How to learn programming

I believe that most self-taught friends have had this problem: "In order to try to learn programming by myself, I bought a book, but found that I couldn't understand it at all, and I didn't know where to start learning." That's because there are a lot of things you need to know before you study, and if you're going to study on your own, there are a lot of things that knowing ahead of time can make your studies go pretty smoothly.

Things you need to know before learning programming

What is programming? What is a programming language?

Programming is the Chinese abbreviation of writing a program, which is to let the computer solve a certain problem on your behalf. You can write the tasks you want the computer to perform.

Since computers cannot understand the same words as humans, they use specialized languages ​​= programming languages ​​(describing programming languages ​​is called "coding") to give instructions.

It is said that there are more than 200 different programming languages, but that is about one-tenth of the number actually in use.

Programming is good at high-speed processing and automatic processing of simple tasks. It’s no exaggeration to say that much of the enrichment of our lives is achieved through programming.

And learning programming is not as difficult as everyone thinks. Most of our partners from all walks of life can acquire programming skills through self-study! However, everyone has different personalities. Some people are more self-conscious and good at studying on their own, while others are less efficient in self-study and need stimulating learning. So for those who have difficulty in self-study, php Chinese website has specially launched PHP Online Work, which can supervise your learning and witness your progress.

Four steps to learn programming

The recommended process for learning programming is as follows.

Step 1: Decide What You Want to Do

"I want to program, but I don't have anything I want to do" vs. I don’t have any business but I just want to walk in the mountains” same thing. If you want to touch the computer world, such as enjoying the mountain view, I think this is also good. But if you want to improve yourself by learning programming, then set your goals!

If you learn by imagining a specific product (using programming to implement a product or function), you can greatly improve your learning efficiency.

Also consider the market trends before suggesting what to decide

If you cannot decide clearly what to do, it is also a good thing to decide by looking at the recent market trends in the IT field. If you're learning to program and preparing to find or change jobs, you can increase your likelihood of being considered "instant" by acquiring the necessary skills in an area where there's more demand.

Application development, such as the iPhone described previously. With the popularity of the terminal itself, the application of smartphones is expanding the market. It is also a field that is in high demand.

Step 2: Determine the language to learn

[2018 Edition] Which language is suitable for beginners? Programming language recommendations.

PHP

Recommended tutorial: "PHP Tutorial"

PHP (foreign name: PHP : Hypertext Preprocessor, Chinese name: "Hypertext Preprocessor") is a general open source scripting language. The syntax absorbs the characteristics of C language, Java and Perl, which is easy to learn and widely used. It is mainly suitable for the field of Web development.

PHP's unique syntax mixes C, Java, Perl and PHP's own syntax. It can execute dynamic web pages faster than CGI or Perl. Compared with other programming languages, dynamic pages made with PHP embed programs into HTML (an application under the Standard Universal Markup Language) document for execution, and the execution efficiency is much higher than CGI that completely generates HTML tags; PHP can also execute compiled code. Compilation can achieve encryption and optimize code running, making the code run faster. Related recommendations: "What is php"

Swift

Recommended tutorial: "Swift Tutorial》

Swift, a new development language released by Apple at WWDC (Apple Developer Conference) in 2014, can run on Mac OS and iOS platforms together with Objective-C* and is used to build Apple-based Platform applications. Swift is an easy-to-learn and easy-to-use programming language, and it is the first systems programming language to be as expressive and fun as scripting languages. Swift is designed with safety in mind to avoid a variety of common categories of programming errors.

HTML&CSS

Recommended tutorials: "HTML Tutorial" "CSS Tutorial"

HTML is a markup language (*) used to describe Web pages. CSS is a language that specifies how to decorate the structure and modify the information of these sentences.

Related recommendations: "Front-end learning route: How to become an excellent front-end developer! 》

C

Recommended tutorial:《C Tutorial》

C is the inheritance of C language. It can perform procedural programming of C language, object-based programming characterized by abstract data types, and object-oriented programming characterized by inheritance and polymorphism. programming. While C is good at object-oriented programming, it can also perform process-based programming. Therefore, C is big or small in terms of the size of the problem it can adapt to.

Java

Recommended tutorial: "Java Tutorial"

Java is an object-oriented course The programming language not only absorbs the various advantages of the C language, but also abandons the concepts such as multiple inheritance and pointers that are difficult to understand in C. Therefore, the Java language has two characteristics: powerful functions and simple and easy to use. As a representative of static object-oriented programming languages, Java language perfectly implements object-oriented theory and allows programmers to perform complex programming with an elegant way of thinking.

Python

Recommended tutorial: "Python Tutorial"

Python is a computer program Design language. It is a dynamic, object-oriented scripting language that was originally designed for writing automated scripts (shells). With the continuous updates of the version and the addition of new language features, it is increasingly used for independent and large-scale projects. development.

Step 3: Understand the environment building and using tools

The environment is created to be able to use the selected one on a computer (personal computer) programming language. Environment building means arranging the state of computers and information systems so that specific equipment, software, systems, etc. operate. In particular, in many cases it means the work of creating an environment in which the target software will run by introducing the software or adjusting settings in the computer.

For example, if you want to run the PHP language, you need to install and configure the PHP environment.

Common PHP integrated environments are:

phpstudy2016 stable version: http://www.php.cn/xiazai/gongju/89

phpStudy 2018 latest version: http://www.php.cn/xiazai/gongju/845

WampServer: http://www.php.cn/xiazai/gongju /90

Common PHP editing tools include:

PhpStorm 18.2.1 Win version: http://www.php.cn/xiazai/gongju/122

PhpStorm Mac version: http://www.php.cn/xiazai/gongju/510

SublimeText3 New Linux version: http:// www.php.cn/xiazai/gongju/1471

SublimeText3 Chinese version: http://www.php.cn/xiazai/gongju/93

Step 4: Start learning the language

After determining your goals, you can start learning the programming language! Just like learning a foreign language, you have to start from the basics and practice it!

Learning programming takes time. Especially for beginners, it can be difficult to find the best way to study and keep your studies in mind. Here are four more study tips recommended to you.

Four tips to promote more effective learning

1. Accurately set goals/objectives

Setting goals in detail makes it easier to see how far you're progressing and helps you stay motivated and check the rest of your progress. If possible, we also recommend that you log how much you study each day. I don't mind writing it down, but it will more easily reflect your own growth if you record it.

2. Do it for 30 minutes every day

For example, if you study for 7 hours every week during the holidays, it will take about 1 hour to review the previous week. If you keep learning every day, you can shorten your review time and learn more efficiently.

For beginners in programming, the barriers to learning can be high at first. If you try too hard for too long, it can lead to a loss of focus and motivation. You can learn bit by bit, master the whole picture of programming, and turn to comprehensive learning.

3. Linux commands you need to remember

Regardless of operating system type, when you start programming, you have the opportunity to use an application called a terminal or terminal.

A very simple explanation of the terminal is "operating commands by typing them instead of using the mouse". ("Use Terminal, instead of the technology that has been used in commands, to become able to operate as a mouse" now PC this.)

However, the standard installation on Windows is an application called Command Prompt. Unfortunately, since the instructions are in a different format, it's not necessary to use another application.

You can use it if you have the opportunity, so I will introduce the basic five commands.

cd ...此命令移动目录（=文件夹）。
ls ...此命令列出目录的内容。
pwd ...此命令显示当前目录。
mkdir ...此命令创建一个新目录。
man···显示命令的手册。

4. Learn the basics of regular expressions

Recommended tutorial: "Regular Expression Tutorial"

Regular expressions are expressions used to express multiple strings in one form. By using this expression method, you can easily search for the string you are looking for from many sentences.

For example, if you want to retrieve from a database containing Apple products an "i" appended to the beginning of "i" followed by three letters followed by "iPod", "iMac", "iPad", etc., "^i ..." I will write.

Mastering regular expressions can significantly improve the efficiency of text processing work.

Not only is it easy to work with programs, but it's also useful for large-scale improvements to your source code if you can handle regular expressions when searching and replacing.

The above is a recommended introduction about how to learn programming. I hope it will be helpful to friends who are preparing to learn programming languages!

The PHP Chinese website is also constantly collecting learning feedback from students. We have collected some common questions and summarized the methods of learning programming for your reference!

Related recommendations: How to learn a programming language well? Brother Zhu will talk to you about efficient programming learning methods