Losing the fear of Programming
Starting Programming is easy! Surely at some point in your life you have considered starting to program.
The first dilemma that usually arises is choosing the programming language .
With this article I intend to help you in this task with some tips.
Introduction to programming: programmer profiles
Within the programming profiles we can define two different profiles. The one who uses the computer at the office level (Excel, Access) and who has the feeling that the programs do not adapt to their needs; and the programmer who wants to create their own applications, whether to create desktop applications, web applications, mobile applications or who dares to program their own video games. That you not only play with your video games, but that you can program them, design them, and you can create video games like Biomutant, Tetris, Crackdows…
1. Office automation programmer profile
If you are a student who thinks that conventional office programs (basically Excel and Access) do not do everything you would like, it is the perfect time to start thinking about learning to program.
Sometimes when using the different office applications, especially Excel, or Access, it happens that they do not fully adapt to the needs of a task or project. We want to perform a specific functionality and it is not possible. An example, many students tell me that they want to enter data through a form in a consistent way and they don’t know how. Do you want to know the solution? Visual Basic is what you need.
Special Tip: One piece of advice, before launching into programming, get to know the program thoroughly. Do not reinvent the wheel or program tasks that the same program allows you to do.
An example:
We have a set of cells on a sheet and we want to paint the cells with negative values in red (to make it stand out). Obviously we can do it with programming. But we have the Conditional Formatting tool, which is sure to behave better than our programming code.
2. Application programmer profile
If you have already decided that you want to learn to program applications, either on a personal level, as a hobby, or on a professional level, these tips will be useful to achieve your goal.
To start programming applications I recommend a simple environment and a friendly language that does not scare you. The important thing is that you can focus on programming, so any basic environment such as Dev C++, Netbeans, or CodeBlock will make this task easier for you.
Once you have a solid programming base, you can migrate to an environment that is more powerful. This will allow you to develop your own applications with more powerful tools, and with a set of classes that will make programming easier.
Regarding the language, if you don’t have a clear preconceived idea, I recommend starting with C/C++ . It is a language oriented to structured programming (based on functions) and Object Oriented Programming (OOP). In later posts we will go into the matter.
In addition, it is similar to C#, Java, and it is also useful for learning to program in any other language, thanks to its structure and design.
If you have already decided to learn to program, because you are asked to do so at work, because you know a little, but would like to go deeper, or because you would like to learn how to create your own video games, go ahead!
I hope this information has been helpful if you did not have a very clear idea of where to start to get started in programming. See you in the next Post Y..….
That programming is not an endless loop!
Author: Jordi Llort. I teach classes in different areas. Within the Office area I can help you with Office software: Word, Excel, Access, Powerpoint and Outlook.
My great Passion is Programming; I dominate languages from C/C++, to
Visual Basic.Net, Visual C#, VBA for Excel, and in Video Game Programming with Unity.
