<p>How crazy is it to major in CompSci with no previous programming or coding experience, just an interest in it all? </p>
<p>Do most entry level Comp Science courses teach it in regards to a beginner, or do they expect a lot of prior knowledge?</p>
<p>Not at all, which would be the point of intro classes. But learning some programming beforehand could give you more experience over those who don’t and also determine if programming is something of your interest.</p>
<p>But honestly how do you get programming experience?</p>
<p>At my house, we don’t even own standard PCs or laptops anymore. We all just use iPods and iPads! So I feel like I’d be at a disadvantage from classmates that are already designing websites…</p>
<p>You can get a computer for a few hundred bucks. If you can’t afford that good luck affording college.</p>
<p>Yea, you’ll really want to need a laptop. For a starter, use the computers at your high school or local library and create HTML out of Notepad. HTML is pretty straightforward to learn and there are tons of tutorials online.</p>
<p>Html is not a programming language. …its used for semantically marking up the content of a website</p>
<p>What would you recommend starting in? C++?</p>
<p>Start with Python and work your way up from there if you want to start programming now.</p>
<p>@Dreburden Yes, I know. It’s just something as close he could do while he doesn’t have any materials to start with as implied by his situation.</p>
<p>@Nick I started with C++. It may be slightly harder than Python, but it takes time and practice as with anything. Python is pretty fun and easier for a beginner.</p>
<p>
It’s relatively trivial to embed Javascript inside HTML, and I would say that Javascript is close enough to Java/C/C++/Python/etc. to be considered an excellent introductory programming language. I used Javascript on numerous occasions while in school - you can write it on any computer. I once wrote a simulator for a MIPS-like processor architecture using Javascript. Plus, HTML makes it easy to design simple user interfaces. You can make card games, calculators, etc. - more than enough for someone just learning to program.</p>
<p>Having no programming experience will put you at a disadvantage when starting a computer science program. But generally programming experience is not required, and intro CS classes don’t require experience.</p>
<p>I started with Java and didn’t find it hard to understand. Python is more similar to English however.</p>
<p>So I’ve been using Codeacademy and learning languages. It’s all great, but I have no idea where to go to actually implement my programs. Say I go on Notepad and write up a whole website via HTML, where do I “put this in” the computer? So I can see what my actual result looks like?</p>
<p>It depends on your operating system and browser, but if you have a file with a “.html” appended to the end, then you should be able to click on its name or icon in the filesystem and hope the operating system displays the page in a browser.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t try to do a whole website at first. Just experiment with the different html tags to create one or two web pages. One of the first things you’ll learn is that it’s best to only write a line of two of code, and then try displaying it in a browser.</p>
<p>I happen to be one of those who doesn’t view html as a real computer language, but it’s ok to start with if you want to get a feel for developing code on a computer.</p>
<p>I had very little programming experience when I started my CS degree program. Just a several week long BASIC course in high school. I pretty much started from scratch in my first college programming class.</p>
<p>You might want to read this book and do the examples and exercises on your own computer:</p>
<p>[Welcome</a> to the SICP Web Site](<a href=“http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/]Welcome”>http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/)</p>
<p>You can also read the books and notes and watch the videos of lectures of this course, which is intended for general student audiences (i.e. mainly non-majors), but seems to have historically enticed some students into majoring in CS:</p>
<p>[UC</a> Berkeley EECS | CS10 : The Beauty and Joy of Computing | Summer 2013](<a href=“http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/su13/]UC”>UC Berkeley EECS | CS10 : The Beauty and Joy of Computing | Summer 2013)</p>
<p>You may be of alittle disadvantage but once you’ve taken the introductory programming class at your school, you should be at the same level as all your other classmates. I have tutored C programming at my school for a while now (the introductory programming class for all engineers at my school), and this seem to be the case. The class is easy for most people with prior programming experience but it seems hard for new programmers to adapt their brain to how programming is. But the following classes maybe about data structure and intro to algorithms even sometimes students with no programming background (except the class I mentioned) do better than others. I think it is mainly because (if they are not lazy) they are really excited that they can write code and translate it into a genuine interest into learning more. So they work harder.</p>
<p>@Nick0726,</p>
<p>iPods and iPads are programmable devices, just like other types of computing devices. Visit the [Apple</a> Developer](<a href=“https://developer.apple.com%5DApple”>https://developer.apple.com) site for more information. You should acquire some kind of Mac to do the actual software development.</p>
<p>yagottabelieve: I’ve looked into getting a Mac, just to have the Xcode app to develop my own apps. However, they’re a little out of my price range. I was considering getting a Chromebook… Would you recommend this?</p>
<p>a netbook is just $200 these days and they can run everything pc. Eclipse is free, so you can use that to do programming</p>
<p>Awesome, Ill look into it! I’ll probably have around $400 to spend, I want it pretty much solely for practicing programming, and of course word processors and office stuff for school.</p>