Where can I find these “programming basics” of yours?

Question

Programming

Hello, dear IT experts and amateurs. I am a person with a higher legal education. I like my work, but work is work, but I want something else. I want to develop my brain a little from the other side. I would like to learn how to program. I do not want to work as a programmer, just for the sake of variety and to increase mental potential, I want to plunge into the sea of ​​bits and bytes. I tried to learn different programming languages ​​on my own, read some books for dummies, but I could not write any sane program. It seems to me that I lack the foundation, as they say - the basics of programming. But where are these fundamentals? what do they include? how to get them? read a book? what? or several? I am far from the smartest person, but I know how to use the hum, but there is so much literature advised that you can organize an entire library. I understand that this path is not easy and you will have to read a lot, but still. Also, I don’t understand people who say set a task and go ahead, program, BUT HOW? Yes, I know what a variable is, what a cycle and a conditional operator are, BUT I don’t know HOW to get a program out of this. I also don't know what language to learn. I want to write my personal applications for my android phone, I want to write my personal desktop programs, I want to optimize my work with scripts...
Based on the foregoing, what would you advise, gentlemen?

Answer 1

The first thing you need to do is discard everything superfluous. Confusion and vacillation between androyd or desktop or some scripts is just a dispersion of efforts. Focus only on android for example and discard everything superfluous. Next, buy any book, open the official tutorial and take it apart step by step and write at least something. Some kind of application to have some real result.
The basics of programming you talk about here are not easy to get. It will take a very long time before there is a deep understanding: "Ah, that's how it works!". I also graduated from law school and it took me many years after that to learn how to program.

Answer 2

Don't learn programming for the sake of learning programming.
Do you want to write apps for your phone? Write, the basics will follow.

Answer 3

Start with a SICP book or course, then HTDP.

Answer 4

Apply a problem solving algorithm from your professional field (law, I believe) to software development. There is some kind of problem, there is a desired result, there are ways and means to solve it, there is analytical thinking... To solve is not a question!
Let's say you need to automate some part of your work. Automation consists in deleting some files by the mask by the script (yes, yes, I know that this is one line in the console, but it will do for an example). How would you solve it with the means of the PL known to you and your brain? Give all the reasoning on this issue.

Answer 5

I also don't know what language to learn.

Learn Python 3.x, it was designed as a pseudocode-like language, so there are no extra syntax issues. In addition, it is famous for the speed of development, since many things can be expressed compactly on it. And he also has documentation written in an accessible language, so that many complex things are easily perceived.
Almost all applications are icebergs with only the tip visible. Nothing itself is written and does not appear from space. To write windows, you need to know how they are arranged, and they are not simple and arranged in different ways. (You can just spend a whole day closing a window and opening a new one.)
How learning to code works:
1) At first, you just join. You buy some book on the language and go through all the examples in it. This is how you know what good code looks like. (In order to later distinguish crap materials from normal ones.)
2) Then you study various classical algorithms. So you learn that there is something in common in the design of different algorithms.
3) Then you find the theory of algorithms. This is how you know that a program is just an implemented algorithm. (The program can be built into the program.)
4) Then you read other programs, highlighting their algorithms. So you adopt common ways of building algorithms.
And after all this, you have an idea how to make a great program.
A big program is an amalgamation of small programs.

Answer 6

If the android phone and desktop, then probably the most suitable Java language, I personally started with "Java for Children", in general, you can also go through another entry-level book, the main thing is to go through it from beginning to end with the solution of all problems in practice.

Answer 7

First you need to define what are the basics of programming :
Firstly , I would say this is logical thinking in general, understanding of algorithms (at least what it means), writing an algorithm is generally useful for something other than Hello World! .
Secondly , this is knowledge of the definitions of what a variable, array, cycles, etc. are. All this plus or minus is the same for all programming languages.
Thirdly , the main algorithms and techniques, again universal for all languages. Well, for example ... how to iterate over an array, trim a string, or isolate a word. Again, it is used regardless of the language and tasks.
Let's return now to your question - you can probably write something for Android without the basics. You just copy someone else's code, edit something, collect "Lego" so to speak . If you like it - go ahead, but it's just very far from the basics. And yes, learning a language with OOP IMHO is not a sound idea. Either it will take a lot of time, or you will be collecting primitive Hello Worlds .
If you want to start with the basics, take a simpler language and not pointed at OOP. Personally, I once started with QBASIC at school - a great thing to start with, but ... Outdated , and a long time ago. From the modern one, I would recommend JS, aka EcmaScript. For him there are good screencasts of the same Sorax, and it is used in many places. But this is not for android (although I'm cunning, you can write in JS using Cordova, but this is far from the entry level).

Answer 8

start with javarush.ru

Answer 9

I give you a hint. Every program has an "entry point". In Java, this is the main method in the class being started. Start with this. To hell with all your androids and desktops. Just write one class with one method. Run it, feel the magic of "Hello World!" on the screen (this is a prerequisite, otherwise nothing will work), replace the output of the string "Hello World!" to output a line from a file, etc. If after all that has been done, despite the difficulties, you want more and more, then congratulations, you have received the "fundamentals of programming".

Answer 10

Choose a platform, look for a step-by-step guide on how to compile and run "Hello world!"
Next, you need to develop a basic skill, not just remember what a variable, conditional instruction, cycle is, but understand.
Write a program that calculates the roots of a quadratic equation. Three fields for entering coefficients, a button and text fields for results.
Then with the analysis of the equation in normal form. We write in one input field something like "10X^2+5X -12 = 0"
Here you will feel the difficulty of processing user input and parsing text, and the result will most likely be unsatisfactory.
Then write tic-tac-toe. So that your program could win you.
If we talk about creating programs in general, then a good trick is to imagine that you already have a program and imagine how you work with it. What buttons you press, what you enter, what you see on the screen, etc.

Answer 11

Just order what you need on freelance. It'll be cheaper and faster.

Answer 12

You claim you read books for dummies. But then you contradict yourself:
Maybe you didn't read, but just looked through? In any book for dummies, as an example, the solution of a quadratic equation with step-by-step input of coefficients or something similar is given. And if after that you have the question "set the task and go ahead, program, BUT HOW?", then you are either very inattentive when studying, or this is not your thing.

Answer 13

Take C++ to blow your mind, just don't think that cycles are the whole language. Try this and that, set yourself a task and go for it.