Java?

[camchin87]

Hello everyone, I have decided to finally start learning to program and eventually start solving some of the hts missions. I am taking a computer science class right now (in high school, im 16) and we are learning to use java. I noticed that a lot of the languages I see on this site are mostly c related languages. My class is moving very slowly, so I wanna be learning at home also and was wondering if I should do java at home as well as at school, or should I pick up a c language at home? I couldn't tell you what my goal is for learning how to program, I have just been interested in it for a long time. So any tips and help would be greatly appreciated!
Also, to solve the hts missions, do you need knowledge on just programming or on a lot more than that? It would be a great help if someone could give me some info on what you need to know in order to solve some of the easier missions.
Thanks in advance !

[WallShadow]

Welcome to HTS camchin,

To start of, I just recently passed my schools computer science course in Java, so I know exactly what you're talking about. My advice; study both C and Java at home. Learn the basics of C from a book and the internet, it is a very powerful and foundational language. Knowing C and C++ will essentially teach you the basics of every language in existance. As for Java, focus on specific areas of Java such as Network connections (TCP/UDP connections) or maybe GUI applications in Java (Swing library) or maybe video games and graphical applications with applets. You will learn the basics of Java from school anyways, so when you have time, go online and google for "program arguments in Java" or "TCP connection in Java" or "Swing application in Java" or "applet in java". Although C/C++ and Java seem like one and the same at first, they are worlds apart in the way that they are implemented.

As for the missions, the first few missions are just common sense, curiosity, and persistence. After that, you do need to know some elementary programming to figure stuff out, but by the last missions in each section, you will be googling the shit out of everything because you need a very in depth knowledge of it in order to figure it out.

Focus on the basic missions. 1 through 3 are just the basic persistent tests to turn away the slackers. Past that, it gets into more detail and some real effort is required.

Good luck, and remember that any questions you have, feel free to ask them on the forums.

- WallShadow <3

[camchin87]

Thank you WallShadow for your reply. I feel like learning two different languages at the same time might be a bit hard for me. At the rate we are going in school, I'm pretty much not learning anything (teacher spent 3 classes teaching syntax for conditional statements................). That is why I want to take my learning home. However, at home, since I will be moving at a faster pace, I want to stick to one concept or language at a time until I get good with it so as not to confuse myself too much. I have an old book called "Zorland C Compiler" that my dad gave me from when he was in university. This book has a c tutorial in it. Should I start learning C now? Or should I just stick with java at home?

[WallShadow]

Thank you WallShadow for your reply. I feel like learning two different languages at the same time might be a bit hard for me. At the rate we are going in school, I'm pretty much not learning anything (teacher spent 3 classes teaching syntax for conditional statements................). That is why I want to take my learning home. However, at home, since I will be moving at a faster pace, I want to stick to one concept or language at a time until I get good with it so as not to confuse myself too much. I have an old book called "Zorland C Compiler" that my dad gave me from when he was in university. This book has a c tutorial in it. Should I start learning C now? Or should I just stick with java at home?

Which ever you think is best, that's the one you should take. However, I will tell you that many professional programmers complain because they chose not to learn C first. Just a thought.

[0phidian]

I have an old book called "Zorland C Compiler" that my dad gave me from when he was in university. This book has a c tutorial in it.

If your dad knows C then why not ask him to show you some?

It would definetly be good to learn both C and Java. I think C is essential to really understanding programming as it includes lower level concepts like memory allocation. If you plan to continue studing computer science, it is taught exclusively with java(at least at my university, and others I've looked at). I think a good programmer should know around 5-7 languages reasonably well.

As far as learning two languages at once it depends on what your comfortable with. Since it's your first language it might be better to focus on it, but if you think you can do two then thats great. Among different languages alot of the concepts (like conditional statements) are the same, it's just the syntax thats different. So learning C and Java at the same time shouldn't be too hard as long as you dont mix up the syntax. If you do decide to learn both then I would still try to focus on one(whichever you like better) more than the other.

Most of the missions(basic and realistic) are web based so it's best to have a knowledge of web development(html,PHP,SQL), but having a basic knowledge of programming should be sufficent for most challenges. Java or C will be great for the programming missions, and for the application missions you'll need to know C and debugging. Although alot of completing the missions is more about learning new things than what you already know.

[jack08642qa]

go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hl-zzrqQoSE

this is the first video of TheNewBostons beginner java tutorial which has over 200 videos in it

this user also has an intermediate java tutorial and an advanced as well as java game development tutorial

this user will teach you everything you will ever need to know about java programming except for the advanced networking stuff