School offering intro to comput programming class next year.

Page 1 of 1 [ 14 posts ] 

Spazzergasm
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 15 Sep 2009
Age: 32
Gender: Female
Posts: 4,415
Location: Maine

09 Jan 2010, 12:35 pm

I'm debating whether I should take it or not. Can someone tell me what sort of stuff they do in there? Other than typing codes into computers. XD It seems interesting, but I don't really know anything about it.
Oh and how much like math is it? I'm really bad at algebra...



SilentScream
Velociraptor
Velociraptor

User avatar

Joined: 7 Dec 2009
Age: 54
Gender: Female
Posts: 405
Location: UK

09 Jan 2010, 12:44 pm

It's all about logic. Literally, after basic printing and stuff, it starts off with logic, e.g. IF it's raining outside THEN take an umbrella, OTHERWISE skip out happily without an umbrella.

When I discovered programming, it was heaven. I went on to make some nice money out of it, and it naturally attracts a high proportioner aspie friendly people than some other professions, say like sales.

Suck it and see. It's an option well with exploring, JMHO of course.



Jono
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 10 Jul 2008
Age: 44
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,658
Location: Johannesburg, South Africa

09 Jan 2010, 2:45 pm

Spazzergasm wrote:
I'm debating whether I should take it or not. Can someone tell me what sort of stuff they do in there? Other than typing codes into computers. XD It seems interesting, but I don't really know anything about it.
Oh and how much like math is it? I'm really bad at algebra...


To write a program, you need to work out an algorithm for it. Also programming languages have logical structure and so on. I know from your previous posts that you don't like maths. That being the case, I don't think you'll enjoy computer programming.



leejosepho
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 14 Sep 2009
Gender: Male
Posts: 9,011
Location: 200 miles south of Little Rock

09 Jan 2010, 2:50 pm

I once signed up for a class like that, and it turned out to only be about the basics of actually using a computer and certain pieces of software.


_________________
I began looking for someone like me when I was five ...
My search ended at 59 ... right here on WrongPlanet.
==================================


Jono
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 10 Jul 2008
Age: 44
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,658
Location: Johannesburg, South Africa

09 Jan 2010, 3:06 pm

leejosepho wrote:
I once signed up for a class like that, and it turned out to only be about the basics of actually using a computer and certain pieces of software.


That would be computer literacy rather than computer programming. If it's just computer literacy then I guess it would be fine.



Alibak
Butterfly
Butterfly

User avatar

Joined: 3 Jan 2010
Age: 30
Gender: Male
Posts: 9

09 Jan 2010, 4:24 pm

Spazzergasm wrote:
I'm debating whether I should take it or not. Can someone tell me what sort of stuff they do in there? Other than typing codes into computers. XD It seems interesting, but I don't really know anything about it.
Oh and how much like math is it? I'm really bad at algebra...

For being good programmer you gotta know a lot of algorithms(and be able to use them) which came from maths, but i wanna notice that it maybe diiferent from that thing in math which you don't good at. Algorithms came from discretic maths. There is more logic, not just stupid arithmetic calculations. For example read about combinatorial mathematics, graphs, its kinda like this. And if you wanna be really good programmer you should learn it(algorithms and so so so) by yourself, because in school program you learn more about programming language, syntaxis and so so so.
Imo if you are not crazy about exploring new things, don't get into this world full of beauty and religions. :lol:
P.s. Don't look at my age :wink: At the moment Im preparing to the informatic contest and i've studied a lot. :P
P.s.s. Sorry for my english.



Spazzergasm
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 15 Sep 2009
Age: 32
Gender: Female
Posts: 4,415
Location: Maine

09 Jan 2010, 5:19 pm

hmm....well, i enjoy math..but not useless math. algorithms are like remembering formulas and stuff right? i suck at that. my memory is hellishly bad. but could i still learn something from a programming course even if i suck at that stuff? or maybe the math will have a purpose and be fun. im not sure. i love computers and would like to learn more about them.



SilentScream
Velociraptor
Velociraptor

User avatar

Joined: 7 Dec 2009
Age: 54
Gender: Female
Posts: 405
Location: UK

09 Jan 2010, 5:27 pm

You sound as though you're interested, so that's good. School/college are exactly the places to try things out.



Alibak
Butterfly
Butterfly

User avatar

Joined: 3 Jan 2010
Age: 30
Gender: Male
Posts: 9

09 Jan 2010, 5:33 pm

Spazzergasm wrote:
hmm....well, i enjoy math..but not useless math. algorithms are like remembering formulas and stuff right? i suck at that. my memory is hellishly bad. but could i still learn something from a programming course even if i suck at that stuff? or maybe the math will have a purpose and be fun. im not sure. i love computers and would like to learn more about them.

I wanna do correction for my last post, if you know algorithms you are VERY VERY cool programmer. It needs for winning contests and be proud of yourself :lol: . But in work you won't need them. It's good if you know, you can do more smooth programs. Programming it's kinda using ALL your experiences. You can find solving even in household experiences :lol: . You should know how system is working, I'd recomend you to read about binar, stack and so so so. Just try yourself in it.
Some minutes later I'll show you some examples about using knowledge on my own experience.



Alibak
Butterfly
Butterfly

User avatar

Joined: 3 Jan 2010
Age: 30
Gender: Male
Posts: 9

09 Jan 2010, 6:30 pm

In olden times, over 'teenth rive, over 'teenth hill, in 'teenth kingdom lord Alibak :lol: decided to write text-graphic(or how to say it, program in which you draw by multicolored chars) program. When the main part was done, he took thought how to save works.
You see, you gotta save chars and 2 colors of them(background and foreground color). You can save them all in text file. So lets think, if we put it all in text file. In text file will be 79*24(pascal's standart windows size minus 1)*3(char, foreground and background color), so it will be 5688 "datas". can you imagine? And i wanna notice that working with files is slow and that we've gotta get data from text and at the end save so in 1 running we will have 5688*2=11376 actions and it's ONLY loading " saving.
So lets see how we can help. We can keep chars in ASCII(if you don't understand read about it in wikipedia) code it's 0 up to 256. Foreground and background color are 0 up to 16. Char will occupy 2 bytes. Every color 1 byte. So its 4 bytes all together. In Pascal we have type(of data) which named word and have 4 bytes.
We can put the char and his colors in 1 word. Do you say how? Lets see :D I'll use this [....] to make it clear to you. 1 dot = 1 byte.
To keep char we'll need 2 bytes. For them we'll take 2 elder([(..)..]) bytes. For foreground color we'll take elder byte of junior 2 bytes ([..(.).]). For background color junior byte of 2 junior bytes ([...(.)]).
Lets use it. For example char is "A" foreground color is 3, background 5. In ASCII "A" is 65(64(for capital letters) 96(for small letters) + alphabetic number of the char). Lets name our 4 byte "word" by name "word" :D So word:=65*256+3*16+5=16693 (":=" is gesture assighnment, we multiply chat by 256 cause we need it in elder 2 bytes, 3 by 16 by elder byte in junior 2 bytes, 5 is the rest). We can put them into word, lets pop them from the word.
char := 16693 div 256, foreground := (16693 - (16693 div 256)*256) div 16, background := (16693 - (16693 div 256)*256) mod 16
Now in 1 "data" we have char+colors. lets see how many "datas" we need to save, 79*24*1=1896. 1896*2 = 3792 actions in 1 running, compare it with 11376 actions. :P And file which contains data will be less for 11376/3792 times!

Sorry for long posting. Actually i wanted to post 2 "storyies" but now i'm tired. maybe tomorrow, if you want.



pakled
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 12 Nov 2007
Age: 67
Gender: Male
Posts: 7,015

09 Jan 2010, 11:03 pm

I doubt they're gonna get too involved in 'intro to Computers'. I was last in Instanbul (not Constatinople) about 10 years ago, and it looked like it was fairly up to date, even then. Likely it's gonna be some basic languages
(depending on which school level you're in), but probably simple programming at that. It's probably a survey course, with all of the above (some programming, spreadsheets, word processing, and mebbe Internet), depending on how long the class is for.

I'd say go for it; computer literacy and experience is pretty much standard here. Tho if you're already here, you may know a lot of this stuff already...;)


_________________
anahl nathrak, uth vas bethude, doth yel dyenvey...


Roxas_XIII
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 8 Jan 2007
Age: 33
Gender: Male
Posts: 3,217
Location: Laramie, WY

10 Jan 2010, 2:14 am

Spazzergasm wrote:
hmm....well, i enjoy math..but not useless math. algorithms are like remembering formulas and stuff right? i suck at that. my memory is hellishly bad. but could i still learn something from a programming course even if i suck at that stuff? or maybe the math will have a purpose and be fun. im not sure. i love computers and would like to learn more about them.


Computer programming actually is less about memorization and more about being able to understand logical processes. I took a class in Java last semester, and once you knew the basic concepts and syntax of the language you could basically do anything with it. Most major languages have pre-made libraries where they've preprogrammed some stuff for you. For example, in Java there is a class called ArrayList, which stores an arbitrary list of objects. This class has already been preprogrammed, so you don't need to write it yourself; all you need is to import it into any class in which you use an ArrayList.

Once you get the basic syntax and logical structure, the rest comes down to knowing what you want to do and creating a program based on that.


_________________
"Yeah, so this one time, I tried playing poker with tarot cards... got a full house, and about four people died." ~ Unknown comedian

Happy New Year from WP's resident fortune-teller! May the cards be ever in your favor.


Jpeg
Sea Gull
Sea Gull

User avatar

Joined: 24 Nov 2009
Age: 32
Gender: Male
Posts: 235
Location: Missouri

11 Jan 2010, 3:43 pm

Spazzergasm wrote:
hmm....well, i enjoy math..but not useless math. algorithms are like remembering formulas and stuff right? i suck at that. my memory is hellishly bad. but could i still learn something from a programming course even if i suck at that stuff? or maybe the math will have a purpose and be fun. im not sure. i love computers and would like to learn more about them.

Algorithms are step by step solutions to problems, meaning that programming is more about problem solving than math. You need to be able to think through the solution and implement it. Memorization of algorithms isn't necessary as you will either be creating your own or using one that someone else has already created. Unlike in math, in programming it is considered a bad idea to redo what someone else has already done.

In my school's computer programming class we learned learned the basics of the language (in our case python) and programming in general but also learned about technology and careers, I wish it had involved more (and more complex) programming. I would recommend that you also learn more outside of class and try to make the programs you create in class better. I always make something that goes beyond what is required using things that we were not taught in class or using things we already learned in new ways. (when I am bored of doing that I will write PHP for my website or C++ sometimes)


_________________
"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us"


hiddenname
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker

User avatar

Joined: 2 Jan 2010
Age: 33
Gender: Male
Posts: 53

11 Jan 2010, 3:44 pm

Introduction classes are usually given for students to make them notice their interests, so I don't think that you will type codes until you'll become blind if you take the class.
*Simple math is enough for starters.
*You will probably taught
1) What is programming, and why do people need programs?
2) Some basic logic descriptions (and, or etc.), and logical meanings behind if, for, while...
3) Then coding some basic examples
-counting from 1 to 10 and reading the results from screen
-adding/subtracting/multiplying/dividing... some values entered by user
-maybe basic graphical interface designing (adding buttons, checkboxes... to a predefined screen and prograaming basic commands for them)

Eventually after you'll have taken this lesson, if you think that you're interested on programming, you may continue without a lecturer or lesson, you may do it well only with a book.

Important part is introduction, and I recommend everyone to start as young as possible. The rest will come by you (you won't require anyone else) if you'll be interested to programming.

So make an introduction, you don't have to continue if you won't find what you expected before.


_________________
I've used my foreign language in the message above, so please inform me about lingual mistakes that I've possibly made in there!