Learning Computer Programming - The Right Approach Which Most Don't Follow

I regard programming as the most interesting subject on the earth. But, to my dismay, most of the students undergoing some computer programming training course, freshers, and even experienced programmers I come across exhibit programming skills much below my expectations.

I think this happens because while beginning computer programming, students miss the right approach. Programming is a different type of subject - it requires a different approach. Beginning computer programming without really understanding how to learn programming is disastrous. But, surprisingly, most of the computer programming training courses I have seen begin abruptly, without addressing this first. If you search on Google, you will find numerous articles and tutorials for learning programming. But, I am yet to find one which really touches the basics, so that the foundation of the student is properly built.

What is Programming?

In simple terms, programming is teaching somebody how to do a task. Obvious examples are

   * teaching a child how to add some numbers
   * teaching a housewife how to prepare some recipe
   * any teaching under the earth that you can imagine

For programming human beings, we use some language, such as English, French, Hindi. For programming computers, we use some language computers understand. Some examples of computer languages are C, Pascal, Python, Java.

Human beings are very intelligent and hence human languages like English are extremely complex. The same statement might mean different things in different scenario in English. In contrast, computers are the stupidest beings in the world, and so the language used to teach them are quite simple. So, for a human being like you, learning a computer language is really easy and fun. And, once you know one computer language, learning another is as easy as knowing few more words.

In order to learn computer programming, you have to mimic computer and think like a computer. My Blog (url given below) contains a nice article with an example. There I give a must have start to the students, explaining them the very basics of programming and more importantly, how to learn it. A must read for all programming students before they start any computer programming training.

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