New to Programming

[Kevin Bealer]

== Quote from Walter Prescott (Chakravanti01 at aol.com)'s article
> Greetings,
>
> I realize that my questions might come across as somewhat silly considering
> that this is a forum for programmers not “newbies,” so to speak. I apologize
> ahead of time if I offend anyone but I’ll gladly appreciate any assistance I
> receive.

You might also try the "D.learn" forum on this page.

> With little to no programming experience I’d like to get into programming. I’m
> somewhat experienced with running server and client side variations of the
> windows operating system and mainly client operations on linux distributions.
> The only programming languages I know are Markup Languages such as HTML/XML
> and its subset AIML (for fun, and yet AI has its limitations in a Markup
> language whereas implementation in a solid programming language might be better).
> I’d like to learn a flexible, fast and powerful programming language that’ll
> have near limitless possibility. My main interest with programming lies in
> computer security and writing programs simply to effectively manage and run
> background processes I see fit (as time expands so too would I like to expand
> my programming knowledge).

Computer security and AI are considered advanced topics, but it depends what you
want to do with it of course, so don't let me discourage you.

One note for someone with an HTML background: A language like D is much more
generalized than something like HTML.  This is good, but one of the consequences
of this is that you need more syntax to tell the language what you want from it.
So the payoff is bigger, but it will seem like more work to get something done for
a while.

> Would Digital Mars be a good first step?

I would recommend it over C++ or C.  The only downside is that once in a while
when something fails, its because the language is new and changing.  That might be
tricky but shouldn't be a problem until you get into advanced stuff.

...
> Is extensive Math knowledge required for programming languages? Is it required
> to learn the bare minimum of D? Or is D only for really advanced C/C++
> programmers?


Not too much, (but I think that all knowledge helps some).  The math in most
programs is just counting and basic arithmetic.  There are some mathematically
concepts that you will need though, like what hexadecimal, octal, and binary
numbers are.  Other than that, you will need the math that relates to what you are
doing with the program.

I think the reason examples use math such as prime number stuff, is that
originally programming was done by the math and electical engineering departments
at colleges.

One caution:  Someone once said that the best way to learn something is to teach
it to a really dumb person; but no real person is ever as dumb as a computer!  So
you will find that if you want to write a program for playing tic-tac-toe, that
you will learn *A LOT* about tic-tac-toe.  This is a blessing of programming that
feels like a curse at first!


> Currently in my possession are the Schaum’s Outlines books Data Structures
> with C++ and Programming with C++.
> I would greatly appreciate anyone willing to give me pointers when it comes to
> programming languages, what to expect with D, what I’ll be able to do with D,
> and the type of knowledge required to initially get into the language. Please
> feel free to email me or contact me via the forums.
> Thanks!

I think D could work for you, although there might be a lot more "beginner
resources" already written (such as tutorials) for a language like Java or C.

This might be a good starting point for D tutorials:
  http://dsource.org/projects/tutorials/wiki/TutorialFundamentals

Kevin