Learning Programming slowly

[terencemckenna]

So I know it takes long to learn to program and I recently read the famous article: How to program in ten years.
I've been trying to teach myself programming for ages. I'm 19 now and I started reading through my brother's Java programming books at 15. Right now I know the basic syntax of: C,freeBasic,java,python, and Vb.net (the last one doesn't really count.)

So yes guys:"Im going to create a gui in visual basic to track ip addresses."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkDD03yeLnU

Anyways it feels like I'm going nowhere...right now I'm very busy with university at the moment but this weekend I wanna try teach myself javascript cause it seems pretty useful, but isn't really programming. The fact remains that learning new things will stimulate my brain and if it can atleast help me feel like I'm going somewhere and gaining something from all the time I spend infront of my computer that would be great.

So what kinda stuff can I program?
1. In C I programmed something that I used to track how much money I spent during the month and how much I would have left at the beginning of the new month including the money that was left over from the passed month. (Pretty practically useful but not very complex)
2. In Java I made something to help me write my references for essays in the Harvard format.
3. VB.net made some pretty random shit nothing useful though.

Right now I feel I need to start working on some basic stuff which I really never felt like learning:
1. I know html but I'm not great at CSS usually just used templates for all the websites I've had to set up.
2. Don't know javascript
3. Know the basic syntax of php but never really bothered to learn SQL
4. Always used windows hosting for sites and tried a linux host the other day and to my surprise it was not at all what I had expected, learning to use Vim took me a while to understand.

Any tips to help me actually get somewhere? I've never had any one teach me and I don't attend any CS classes...everything I know is from books or online tutorials.

[Goatboy]

Before I give you any advice, I have to say that I cringed a bit when you said that Javascript isn't real programming. Tell that to this guy: http://www.codebase.es/jsgb/

Anyway... The first thing I would advise you to do is get better acquainted with Linux. It has amazing programming support, is great for running any kind of server, and is pretty much required knowledge for any decent computer-related job. Plus, you can amaze and dazzle the masses with your CLI-fu.

Once you have a good grasp of Linux, you might try running a web server of your own. This will teach you how to compile, configure, and maintain, three things that you will be doing a lot of. Apache+PHP+SQL is a pretty standard setup, and you can install what's called a LAMP (Linux Apache MySQL PHP/Perl/Python) server very easily. Ubuntu has a pain-free installation CD, but I usually like to compile form source. Try the CD first until you're confident, then rebuild it from source.

When you have this server running, you can practice in a realistic environment. Maybe learn SQL. Make your pages pretty with CSS, interactive with AJAX (kinda like Javascript on steroids), and dynamic with PHP. The possibilities are virtually endless.

[terencemckenna]

Ok so this link you posted: http://www.codebase.es/jsgb/ No comment...just very amazed and seems like I was wrong. This is out of this world.

I'm getting aqainted with Linux at the moment. Tried Redhat (which is now Fedora),Ubuntu,Backtrack, Kubuntu, Knoppix and now Mint. I don't really like Ubuntu,but I love mint...serves all my music and movie purposes well with all the built in codecs and it comes with Java and flash installed. I think it is an amazing starter distro and would work awesome for a home entertainement system. I'm slowly learning my linux commands.

I didn't mention that I dual boot though, still have some things that Windows is good for: Visual Studio and for my music production programs.

My next distro I'm trying is either slackware,arch or gentoo...can't decide which one....really like the gentoo community: I was asking some questions oneday in a gentoo IRC...kinda trolling but they were very nice and convincing.

I'm running Apache at the moment...Lampp is also good I tried it before. I'm busy reading a apache reference book and the documentation. The reference book doesn't deal with security much, which is kinda disapointing.

The problem I have now is that I have the burning to learn a bit of everyhting and that stops me from learning allot of one thing which is actually what I need to do right now. Right now I'm working on learning java and reading some books on python again, should I take things one at a time or is it ok to do two OOP languages at the same time?

Thanks for the reply Goatboy, I've learnt lots from your posts.

[neuromanta]

I know what you mean by saying you're getting into too many things. I've been there, believe me, and it's not very practical. Of course you can try it, but I wouldn't suggest that. Of course it's okay to learn about various fields, but you should have one goal at a time. For example, hosting a python based dynamic webpage from a gentoo machine. First you'll learn much about linux (just by installing gentoo, and making it work), then you'll have to configure apache (learn about the web, http), making it secure (learn about security), and of course making it viewable by anyone (learn about IP networks), and then implementing the actual webpage (learn about HTML and python, if you choose python as the CLI language).
Btw, python is not an OOP language, it's just that you can use it as an OOP language too.