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    You can learn all of those things in modern languages in modern development environments without the issues of old hardware and ancient languages.

    I started there too, but that is simply because there weren't alternatives - I'd don't believe it's a very good place to start now when there are far better places that will give you a way better grounding.

    If the aim is just for laughs, then sure, why not. If the goal is make it a career, then no, get a Pi, get a book and learn Scratch if you want to go super simple or Python. If you go the BASIC route it'll hamper things when you need to start structuring code properly.
    Last edited by MartyG; 12-05-2020, 20:29.

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      I have to admit that my blood ran cold with the retro computer idea. Have negative childhood memories of trying the ZX Spectrum manual and Crash type-ins and getting nothing working. And honestly, my retro computers need sorting. I haven’t got much motivation for that all at the moment (getting the caps replaced, etc). As a layman, it sounds rather counterproductive learning an 30+ year old language rather than a current-day one, and rather masochistic dealing with the old interfaces, worn keyboards, tape interfaces, etc. Sorry.

      (The Head First book looks like it has an interesting approach. Perhaps I should investigate the Python version? Or go all in on C?)

      I agree about having a project in mind, BTW. That might help. Not sure what though – I’m probably too much of a beginner to think of something realistic and achievable in a short space of time, I guess.

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        Originally posted by MartyG
        Unless all you're ever going to do is loop hello world, it'll be a waste of effort.
        The crowd I run with is way more advanced than that

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          I'm not going to go off in the deep end here, but PP has been posting here (I think lost on the purge) and rllmuk, the same thing over and over for at least a couple of years. I think he needs to admit he doesn't want it enough or perhaps just doesn't have what it takes (that sounds rude, I know).

          It's either denial or the best long-form trolling I have seen in some time.

          Last edited by gunrock; 13-05-2020, 09:07.

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            It is grade A trolling, for sure. After 2 years hasn't mastered "numbers". That said, I'm a CS teacher and after 2 years some pupils are still at that point. Just too lazy and should never have taken the subject.

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              Originally posted by gunrock View Post
              I'm not going to go off in the deep end here, but PP has been posting here (I think lost on the purge) and rllmuk, the same thing over and over for at least a couple of years. I think he needs to admit he doesn't want it enough or perhaps just doesn't have what it takes (that sounds rude, I know).

              It's either denial or the best long-form trolling I have seen in some time.

              https://bordersdown.net/threads/1256...5-months/page8
              This is the thing with software development, you have to be prepared to put the legwork in. The field changes month-to-month if not week-to-week. There's always a new flavour of the next favourite Jquery plug-in or API that is suddenly vogue and you need to learn, often very poorly documented needing you to hack code until you work out how it hangs together, often made a lot harder if you're doing this as part of maintaining someone else's code.

              After doing this professionally for nearly twenty-five years (and many more as a hobbiest), I've had to move from BASIC, to Pascal, to C, to C++ to Java to VB to C#, from .net 1.0 through to .net 8, from standard .net libraries to .net core 1, then .net core 2 and now we're moving platforms to .net core 3. We've moved from Windows Services to AWS Lambas which is a whole different paradigm (on demand trigger based code as opposed to polling services). Then you've got database technologies that change, all the cloud based stuff, different web server technologies, different mark-up languages, different ways of storing data (XML was once king, now JSON wears the crown).

              The learning never stops and you have to keep up-to-date with the technologies or you will become outskilled - this is not an easy profession if you're not prepared to put the time in and keep your skills current.
              Last edited by MartyG; 13-05-2020, 12:11. Reason: forgetting my own age

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                Very true [MENTION=42]MartyG[/MENTION]. I've been doing this as a career since 1988 and as a happy amateur at home for years before that. You have to want it. The paradigm shifts across the industry over the years, all take time and effort to switch to. Structured programming to object-oriented, BTree databases to relational databases to non-relational no-SQL datastores, synchronous request-response communication to guaranteed or non-guaranteed delivery message queues, broadcast messaging to publish-subscribe patterns and message buses, strongly-typed compiled languages to loosely typed interpreted languages and in-between and then back again, single-process programs to multi-threaded highly concurrent systems, big data and functional programming. Not to mention the rise of the internet and open source as a model for incorporating new technologies versus commercial offerings and proprietary in-house efforts. The changes have been huge.

                For PP to be at the same point he was two years ago, i.e. doesn't know where to start, then I don't think it's going to happen. I mean that with no malice, BTW.
                Last edited by gunrock; 13-05-2020, 11:56.

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                  Originally posted by MartyG View Post
                  This is the thing with software development, you have to be prepared to put the legwork in. The field changes month-to-month if not week-to-week. There's always a new flavour of the next favourite Jquery plug-in or API that is suddenly vogue and you need to learn, often very poorly documented needing you to hack code until you work out how it hangs together, often made a lot harder if you're doing this as part of maintaining someone else's code.

                  After doing this professionally for nearly twenty-five years (and many more as a hobbiest), I've had to move from BASIC, to Pascal, to C, to C++ to Java to VB to C#, from .net 1.0 through to .net 8, from standard .net libraries to .net core 1, then .net core 2 and now we're moving platforms to .net core 3. We've moved from Windows Services to AWS Lambas which is a whole different paradigm (on demand trigger based code as opposed to polling services). Then you've got database technologies that change, all the cloud based stuff, different web server technologies, different mark-up languages, different ways of storing data (XML was once king, now JSON wears the crown).

                  The learning never stops and you have to keep up-to-date with the technologies or you will become outskilled - this is not an easy profession if you're not prepared to put the time in and keep your skills current.
                  Look, I’d rather be taught this properly in an actual course (and get qualifications along the way) as a starting point to learn the ‘pattern’ to this to progress from there, but I’ve never been able to afford to do anything like that, I work full time, so what am I meant to do? (And yes, I did want to do computer science at university when I was younger, but didn’t have the right A-levels.) it’s rather a different situation if you’re qualified, have decades of experience under your belt, know how to learn and re-learn this stuff.

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                    And when I started, I didn't. I put the work in and I learnt it - it wasn't handed to me on a plate Matrix style.

                    There are options for training http://www.redundancyexpert.co.uk/go...etraining.html

                    Find your course cost. Look at your Funding Options. Get the right information to start your Open University studies.


                    There are foundation courses, not requiring A-levels http://www.open.ac.uk/courses/comput...t-practice-x15

                    There are always options.
                    Last edited by MartyG; 13-05-2020, 14:32.

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                      Originally posted by MartyG View Post
                      And when I started, I didn't. I put the work in and I learnt it - it wasn't handed to me on a plate Matrix style.

                      There are options for training http://www.redundancyexpert.co.uk/go...etraining.html

                      Find your course cost. Look at your Funding Options. Get the right information to start your Open University studies.


                      There are foundation courses, not requiring A-levels http://www.open.ac.uk/courses/comput...t-practice-x15

                      There are always options.
                      Excuse me, but there aren’t. Not if you already have a degree and/or A-Levels. You don’t get a penny. I’ve actually exhaustively researched this.

                      Look at the first link, for example:
                      The government offers an Adult Learning Grant (ALG) to contribute to the costs of courses (or expenses related to them) which will help you achieve new levels of qualification. This is a significant restriction which you should note. It means that you cannot get funding for ELQ or Equivalent Level Qualifications. For example, if you already have two good A-Levels in English and French and want to retrain for a career in IT by doing A-Levels in Maths and Computing, you would not be eligible for the ALG.
                      Again, not a single penny. And if I could afford to save up and retrain, which is going to be tens of thousands of pounds,, I’d already be in a lucrative job like IT, programming, etc. The OU is astronomically expensive, let alone the pricier options.

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                        As I see it, the only thing blocking progress here is yourself - there has been loads of helpful advise and the response you give is always the same.

                        I'm honestly surprised that people are still spending their time trying to help you.

                        I'm out, and you're now one of the few people to make my ignore list.

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                          Originally posted by MartyG View Post
                          As I see it, the only thing blocking progress here is yourself - there has been loads of helpful advise and the response you give is always the same.

                          I'm honestly surprised that people are still spending their time trying to help you.

                          I'm out, and you're now one of the few people to make my ignore list.
                          See? That’s the problem. Rudeness, lack of empathy for newbies and rigid gatekeeping. I’ve said, I have a degree and 4 A-levels. That isn’t anything to be proud about, it’s something most people here have also done, but it means I don’t have ANY means of getting funding for a taught formal course, because the funding literally isn’t there. If you can’t be bothered to read the information on links you paste here, that’s not my problem. And yes, I wish that there was some form of funding assistance, but there isn’t. Blaming me as an individual for policies of a government I never voted for really is unpleasant and ridiculous behaviour.
                          Last edited by Protocol Penguin; 13-05-2020, 15:33.

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                            When you aren't working have a go at the tutorials on scratch. https://scratch.mit.edu/

                            I need to know how hard it is.

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                              Originally posted by Protocol Penguin View Post
                              I work full time, so what am I meant to do?
                              I don’t think you’re trolling. I think you really do want to learn programming but are having trouble finding the time and, more importantly, the motivation to sit down and study it. I’m in a similar boat with Japanese. I get home exhausted and don’t have motivation to study even though I should.

                              And with all due respect to the vets posting in here, reading about QLs, control flows, Scratch JSON and synchronous requests would make me not want to even try programming. And I can already do programming! Why? Because I stopped worrying about studying it. Studying turned it into a mountain I couldn’t climb.

                              I’ve accepted that I’m just not good at studying in the traditional sense so I’m learning programming by looking at programs and changing things to see how they work. And googling. I didn’t take a course, I don’t have any IT certificates, my maths isn’t great, and my degree(which I almost failed) was in physics. But I’m doing programming. I’m not great at it but I’m progressing slowly. I’m learning programming, but I’m not studying it.

                              “I work full time, so what am I meant to do?”

                              You’re getting little sympathy from people here precisely because of that attitude. You know what have to do. You’re just not doing it. Marty, Brad, Cutty and gunrock are offering advice and it looks like you’re slapping it away because it’s not in the form of a free course you can take at your leisure.

                              Don’t tell serious programmers that you seriously want to learn programming but aren’t doing the legwork. Tell them you just want to program for fun. If you enjoy it, you can consider turning it into a career later. But for now it’s just something you want to try. Don’t fool yourself with visions of a programming career. Keep it light. It’s more fun. And people won’t feel like their time could’ve been better spent arguing about Xbox graphics with TA.

                              Take a few minutes and try watching just a bit of that Python video. Watch it on the toilet. Don’t worry if it goes in one ear and out the other. It’ll do that until you reach the part where you enter code yourself. It might still go in one ear and out the other(it did for me!) but don’t worry. Just type the stuff. If it’s boring or really not going in, stop. You’ve only lost a few minutes. Come back to it later and try again.

                              Or try the Head First C# sample I linked to. Just skip to the bit about installing Visual Studio Express. Try the first exercise. They purposely don’t explain much in the beginning. Just do the exercises and don’t worry if it doesn’t stick. It will later on. Take it slow. I really think the visual stuff Windows will help you remember more than Python’s plain text.

                              But it you post on here without progress reports, it just sounds like this:



                              Good luck, and don’t worry about maths

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