Programming for Noobs

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I'm thinking about creating my own programs.

What I really want is something that can lookup data from tables to create uh, profiles I guess, then do comparisons through time and then notify me (print a message) when certain conditions are met.

Does that make any sense? I don't know the lingo.

Anyway, I believe that could actually be quite a simple programming job.

Are there any ways for an absolute beginner to get programming simple stuff quite quickly (and cheaply)? What tools do I need? Any other advice?

Depends on how you want to do it.
Im assuming this will be client side?
Or will it be a server side script?
What language will you be using?
Dont know?
C++ should do the job nicely

Python might be a nice place to start. I would recommend it because it comes with most everything you need to get going, its free, and there are plenty of good online tutorials and documentation to get you started. The official python tutorial is a nice place to start if you have never programmed before, it is easy to follow and somewhat interactive. Python gives you lots of choices as how to write programs, which is good for beginners, you really only need to learn a subset of the language to get started.

python is a great start +1

it runs everywhere, its easy to get started and fast to write in.
it will allow you to easily move on to other languages so in reality there is no bad choice when it comes to learning languages (well debatable but still)

FearOfMusic's suggestion is a nice low-friction way to get started, that should be doable. If you have access to a computer that can browse the web, you can probably get through installing Python, then getting started in the tutorial.

Unless you need this to be highly dynamic (ie. will pressing a button to get results be Ok) and linked to several complicated database structures, it seems to me that you could do it in a spreadsheet or two.
Any spreadsheet worth its salt will include row and column lookups, data comparison, range checking etc. as well as the obvious calculation abilities.
You'd have the advantage of near instantaneous results after little more than a bit of tinkering about, and if it was ever required you'd still be able to export your data in a different format for a more typical sort of database program.

You may need to write some macros to smarten things up but that's no more complicated than BASIC and pretty close to spoken English, and the support required to write, test and debug macros is a part of the spreadsheet so there's nothing extra to tack on.
You can get a free and compatible replacement for Microsoft Office here: http://download.openoffice.org/
This also includes a database, if you need to go that far.
Section details: http://www.openoffice.org/product/


Having to learn an entire programming language - especially something like C++ which is pretty terse at times, but even Python - is much less than half the battle (and that's surely much bigger than it need be already) because having learned the language, you'd now have to learn how to use whatever libraries are required to implement database functionality.
The ability to use libraries at all will require its own special knowledge, and having mastered that you'd then need a detailed understanding of how whatever database method you've chosen works and is put together, and that will require an entertaining diversion into the exciting realms of the care and feeding of data structures.

While it's certainly possible and undoubtedly satisfying to build a two-storey log cabin given nothing more than a packet of tree seeds, a patch of land and a pound of nails - but no plans and no building experience, I can't help feeling that it would be more quickly productive for you to go out and get a flat-pack one from Ikea.
That's where the spreadsheet would come in.

Python +1.

VBA within excel may also do what you want for this particular project, but python will grow with you for all kinds of different projects.

Actually, that sounds a lot more doable. I already have Open Office, I just couldn't conceive of making it do what I was thinking of.

I think the biggest obstacle I can think of is making the data usable for open office spreadsheet... I'll have to see. Maybe I'll come back with another problem soon

Thanks for the suggestions everyone, I might have a look at this python thingy anyway.

actually python is also directly supported by open office, you can use the basic spreadsheets to do most of the work and then use python for the few places where that isnt enough.

grabbing data is a problem i would love to solve as well, what format will you be grabbing from?

I'm not yet sure actually

I have a zip file full of weird stuff

If you decide to learn python, there's a really good free course/learning-guide called Learn Python the Hard Way (especially good if your a kinaesthetic learner). I'm going through it at the moment learning python as my first programming language: it assumes no previous programming experience and no tech-expertism, and tells you how to install the interpreter.

p.s. So I tried to post with a link to the site, but I've not got enough posts to do that. Just google 'Learn Python the Hard Way', it'll be one of the first links.

I actually did not know open office had bindings to python, this is quite exciting actually. I am going to investigate this soon...

the open office plugin system is based on python, meaning you can write plugins using the SDK with some limitations, i havent tried yet but i want to see if i can read receipts automatically and input the data, im afraid its impossible without some form of edge detection and i have no idea how to do that.

If you really want to learn programming you might want to have a look at the How to Think Like a Computer Scientist series of books. I've never actually had the time to read one and do the accompanying exercises from beginning to end, but I've read parts of the Java version and liked it, and several people I trust have recommended them. Also, they're free, which is good.

Python version
Java version
C++ version

Do you know a URL where the material can be downloaded?

ruveyn

Those are links at the bottom. The stylesheet for these forums makes links the same color and style as regular text, which is really confusing. Odd that someone would go through the trouble of overriding the default behavior in order to make the forums less useful.