Joe I feel your frustration. What help is it if some says "just
program" when you ask the best way to learn programming? But in a way
that is really how it is.
One of the things I like to do is collect witty quotations. I get them
from all over the place - newspapers, magazines, books, etc. Its to
the point where I have almost 1,000 of my favorite quotations in a
word file. While that's nice I wanted to get more use and enjoyment
out of them, but how? So I got the idea that wouldn't it be great if,
every time I turned on my computer, a little box popped up with a
"quote of the day." But how to make that happen?
I was actually able to code this in Python, using the tkinter ("tk
interface") module to create a real Windows program that pops up when
I start my computer. I get a random quote of the day, and I even have
a button widget ("windows gadget") to display the next random quote,
and another button widget to close the program.
So here is an example of defining a problem - how to display a random
quote of the day - and then using open-source software to create a
custom application to solve the problem. That, to me, is better than
just learning Java or trying to learn Java just because that's a
popular programming language and a lot of phone apps are written in
it. The thing is, if you can actually *think* of a phone app you might
want to write, the thing to do is solve the problem in a pseudo-code
type of way. Then, if that leads you to Java, then go ahead and start
with a "Hello World" type of program and keep adding to it until you
get your app.
Truly, in programming like in anything else, the only way to learn is
by trying and making mistakes. The good thing about learning
programming by making mistakes is that the worst thing you get is a
blue screen of death now and then, whereas with playing around with an
Arduino you can fry your computer or yourself if you're not careful :)
--
Frank L. "Cranky Frankie" Palmeri
Risible Riding Raconteur & Writer
“How you do anything is how you do everything.”
- from Alabama Crimson Tide training room
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