<p>How is this going to work out?</p>
<p>I have to take a programming class my first semester of college and I'm just a bit concerned about having 0 programming experience at all. I don't know anything - the first thing - about programming. </p>
<p>Is being a CS major viable?</p>
<p>Q: Do you know why they have you take an intro programming class your first semester?</p>
<p>A: Because they don’t assume that you already know how to program.</p>
<p><!~Didn’t know how to program
<!~Took an intro C++ class in first semester
<!~Can now write some hot code</p>
<p>How hard are the intro classes generally? Is it easy to learn with a bunch of peers? I heard it’s like learning another language, and I’m not good with languages. </p>
<p>What’s the best indicator of success in an intro. programming class? Is there anything I can do the summer before?</p>
<p>As long as have logical thinking skills and are able to think outside the box, you’ll be fine.
Source: been programming since 9th grade.</p>
<p>It is not required. It is nothing like learning another human language at all. When run a program regardless of how simple it is, there is a complex process and it ends up as machine code(1 and 0s). Programmng is entirely about problem solving skills and practice</p>
<p>I RECOMMEND you start programming now and use C++. It will be the easiest A+ you will ever get in CS barely going to class. When you get to Data Structure they will assume you are a superstar at coding and if you are not good then you can end up failing it. This makes a lot of people drop CS</p>
<p>My first programming course was a PASCAL course during my freshman year of college.</p>
<p>This past Thursday marked 24 years in software development/engineering.</p>
<p>Damn gt, pascal is ancient history lol</p>
<p>They’ll teach you at the school.</p>
<p>I would however second the suggestion of preparing for the introductory programming classes by studying beforehand how to write very simple text-based programs and familiarize yourself with basic imperative concepts such as variables, assigning values to variables, updating values in variables, functions, control flow statements (if-else, for-loop, while-loop, switch-statement) and using software libraries. Possibly you can study the basic object-oriented concepts as well, after you’ve grasped the previous things and can write simple text-based programs, at least objects and classes.</p>
<p>The reason why it could be beneficial to prepare beforehand is that the introductory programming courses have been seen to be stressful to those that are exposed to the concepts for the first time in the classes. Those concepts take time to understand and you’ll have better time if you don’t have to stress about the concepts not sticking and finding everything so difficult (as it’s for almost everyone starting to program for the first time).</p>
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<p>Pfeh. PL/1 is prehistoric history then :)</p>
<p>The OP will be fine…just get started early and work hard, nothing to it.</p>
<p>Just remember that you are learning to program, and not learning a programming language. Make sure you follow the concept of abstraction - the idea of breaking up problems into smaller ones and realize that the abstractions and how to use them ARE what the course is about</p>
<p>The introductory programming courses at large universities tend to see fairly high rates of attrition. That said, you don’t need to know how to program going into it, just be prepared to work hard, probably harder than you will need to in other courses.</p>
<p>Ways to preview introductory CS:</p>
<p>[UC</a> Berkeley EECS | CS10 : The Beauty and Joy of Computing | Summer 2013](<a href=“http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/su13/]UC”>UC Berkeley EECS | CS10 : The Beauty and Joy of Computing | Summer 2013)
[Welcome</a> to the SICP Web Site](<a href=“http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/]Welcome”>http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/)</p>
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<p>Ditto. Except 27 years, 5 months, last Monday for me.</p>
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<p>Pascal was an ideal language to introduce programming. Modern intro curricula that start with C++/C#/Java are a step backwards in terms of instilling good programming practices, despite the latter languages’ clear superiority for actual development.</p>
<p>OP: lack of programming experience will not necessarily hinder you in an intro programming course or as a future CS major. In fact, students with programming experience often do not have the best outcomes in intro courses, for two reasons:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Self-taught (or poorly-taught) programmers often have developed bad habits that will take longer to undo than learning correctly to begin with, while good college intro programming courses will emphasize coding style as much as program correctness.</p></li>
<li><p>Students with some programming experience tend to be over-confident, finding the initial few homework assignments trivial, but then falling behind as assignment difficulty ramps up if their effort does not have a corresponding jump, whereas students new to programming will be working hard all semester or quarter and won’t perceive a sudden increase in difficulty.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>A good indicator of success in programming and CS is performance in high school physics. This is because AP CS is not widely offered, and moreover, AP Physics is much more challenging than AP CS, and the type of conceptual problem-solving you’ll encounter in AP physics is closer to that you’ll encounter in college-level CS than is any other area of typical high school curricula.</p>
<p>Just keep in mind when you register for first-semester freshman classes that intro CS will be time consuming, so if possible, avoid adding more than one additional time-consuming course (calculus, or lab science) – balance out your first semester with one or two easier courses. You’ll then be in a position to assess whether you can handle a heavier load in your second semester.</p>
<p>Most of my programming in college was done with pascal, and it was a pretty good teaching language. Didn’t use it at all in the business world, though.</p>
<p>When I started my CS degree, I’d only had a six week Basic class in high school.</p>
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<p>If you had used the Grenoble Pascal compiler on Multics, you, too, would have hoped that Blaise Pascal should have stuck with Theology and Philosophy… On the other hand, the Pascal compiler done by Pascal’s fellow Frenchman Philippe Khan and his company (Borland) was pretty awesome (Turbo Pascal).</p>
<p>Mrs. Turbo had her brush with Pascal - some clowns wrote an online banking system in Pascal on a VAX/VMS…</p>
<p>Turbo Pascal truly was awesome! When it found a compile bug, it actually went to the line of code that had the error. I had never seen anything like that, and was amazed.</p>
<p>Usually you can find online resources that will help with programming. It’s good to at least learn the basics before you jump into classes. Perhaps start with C and Java. </p>
<p>Although web development isn’t the same as application development, you can always learn HTML/CSS. It’s pretty easy and will give you an intro to the world of programming. You can slowly move up in difficulty with Ruby, PHP, jQuery, Javascript, etc. From there you can decide if programming is really what you would like to do or not.</p>