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Programming yourself
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haha, guess i didn't word my first question properly 
what I meant was how heavily did employers consider your grades? would it be the case that they wouldn't even consider someone (no matter what degree/where they got it from) if they hadn't met certain A level criteria (that's where I was wondering about A levels superseding the degree)? Or are A levels relatively useless after you've a good degree from a good uni?
again, thanks for a your help
what I meant was how heavily did employers consider your grades? would it be the case that they wouldn't even consider someone (no matter what degree/where they got it from) if they hadn't met certain A level criteria (that's where I was wondering about A levels superseding the degree)? Or are A levels relatively useless after you've a good degree from a good uni?
again, thanks for a your help
I am a self-taught coder, I started with C then moved to C++ (Then java/haskell at uni later on). You really need to find an area which you are interested in then concentrate on making programs for that area. I started off from playing games when I was about 12 and hanging around on IRC. From there I some how just ended up idling in channels coding and helping other people with problems 
. Im 21 now and most of my programming knowledge is self taught (the theory behind it came from my CS course though). If I was going to learn to code now from scratch I would probably learn Python.
. Im 21 now and most of my programming knowledge is self taught (the theory behind it came from my CS course though). If I was going to learn to code now from scratch I would probably learn Python.brpqzme
haha, guess i didn't word my first question properly
what I meant was how heavily did employers consider your grades? would it be the case that they wouldn't even consider someone (no matter what degree/where they got it from) if they hadn't met certain A level criteria (that's where I was wondering about A levels superseding the degree)? Or are A levels relatively useless after you've a good degree from a good uni?
again, thanks for a your help
what I meant was how heavily did employers consider your grades? would it be the case that they wouldn't even consider someone (no matter what degree/where they got it from) if they hadn't met certain A level criteria (that's where I was wondering about A levels superseding the degree)? Or are A levels relatively useless after you've a good degree from a good uni?
again, thanks for a your help
A levels are important to some extent. They're not the be all and end all. But I have had my A levels (and AEAs) brought up during interview for discussion. Although not as in-depth, your choice of A levels are likely to be of a wider variety than your degree, so employers are interested in them.
Employers ask for specific grades at GCSE in Maths and English, but I can't remember ever coming across a company asking for specific grades in specific subjects at A level.
C#, Java or Haskell are good to start with.
They will teach you concepts that will help at uni.
Avoid VB.
They will teach you concepts that will help at uni.
Avoid VB.
If you want to learn to code, find yourself a project that you want to work on. This is important, otherwise coding will just become an intellectual enterprise that you'll shelve when you can't be bothered. It doesn't really matter what language the project is in, so long as it's not something too toy-like (because you won't learn the right concepts) or obscure (because documentation won't be there for you).
Learning a computer language is like learning a human language - unless you jump in to the culture, you're not going to learn very quickly.
And once you've got it, you can easily learn anything else that you want to. You might need to put the semi-colons in a different place, but once you get the concepts - functions, variables, objects, classes, operators (arithmetic, comparison and assignment), iteration, recursion, control structures (if, while, for, foreach etc.) - it all falls in to place.
The switching cost to go between languages is small. What takes the time isn't learning syntax but libraries. I'm sure that if I want to learn a language, it won't take me more than a day or two to get the language - but it may take weeks to get one's head around the libraries. All I need to know about PHP5 as a language can be summed up in about 30 pages of text. All I need to know about PHP5's XML functions (to pick an example I use daily) requires about 900 pages. The same is undoubtedly true for other languages too.
So, if your little project is web stuff, pick something like PHP5 or Python or Ruby. If you want to build a desktop app, pick Java or *whatever is best for your OS* (C# probably, if you're on Windows; Obj-C on OS X). Perhaps you are a big fan of a game - learn the scripting language of the game (Second Lifers - learn LSL).
Learning a computer language is like learning a human language - unless you jump in to the culture, you're not going to learn very quickly.
And once you've got it, you can easily learn anything else that you want to. You might need to put the semi-colons in a different place, but once you get the concepts - functions, variables, objects, classes, operators (arithmetic, comparison and assignment), iteration, recursion, control structures (if, while, for, foreach etc.) - it all falls in to place.
The switching cost to go between languages is small. What takes the time isn't learning syntax but libraries. I'm sure that if I want to learn a language, it won't take me more than a day or two to get the language - but it may take weeks to get one's head around the libraries. All I need to know about PHP5 as a language can be summed up in about 30 pages of text. All I need to know about PHP5's XML functions (to pick an example I use daily) requires about 900 pages. The same is undoubtedly true for other languages too.
So, if your little project is web stuff, pick something like PHP5 or Python or Ruby. If you want to build a desktop app, pick Java or *whatever is best for your OS* (C# probably, if you're on Windows; Obj-C on OS X). Perhaps you are a big fan of a game - learn the scripting language of the game (Second Lifers - learn LSL).
tommorris
The switching cost to go between languages is small. What takes the time isn't learning syntax but libraries. I'm sure that if I want to learn a language, it won't take me more than a day or two to get the language
The switching cost to go between languages is small. What takes the time isn't learning syntax but libraries. I'm sure that if I want to learn a language, it won't take me more than a day or two to get the language
You need to qualify the above. You can easily switch between languages within the same paradigm, but not between paradigms. Try switching to functional, constraint or aspect oriented programming based languages.
And some languages are just weird. Objective-C and Fortran aren't exactly like most languages in syntax.
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