Does HTML count? j/k

I guess I have seriously been coding for only about 3 years when I was forced to by graduating and getting a job.

Before that, I played around for 6 years while getting my EE degree.

And finially add another 3 for just screwing around and making "Hello World!" programs.

3+6+3....ahhh maybe 12 years

Lets see here. Im 16 and sophomore in high school. I started programming HTML about December 2003, and have progressed to JavaScript, and then onto PHP. I've been trying to learn ASP and stuff. I've been looking around at C/C++ stuff but i cant find anything good! Anyone know of something that can really help me with text based progs, at least to get started. I've also taken a semester of HyperCard and TrueBASIC, which i did kind of like. All in all, I've been programming for about a year and a half. Again, I need serious help with C/C++ and if you know ANYWAY to get started, let me know via PM or reply or even e-mail. Thanks a bunch and as I'm looking at these posts, great job guys. Future programmer here hehe. Looking into that field going into college.

I started programming in high school about 1977 on a programmable commodore calculator, if you can call it that. Then I got the HP-41C. I wrote a neat star trek game where you give commands as a captain trying to out guess the computer klingon opponent. This original idea would have several reincarnations later.

My first programming class was fortran using punch cards. The totally unimaginative class warned me to steer as far away from the computer science department as possible. So my next computer was a mainframe DEC 20/60 used by the College of Science at the University of Utah. I defeated the teacher of a Computer Modeling class by writting the best program to play the game of othello. I tried my hand at about every language I could back then including sail and pascal, but my favorite was the macro assembler used by the DEC. It was using this that I resurrected my star trek game, and it wasn't long before many of the people logged onto the DEC was were playing it. It expanded on the orignial idea to include exporing a three dimensional galaxy.

As a summer job I used my programming skills to supply the graphics for a research project in solid state physics. At the end of my four years as a physics major, during which I took as many numerical analysis classes as I could (three whole years), I had the chance to work on a Evans and Sutherland Picture system run by a VAX. I modified a flight simulator demo on the thing to a combat simulator type game, which apparently had people playing it long after I had left.

I had a bit of a religious interlude, but at seminary I bought my first DOS laptop and learned to program in C. With that little thing I rewrote my own version of a text base wargame, a third version of my star trek game, a Russian word processor, and spent two years on a program to play the game of Go. In the meantime I had entered graduate school in physics.

I worked on a maple program to work out the algebra for a three body problem in a Machian type mechanics called Barbour-Bertotti theory. Then I switched to a phd project in High energy physics, where I worked on the multiprocessor computers at the univerity of Utah's Center for High Performance Computing. I learned how to use these machines to do monte carlo simulation of a quantum field theory that turned out to be a bit useless. But I also took some time out to take a couple of Computer science classes and learned Java, and relearned lisp. In fact, emacs lisp is one of my favorite ways of doing quick calculations. I loved our project on public key encryption. I also took a class on Scientific Visualization, which familiarized by with rendering concepts. I even tried using volume rendering in the relativistic flight simulator project that I would do later.

Bored to death I quit my PHD project to work on a programming project of my own. I thought that there was so much ignorance and misconception about relativity and that this could be remedied if people could see how it worked by seeing in action. The project led me on the path of learning how to program using OpenGL and Win32. I do keep toying with the idea of incorporating my old star trek game into the simulator, but the never ending improvements of adding more astronomical objects and realism to the simulator has kept me busy enough.

I have also played around a bit with the idea of doing a similar sort of simulator for quantum physics as well. But that project has a long way to go yet.

I started computing on an IBM 286 when I was 4 years old. But this was only a very little gaming... Later when I learned to read (when I was 6 years old) Windows 95 had arrived and I became firstly REAL interested in computers. When I was 12 years old (lol, 6 years later!), I started HTML. At the age of 13 I read the first book about JavaScript. My first language (after HTML). Even now I HAVE GOT MY FIRST FEW LINES OF PROGRAMMING!!! REAL THE FIRST!



Sorry, the names of the variables are german. I think you see that my English isn't very well ... Later I started to learn Java, but I found it to comlicated. So I improved my JavaScript and HTML. Then I started Java a secound time and now I am able to write some programms (at the moment i'm working on the Reflection API). I learned in that time PHP and SQL, too. I plan to learn C++ next. At the age of 16, you think you will have plenty of time in your live... And if I won't have enough time when I'm working, I'll maybe have time for it, when I'm on pension... But that will be (I hope so) in 49 years...

I'm 17 years old and I like PROGRAMMING, not scripting or kidding. I'm a very good programmer (I think). I won a lot of programming contests.

I know a lot of programming languages: C, C++, Java, JavaScript, Actionscript, PHP, Python, HTML (if counts), Pascal (Delphi), MySQL, PgSQL. I am curently learning ASM and Oracle.

Any new language is very easy for me to learn. I learn a new language for any new project that needs it.

Ok, let's see. I started with HTML 3 years ago. I saw a book about webdesigning and I bought it. 1/2 A year later I started with JavaScript. Another 1/2 year later I tried C++, but it was too difficult for me and I stopped with it. But then I found GameMaker and started making my own games in GML, my first real programming language. (For the people who don't know GML, it's a programming language pretty similar to C++, but more simple and easier to learn). After that I tried C++ again, this time I understanded it and since a few months I'm now trying to learn PHP. That's my story, I know, it doesn't sound very impressive, but I'm only 13 years old now and I've got plenty of time to learn more and more.

7 yrs - Visual Basic
2 yrs - C++
4 yrs - Java/JavaScript
8 yrs - HTML
4 yrs - C
3 yrs - PHP

2 yrs - Flash ActionScripting
1 yr - Maya Mel Scripting

Wow. You guys make me pee in my pants!! Make me go, "Wow... that's cool. I don't even know HTML"

Alright alright. I seriously want to learn HTML and C. Maybe Visual Basic but I don't know how. Where can you learn this? My school doesn't offer any programming courses... this is pathetic...

Read on for some interesting facts:

8th grade computer course(s): Getting to use Microsoft Excel
Freshman computer course(s): Getting to know about Adobe Photoshop CS... and Adobe PageMaker 4.0!!! This program is so old!!! Why not some other program like Macromedia's?! Bah... can't complain anyway. They won't really care.
Sophomore+ computer course(s): Video editting/projects, using video softwares, like Adobe Creative Suite, etc. Oh, also, this year, there was this thing about multimedia courses. Looked pretty stupid.

Anyway, the point is... my school doesn't offer programming courses. If I want to learn HTML and Visual basic... and C and C++, where can I do that? In what ways?

Can I just pick up a 500-page thick book from a bookstore and start off? Well, I have never seen those before except in really big bookstores.

Anyway, I'm free for suggestions because I don't want to sit here and drool at you guys who are doing so well.

Yes, there are some books you can just buy from the bookstore and read, but my suggestion is to simply do a web search for tutorials on the language you want to learn, and ask questions here.

~Viz

I learned logic and pascal in high school, and thats the extent of it. I am looking forward to learning PHP and mysql... can anyone point me in the general direction of the best tutorials available for a newb such as myself? If so I would really appreciate it.