I usually learn just by doing. I think of something I want to program, and then I look for a tutorial on how to do it. Practice makes perfect!

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siLenTz is correct in the intended counsel by Konr. Konr, however, has only got it partially right. You cannot learn how to program well by simply doing it. There are ways of solving things which require deep thought and analysis (and sometimes a proof). You will not get these simply by attempting to do it. For example, how many would come up with the best comparison sort algo for a given problem just by sitting down and deciding to solve a problem? I sure wouldn't have.

It is, in fact, this very distinction which separates "programmers" into 2 classes: Those who know only the syntax of a language and those who know how to program as well. Very often this division is seen in those who've studied programming in college vs those who've self-taught. To ensure that you're in the latter class (those who can do both), study programming as well as the syntax of a given language simultaneously - as you're learning about how to create an object in your preferred language also look at how objects are used to efficiently solve different kinds of problems. Then, you'll learn both better than you otherwise may have. It is, in my opinion, better to use a lower-level language such as C++ for learning programming techniques because it is less limited than many other languages (PHP, for example) and will allow you to gain a deeper understanding of how your code works with the memory and CPU(s) of your computer and provide a deeper base of knowledge for when you go on to learn higher-level languages.

Now, here's the key difference between learning a language and learning how to program: once you've learned how to program, you can learn just about any language extremely quickly; you need only answer the question of how the syntax differs and which objects are native to your new language. I now spend about 2 hours going through introductory material to a language before being able to begin coding as opposed to weeks of study.

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Well i must be in the second group, i learnt VB at college where we learn all about the syntax and everything, with the steps we take at college i use at home so i know it for what im learning at home such as PHP, Perl and others, i can normally understand a script written in something like PHP when i have never looked at half the functions in PHP this is because of what i know from other languages, that helps so much.

I would therefore advise if you can to get taught a language or basics of a language by a teacher in school, college or uni etc, it really does help you when it comes to looking at other languages.

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That's true. My professor told me that by taking compiler class usually would help us to code much more efficiently in the higher level language because then we know how does the compiler works

Somewhat I agreed, but also more to the disagree because if at the first place you practice wrong, I don't think we'll ever get it right by just practicing the wrong thing over and over again haha...

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In my defense, the question did not mention programming well!

These threads tend to get a bit zen after a while, but if we're after programming well one could do worse than looking up Pete Norvig's article on how to be a programmer in ten years.

The problem with great programmers is that the only thing you can see, the application of fingers to keyboard, is a trivial final step in their actions. However, because it's all we can see, it appears that programming is all about slapping down code. Ultimately, you programme inside your head.

I'm getting all zen again. I'll stop. To suggest something very concrete to do to learn how to programme, rather than talking about the inside of your head, once you've learnt C or C++ or whatever you choose, learn LISP.

This is beautiful. It's not relevant, but it's something everyone starting out in C should see.
It's beautiful. It's by no means the safest string copy code ever, but it is beautiful.

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For those desiring to follow a thread on the code snippet above, please see Strings & Character Arrays

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