How to Become a Good Beginner
Programmer
An essay by L32
This guide is written for those people who are interested in learning how to program a computer. This guide will not teach any particular programming language, but it will teach what it takes to be a programmer and the fundamental knowledge of programming.
A programmer is a person who writes codes to give information and commands for a computer to do particular tasks. The job of a programmer is to solve the problems in this world by using information technology, so that human jobs or tasks would be more efficient and easier. The goal of a programmer is to provide a simple solution, but to be effective.
Before starting to learn any programming language, you have to have the correct attitude of a programmer. The most important thing is that you have to be innovative, which means that you have to think of something new and interesting; otherwise you would waste your time doing something that someone else has done. Secondly, you must be willing to learn, read books, and sit down and work for a few hours. A programmer must be calm, it doesn’t mean that you must be isolated and unsocialized, but it means that you have to be patient and concentrating on what you are working on; because, just one false code, and your software will not work. The last thing is to share your programs on the internet for free, because you are a beginner, you have to let people know you first. Let them test your software and give their comments to you. That way, you will improve a lot faster.
There are two most important skills that you have to have in order to learn a programming language efficiently, they are mathematics and logic. Mathematics is very important, as you will do a lot of calculation when you write software; you have to at least understand algebra. The other most important thing is logic, no matter how good you are at a particular programming language, without logic you will never get your software to work. Your logic is your common sense in deciding the sequence of the instructions inside the software.
When you are sure that you have the attitude and the basic skills, then you are ready to choose which programming language that suits you best. There are two types of programming languages; they are low-level language and high-level language. Low level language deals directly with the micro-processor of the computer. It is a machine code and not readable to humans, but can be decoded into assembly language. With the assembly language, humans can write low-level language software. This software can run really fast but only on a specific microprocessor, if you change the microprocessor, then the software will not work. It is not advisable to learn this language as it is extremely hard and time consuming.
The other
type of language is the high-level language, this is
readable by humans, because it is written in English. There are a lot of these
languages, the most common or famous ones are: C++, Visual Basic,
For a beginner, Visual Basic is highly recommended software. It gives you the feeling of programming when it is very easy to use and not time consuming. Unfortunately, the language itself is not flexible and could only run normally on a Microsoft Windows Operating system.
Now that the main programming languages have been explained, you must learn the basic steps of programming.
First, you have to analyse your idea or the problem that you wish to solve. Understand what you have to do or what it takes to solve the problem. Then, set your goal, it is what your software should be able to do and the due date of your software completion. Due date is very important; it is to make sure that you can finish your software in a particular time, because in the real world, programmers work under time pressure.
After you have analysed the problem, you will then have to design the interface. The interface design is very important, because it is what the user of your software will see on screen. A good interface design must be, attractive, clear and easy to read, easy to use (user –friendly), and neat.
The next thing that you have to do which is very important is to design the algorithm of the software. The algorithm design is a flowchart of how your software will run; it is the heart of your software. It is important to know that during algorithm design you do not need to write any code on your flowchart, it is only a guide for you when you write your code later on.
When you have finished writing the design, start writing the codes in your computer, using one of the languages that you have learned. An important point to stress on is to keep the code simple, long and complicated code will only make the software bigger and run slower. After you are happy with the codes that you have written, compile it into an executable file. When you compile your code, the compiler translates the code into the machine codes.
By compiling the code into an executable, doesn’t mean you are finished, you have to debug your software. It means, testing your software on your computer and check if there are any mistakes or error, if there are, then go back to your code and fix the mistakes.
Only if you are sure that you cannot find any mistakes, publish your software in the internet. You can upload it to your own website or submit it to one of the software download websites such as ZDnet or SoftSeek. This way, your software will be downloaded and used by people; they will also, hopefully, send some comments to you that will help you improve.
In conclusion, it can be said that what you need to be a good programmer is the correct attitude, basic knowledge, understanding and ability to use one of the programming languages, and the application of the basic steps of programming. Another thing that you have to remember is that when you work on a project, try to keep it simple and when you learn something, do not just memorize what you are learning, instead, you have to understand it.
This concludes the guide in How to Become a Good Beginner Programmer. Good Luck on Programming J