chrism01 · 03-04-2008, 07:06 PM

... and you can take copies of them and then change the copies and see if your changes do what you expect ...