Programming

[StringingSilhouette 1]

I start college this summer. One of the classes I'm taking is CS201, "Computer Science 1." I talked to a computer science advisor at my college, and he said the class is basically introductory C++. He recommends that I have some experience with Java, JavaScript, BASIC, C++, etc. I have no experience with any programming language except LabVIEW, a visual-based and very unknown programming language. Does anyone have any advice where I can find some good online tutorials or books that I can order for any of the above programming languages?

[Trebek 25]

www.w3schools.com Has some good stuff. Not positive if its what your looking for. Also the Apple Dev place has a good place for Objective C knowledge.....Hope this helps.

[aergonaut 3]

The Lifehacker Learn to Code series introduces Javascript in 4.5 lessons. http://lifehacker.com/#!5744113/learn-to-code-the-full-beginners-guide

 

The other three languages you listed are much more complex and can't really be summed up as succinctly. Aside from BASIC, though, the very basics of all the languages you listed are the same, so learning the fundamentals of Javascript should be good. Going any deeper and then I don't think the extra knowledge would be helpful in a class about C++.

 

I don't really think you should be that worried about having prior programming knowledge, though. The instructor probably recommends that you have some past experience just to make your life a little easier in the beginning, but I'm pretty sure everything will still be easy to follow seeing as it's just an introductory course.

 

As an aside, I lament for your sake for having to learn C++. It's such a horrible language with so many idiosyncrasies that you'll probably end up spending more of your time trying to figure out how to make C++ do what you want it to than actually learning how to program.

[Ph0toN 33]

There's not really much that can prepare you for c++. Most other languages are pretty decipherable if you're just beginning, but c++ is like looking at gibberish. I recommend learning java and css as they're about the closest you'll come to anything like c++, but even they are pretty easy to understand. If you want something that's relatively easy to learn just so you start to grasp the concepts that are involved in programming I recommend pascal, basic, and visual basic. Pascal is DOS based and way outdated but it's a good starter language. Basic is pretty much the same but you can do a bit more with it. Visual Basic gives you the opportunity to easily create programs with actual GUI's. VB is my preferred programming language, it can be as simple or complicated as you want to make it and you can accomplish just about anything with it.