i am currently taking my basics in college but am planning on majoring in computer science. I dont know much about programming but i want to learn. What books are good to read in order to learn more about computer programming? what websites will help me more? any information will be helpful thanks.
The right way to learn, in my humble opinion, is python. You learn all the concepts- good style, object orientation, documentation, organization, writing re-useable code, using an existing code base instead of re-inventing the wheel- automatically as you learn the language. The only element that’s missing from the language is "switch" constructs, but you can often manage the exact same data structure with dictionaries.
Plus, as a beginner, it’s frustrating writing stuff that only reads and writes stuff out to the console, isn’t it? With python, you’ll be learning how to make "real" programs with a GUI pretty early on with Tcl/Tk.
I know a lot of that sounded like jargon, but python is a really, really easy language to learn for total beginners. And it’s powerful enough that you’ll keep using it long after you’ve got ten languages under your belt. Here’s enough to get you started.
Start here. It’s even got a cartoon 
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-189-a-gentle-introduction-to-programming-using-python-january-iap-2008/
You want to click "Lecture notes", then click the Session 1 notes pdf, it’ll walk you through step by step installing python and writing your first python program, then day by day go through the rest of the lecture series, and when you think you’re hot stuff give yourself the exams.
Then once you know your stuff, go here to make "real" programs,
http://python.about.com/od/advancedpython/ss/tkinter_intro_10.htm
Annnnnd once you realize how cool and powerful those console-based programs you started with really are, you can go here to get good with those,
http://docs.python.org/tutorial/introduction.html
That’s enough to go from rank beginner to expert in a couple weeks. Enjoy!
December 29th, 2011 at 6:10 am
The right way to learn, in my humble opinion, is python. You learn all the concepts- good style, object orientation, documentation, organization, writing re-useable code, using an existing code base instead of re-inventing the wheel- automatically as you learn the language. The only element that’s missing from the language is "switch" constructs, but you can often manage the exact same data structure with dictionaries.
Plus, as a beginner, it’s frustrating writing stuff that only reads and writes stuff out to the console, isn’t it? With python, you’ll be learning how to make "real" programs with a GUI pretty early on with Tcl/Tk.
I know a lot of that sounded like jargon, but python is a really, really easy language to learn for total beginners. And it’s powerful enough that you’ll keep using it long after you’ve got ten languages under your belt. Here’s enough to get you started.
Start here. It’s even got a cartoon
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-189-a-gentle-introduction-to-programming-using-python-january-iap-2008/
You want to click "Lecture notes", then click the Session 1 notes pdf, it’ll walk you through step by step installing python and writing your first python program, then day by day go through the rest of the lecture series, and when you think you’re hot stuff give yourself the exams.
Then once you know your stuff, go here to make "real" programs,
http://python.about.com/od/advancedpython/ss/tkinter_intro_10.htm
Annnnnd once you realize how cool and powerful those console-based programs you started with really are, you can go here to get good with those,
http://docs.python.org/tutorial/introduction.html
That’s enough to go from rank beginner to expert in a couple weeks. Enjoy!
References :