Why is learning programming hard? <https://www.quora.com/Why-is-learning-programming-hard> - Quora [image: Mike Anthony] <https://www.quora.com/profile/Mike-Anthony-15> Mike Anthony <https://www.quora.com/profile/Mike-Anthony-15>
Two reasons 1. Because 90% of the teaching on programming misses the fact that programming is NOT a study and research endeavor. You only really learn programming when you are writing code and solving real problems. Programming is a PRACTICAL subject. You learn by doing and not some esoteric accomplishment no one wants to know how to do but things that people and you want to do. People are always asking what the easiest language to start out with is and after years of trial and error I realized - It has little to do with the syntax of the langauge. It has to do with how many code examples can you find where the language is getting things done similar to what you want to do. eg why are people still learning php more than C#? because anything you want to do in php you can find a treasure trove of examples while C# and asp .net have more technical and less practical tutorials etc. 2. People freak out needlessly when they see strange content. turn your expectations off just like you would when you go to a country that speaks a language you don’t know. Do you expect french to look like English? Do you get all flustered when you see or hear chinese in China? In programming you are essentially talking to a computer that you already knew doesn’t speak any human language much less English. Just accept the syntax is going to look nonenglish and stop trying to fight it and it gets a whole lot easier. Think of the human hand sign for peace which is just holding up two fingers in a “V”. Makes no sense that that means peace but you just accept it - no need to obsess over it. Ok so there are curly braces in a language? Big whoop. accept it and it goes down pretty easily because when talking to an electrical circuit why did you think you were going to read or write English (or any human language)? <<<>>> Skip Cave Cave Consulting LLC ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
