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Getting started for students (Read 1136 times)
Ted
Getting started for students
Feb 25th, 2010, 12:10am  
Hi!  I hope i am posting in the right place.  My older boys have expressed an interest in learning something about programming, and i stumbled onto this site.

Is there a place/guide for novices who want to get a feel for programming?

Thanks,
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Cedric
Re: Getting started for students
Reply #1 - Feb 25th, 2010, 12:49am  
Hy, i believe processing is definitely the right thing to learn when learning programming. I started learning programming using processing some years ago with no programming background at all.
Actually all I used were some books, and a lot of time visiting this website and board. Reading all the posts. Trying out examples. copying stuff, etcs. The good thing about processing. He will get some nice results withing the first day. Thats the main goal behind processing. There is no need to set up any software, or configureate anything. You get the processing IDE. you draw your stuff, hit play, and there it is.

So for getting started, i would. Visit this part of the website : http://processing.org/learning/gettingstarted/
You can also use some books, but i believe the website is enough.  If you want to buy some books, i would probably wait for caseys next book.
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PhiLho 
Re: Getting started for students
Reply #2 - Feb 25th, 2010, 1:09am  
I concur with Cedric. There are other nice learning environments, like those listed in the main page of this site, for example Scratch which has a visual approach of programming.
But Processing is a good step toward "serious" programming as it is based on an industrial language, Java, while hiding some syntax cruft, offering an initial simpler procedural approach.
And the interpreter feel given by the famous Run button is great, allowing fast iterative learning process (try this code, test, change there, test...).
The visual nature of Processing is great as it offers immediate reward of efforts (it is nicer to see two circles bouncing than a bunch of text lines spitted out on console...).
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