Being The Dreaded "Idea Guy"

[ZooNamedGames]

2 minutes ago, pxi said:

You'd be surprised.  I tend to go with nano in Linux, and that's not much more feature-rich than notepad.

You could have a look at notepad++, should at least give you syntax highlighting.

I'm on Windows and I don't want to dual boot. 

So how do I make my code do stuff? I've made Windows error stuff from .vbs files but what's the difference here? What's going to be running it? In kOS at least you can see the result of your work. Is it gone be batch files?

[pxi]

14 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

I'm on Windows and I don't want to dual boot.

My point is, the development environment does not make the coder.  Notepad++ runs under windows btw.

14 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

So how do I make my code do stuff? I've made Windows error stuff from .vbs files but what's the difference here? What's going to be running it? In kOS at least you can see the result of your work. Is it gone be batch files?

If you're going down the python route, I imagine it's the python executable that interperts the code you feed it.  Not using python myself I'm surmising here - most of my experience is with PHP.  With that you can execute php scripts on the command line with:

php mycode.php

Python is pretty similar afaik.

Edited September 14, 2016 by pxi

[ZooNamedGames]

10 minutes ago, pxi said:

My point is, the development environment does not make the coder.  Notepad++ runs under windows btw.

If you're going down the python route, I imagine it's the python executable that interperts the code you feed it.  Not using python myself I'm surmising here - most of my experience is with PHP.  With that you can execute php scripts on the command line with:

php mycode.php

Python is pretty similar afaik.

...ok... Still a bit foggy but I have an odd feeling explaining won't fix that.

So who's gonna be my aid? I have no idea what language I'll be using. Maybe C++ since I saw that as an option for unity a while back.

[pxi]

1 minute ago, ZooNamedGames said:

Maybe C++ since I saw that as an option for unity a while back.

You're probably thinking of C#

[ZooNamedGames]

21 minutes ago, pxi said:

You're probably thinking of C#

Whichever. The one I'm using is irrelevant if I don't have a guide. 

[Green Baron]

@ZooNamedGames, just start.

If i may suggest, don't start with C++ or C#, the chances you will not bite yourself through might be bad. I cannot accompany you with online tutorials because i only have a satellite connection (20gb/month). Just choose a few tutorials and start. You need nothing. In the first tutorials they'll show you what you need. You don't need notepad (i wouldn't use it for python cause tab and indention, you'll see ;-)), development environments are available free, idle for example. A good tutorial will explain how to install and get running. Just start. Now.

:-)

 

Edited September 14, 2016 by Green Baron

[ZooNamedGames]

Anyone else able to help me? If not I will have to end up ditching this idea... at least I can say I tried and the fault is not my own.

[adsii1970]

@ZooNamedGames: Many community colleges offer what is known as "leisure learning" courses that normally happen in the early evening hours or on Saturdays. The main goal of these classes is to serve as an introduction. Maybe check with one of the local community colleges in your area and see if they offer an intro to programming course. The cost is between $35 and $75 for a class where you will have about ten hours of instruction...

[ZooNamedGames]

2 minutes ago, adsii1970 said:

@ZooNamedGames: Many community colleges offer what is known as "leisure learning" courses that normally happen in the early evening hours or on Saturdays. The main goal of these classes is to serve as an introduction. Maybe check with one of the local community colleges in your area and see if they offer an intro to programming course. The cost is between $35 and $75 for a class where you will have about ten hours of instruction...

Still in highschool...? Besides the point, I'm not money rich right now.

[adsii1970]

Those leisure learning classes are NOT college credit classes and are open for anyone (from pre-teen to old fart) who can pay the fee. In some states, veterans and high school students can be given a fee waiver.

[ZooNamedGames]

10 minutes ago, adsii1970 said:

Those leisure learning classes are NOT college credit classes and are open for anyone (from pre-teen to old fart) who can pay the fee. In some states, veterans and high school students can be given a fee waiver.

I'll take a look, but still would be nice to have a person help explain to me the things that I don't get. I am a student that normally gets additional assistance in learning.

[Matuchkin]

On 31/08/2016 at 11:16 PM, Ten Key said:

The only way to fail is to give up.

Quick! Somebody come up with a Winston Churchill quote!

EDIT: 

"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm."

"If you're going through hell, keep going."

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."

Edited September 15, 2016 by Matuchkin

[0111narwhalz]

3 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

at least I can say I tried and the fault is not my own.

Uh, no.

This is the root of your problem. You wonder why you "cannot" learn? It's because you don't try. You did not try. You blew some bubbles. You asked for help what, a day ago? And you got several replies saying "I would love to help, but cannot." You know what that means? People are willing to help you. In fact, Green Baron said,

Quote

If you'd like i'll accompany you.

You cannot say "nobody helped me." That is factually incorrect. More correct is "I pushed away the people who wanted to help." And for this you have only yourself to blame.
Green Baron, your willing guide, told you: Just start! You cannot get anywhere without taking that first step. That's how I started. I found an easy problem (such as Problem 1 on Project Euler) and built a program to solve it.
How I think one can learn how to program:

Spoiler

1. Understand what a computer does, and what a program does.

 A computer does what you tell it to do. Exactly. If you tell it to do something it doesn't know how to do, it will panic and throw errors. A program is what tells the computer what to do. If your program says "do x" and the computer doesn't know how to x, it will panic, and throw errors.

2. Understand the parts of a modern program.

 Today's programs are truely different from the first programs, but they all have a number of parts in common. Those parts are the variable, the operator, and the conditional. Anything else is just a mixing of these three elementary components. If you understand this, you will understand programming.

3. Understand your problem.

 If you don't know exactly what you want your program to do, how can you ever write it? You need to have a goal in mind. In the case of "Hello World," this problem is: "Display the text 'Hello World' in the console."

4. Understand your solution.

 If you don't know how to solve your problem, how can you solve it? It would be absurd to attempt to solve a problem with a computer you don't know how to solve yourself. Draw out some pseudocode or flowcharts to familiarize yourself with the solution you envision. If you don't have a solution, don't approach your IDE yet. Write out what you need to do. In the case of "Hello World," the solution might be:
"Program starts.
Program outputs 'Hello World' to console.
Program terminates."

5. Write the code.

 Now and only now may you even look at your computer. You possess the instructions of your solution. Just translate them into the language of the machine.

6. Understand why you failed.

 You will fail. If you get it right on your first try, you are solving problems which are too easy, and you need to move up. But in the near-certainty scenario in which you fail, you must know what went wrong. Errors can take two principle forms: logical errors and sanity errors. Let us construct an analogy of cakes. If the cookbook (your program) says, "Heat the oven to 1500 degrees," you will be unable to comply. Your oven does not go that high. Likewise, if the cookbook says, "Floobitigooblet the flibbitegibbet," you will, again, be unable to comply, because you know not how to "floobitigooblet" nor what a "flibbitegibbet" is. This is a logical error. Generally, your IDE (if you choose to use one) will catch most of these. It's the other ones, the sanity errors, which are more subtle. If we turn to our strange cake recipe, we may find it calls for crushed eggshells. Now, you wonder, who the hell puts crushed eggshells in a cake? Well, the recipe says so, and you trust the recipe, so you put the shells in the cake. Needless to say, the cake does not fill the parameters of a cake you'd like to eat. However, the computer implicitly trusts that you know what to do, so if you make an error of sanity, the computer will trust you on it. Your IDE cannot catch these errors (unless it knows your problem already, and that's not the case). It is up to you as a (presumably) sane (presumably) human being to know how your program has failed in this regard. Debug lines are your new deity. They will help you catch sanity errors and identify where you went wrong. Without debug lines, you get "wrong" instead of "this here doesn't look right." Generally speaking, it is advisable to hide your debug lines behind a conditional so that when a part of your program is working, it runs quickly.

 

[ZooNamedGames]

1 minute ago, 0111narwhalz said:

Uh, no.

This is the root of your problem. You wonder why you "cannot" learn? It's because you don't try. You did not try. You blew some bubbles. You asked for help what, a day ago? And you got several replies saying "I would love to help, but cannot." You know what that means? People are willing to help you. In fact, Green Baron said,

You cannot say "nobody helped me." That is factually incorrect. More correct is "I pushed away the people who wanted to help." And for this you have only yourself to blame.
Green Baron, your willing guide, told you: Just start! You cannot get anywhere without taking that first step. That's how I started. I found an easy problem (such as Problem 1 on Project Euler) and built a program to solve it.
How I think one can learn how to program:

  Reveal hidden contents

1. Understand what a computer does, and what a program does.

 A computer does what you tell it to do. Exactly. If you tell it to do something it doesn't know how to do, it will panic and throw errors. A program is what tells the computer what to do. If your program says "do x" and the computer doesn't know how to x, it will panic, and throw errors.

2. Understand the parts of a modern program.

 Today's programs are truely different from the first programs, but they all have a number of parts in common. Those parts are the variable, the operator, and the conditional. Anything else is just a mixing of these three elementary components. If you understand this, you will understand programming.

3. Understand your problem.

 If you don't know exactly what you want your program to do, how can you ever write it? You need to have a goal in mind. In the case of "Hello World," this problem is: "Display the text 'Hello World' in the console."

4. Understand your solution.

 If you don't know how to solve your problem, how can you solve it? It would be absurd to attempt to solve a problem with a computer you don't know how to solve yourself. Draw out some pseudocode or flowcharts to familiarize yourself with the solution you envision. If you don't have a solution, don't approach your IDE yet. Write out what you need to do. In the case of "Hello World," the solution might be:
"Program starts.
Program outputs 'Hello World' to console.
Program terminates."

5. Write the code.

 Now and only now may you even look at your computer. You possess the instructions of your solution. Just translate them into the language of the machine.

6. Understand why you failed.

 You will fail. If you get it right on your first try, you are solving problems which are too easy, and you need to move up. But in the near-certainty scenario in which you fail, you must know what went wrong. Errors can take two principle forms: logical errors and sanity errors. Let us construct an analogy of cakes. If the cookbook (your program) says, "Heat the oven to 1500 degrees," you will be unable to comply. Your oven does not go that high. Likewise, if the cookbook says, "Floobitigooblet the flibbitegibbet," you will, again, be unable to comply, because you know not how to "floobitigooblet" nor what a "flibbitegibbet" is. This is a logical error. Generally, your IDE (if you choose to use one) will catch most of these. It's the other ones, the sanity errors, which are more subtle. If we turn to our strange cake recipe, we may find it calls for crushed eggshells. Now, you wonder, who the hell puts crushed eggshells in a cake? Well, the recipe says so, and you trust the recipe, so you put the shells in the cake. Needless to say, the cake does not fill the parameters of a cake you'd like to eat. However, the computer implicitly trusts that you know what to do, so if you make an error of sanity, the computer will trust you on it. Your IDE cannot catch these errors (unless it knows your problem already, and that's not the case). It is up to you as a (presumably) sane (presumably) human being to know how your program has failed in this regard. Debug lines are your new deity. They will help you catch sanity errors and identify where you went wrong. Without debug lines, you get "wrong" instead of "this here doesn't look right." Generally speaking, it is advisable to hide your debug lines behind a conditional so that when a part of your program is working, it runs quickly.

 

Green Baron offered, but he cannot help me where I need to go in my learning (C#). What's the point of having someone help if they know as much as you do about the language?

Also, would you rather have my attitude from 3 pages ago where I didn't even try at all? At least I'm looking for some help from someone. Before I wouldn't consider it as I was adamant my ability was too weak.

So is my attitude that bad?

[0111narwhalz]

2 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

Also, would you rather have my attitude from 3 pages ago where I didn't even try at all? At least I'm looking for some help from someone. Before I wouldn't consider it as I was adamant my ability was too weak.

I'm sorry. For all my "small victories" crap I did not respond accordingly.

However, I justify this with my haste to correct the "playing the victim" behaviour.

6 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

So is my attitude that bad?

Eehh... It's better, but you have a long road.

8 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

Green Baron offered, but he cannot help me where I need to go in my learning (C#). What's the point of having someone help if they know as much as you do about the language?

There is more to programming than the language. You need to know the conceptual components of programming. Green Baron is well-equipped to help here if he sees fit to learn a second language. If you know exactly what you want, search through the MSDN reference manuals for things that sound about right.

And, since I'm at least competent in C#, and it seems you've made your decision to go with C# as well, I'd like to offer my textual assisstance with C#. My services, should you accept them, are as follows: Basic to intermediate guidance, consultations regarding specific issues you have, and the occaisional debugging. This is an explicit offer of assistance.

[ZooNamedGames]

1 minute ago, 0111narwhalz said:

I'm sorry. For all my "small victories" crap I did not respond accordingly.

However, I justify this with my haste to correct the "playing the victim" behaviour.

Eehh... It's better, but you have a long road.

There is more to programming than the language. You need to know the conceptual components of programming. Green Baron is well-equipped to help here if he sees fit to learn a second language. If you know exactly what you want, search through the MSDN reference manuals for things that sound about right.

And, since I'm at least competent in C#, and it seems you've made your decision to go with C# as well, I'd like to offer my textual assisstance with C#. My services, should you accept them, are as follows: Basic to intermediate guidance, consultations regarding specific issues you have, and the occaisional debugging. This is an explicit offer of assistance.

Depression is a long road. One that I will likely spend the rest of my life fighting.

I will take this as a serious offer. I now need to select a specific free online course to go through.

[0111narwhalz]

10 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

I will take this as a serious offer.

Damn straight you will. 

10 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

I will take this as a serious offer. I now need to select a specific free online course to go through.

Microsoft

.Net Academy

learnCS

Some options. Do the one that looks the best to you.

Edited September 15, 2016 by 0111narwhalz

[ZooNamedGames]

6 minutes ago, 0111narwhalz said:

Damn straight you will. 

Microsoft

.Net Academy

learnCS

Some options. Do the one that looks the best to you.

Well I'll get you an answer once I go to sleep and think on it.

[Camacha]

3 hours ago, ZooNamedGames said:

I'll take a look, but still would be nice to have a person help explain to me the things that I don't get. I am a student that normally gets additional assistance in learning.

The internet is full of helpful people. There are so many tutorials, videos and whatnot. Even if you get stuck with one, there always is another that does explain it in a way that you do understand. Do not wait for someone to bring the information to you, as that is not likely to happen. There is a veritable ocean of useful things out there, you only have to get a bucket and get scoopin'.

[ZooNamedGames]

29 minutes ago, Camacha said:

The internet is full of helpful people. There are so many tutorials, videos and whatnot. Even if you get stuck with one, there always is another that does explain it in a way that you do understand. Do not wait for someone to bring the information to you, as that is not likely to happen. There is a veritable ocean of useful things out there, you only have to get a bucket and get scoopin'.

I find the Internet usually creates more holes for me than fixing them but point taken.

[Dman979]

On 9/13/2016 at 11:21 PM, ZooNamedGames said:

After some long thought, I'll go and learn some coding... That is if I can get someone to help walk me through the teaching course.

Why does it have to be conditional on someone else? I've skyped with you, I know that you are a huge fan of spaceflight and spaceflight memorabilia. Nobody has told you that they'd help you with that, have they?

Take your attitude towards space and translate it to coding. And while you're at it, be sure to post regular updates about how far you've gotten. It's good to be accountable to other people. (I should know- if it weren't for having my parents over, I'd never clean my apartment.)

[Camacha]

31 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

I find the Internet usually creates more holes for me than fixing them but point taken.

Good, that means you are on the right path. Any scientist can tell you that when they do their work correctly, they end up with more questions than answers. The point is that they will have answered their previous questions and furthered their knowledge. New answers will invariably lead to new questions and that is how you learn.

[Green Baron]

 

Don't start with C#, start with Python. It costs nothing, is perfectly documented, really multiplatform without any dependencies, has libraries for many things (like graphics) and has a huge community. As i found out yesterday it's just peanuts to include C or C++ code in Python and vice versa.

I'll help you installing and get running with Idle (development environment) and Python 3.4 if you have questions. But believe me, it's easy. First, get a can of beer orange juice from the fridge. Second watch a few introductory tutorials and then post your questions here if you have some. If not, just do what's explained in the tutorials.

Start !

Now !

... or i get the feeling you don't want to learn and then we all are wasting our time for you, we idiots.

Edit: we will help but you must start !

https://www.python.org/

https://www.python.org/about/gettingstarted/

 

Edited September 15, 2016 by Green Baron

[Camacha]

14 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

First, get a can of beer from the fridge.

I am not sure ZooNamedGames is of legal drinking age in his part of the world.

[ZooNamedGames]

7 hours ago, Camacha said:

I am not sure ZooNamedGames is of legal drinking age in his part of the world.

Won't be but I hiccup to you until I am.