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wesk702

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jul 7, 2007
1,809
368
The hood
Hey theres,
I'm really interested in starting to learn to develop software. Can anyone recommend a good place to start?

Also does a computer's processing power play a factor in developing?

thx
 

aaronw1986

macrumors 68030
Oct 31, 2006
2,622
10
Would it be possible to take a class at a community college or something? If not, you could probably teach yourself from a book, or the vast amount of information online. The two languages I was first taught as a computer science major have been Java and C. Processing power will come into play when you are compiling. However, it won't be that big of an issue. We're talking seconds longer at most, probably not even. This is the case especially when you are just starting and don't have very complex programs.
 

wesk702

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jul 7, 2007
1,809
368
The hood
So you recommend Java or C first?
or at same time?

I'll probably just pick up a book, just for hobbyist purposes.
 

aaronw1986

macrumors 68030
Oct 31, 2006
2,622
10
It kind of depends what you want to do. Syntactically, they are pretty similar, at least in respect to learning them. Java is object oriented, people argue both sides of this being simple or not. Java does a lot for you automatically that you have to worry about in C such as "garbage collection" and allocation of memory. I guess I would recommend Java, as that is what I learned first. The transition t o C is not hard if you ever want to know both.
 

psingh01

macrumors 68000
Apr 19, 2004
1,571
598
There is at least one thread like this started per day. First step in being a developer is learning how to find information....

:) This is very true.


I learned C first, but I think Java might be a better route. Simply because you'll get to the point where you can create windows and buttons faster. At least to me in my early days, that was a real motivator when I could start creating "real programs" or at least what I thought were "real" :)
 
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