Your help needed in getting started, please.
 

Hello everyone,

I apologize in advance for what may be an age old question for you folks.

I am interested in learning to program/learn a language. But I don't know where or how to get started. I'm 53 and disabled. I was a quadriplegic for a few years, and rehabed back to a functional state. I was a diesel mechanic for 20 + years. While rehabbing I taught myself about computers, and have built several of them for friends and family. I am also self taught in Excel, and recently took the Microsoft Office Specialist test and received an Expert certification. I often work with Visual Basics for Applications to write my own macros for Excel.

I do work part time. My work involves keeping statistics for the physical therapy dept of a hospital and I have built a handful of databases (in excel) with macros for my bosses. A few years ago I bought a book & software to try and learn VB.Net. I devoured the book and loved doing the excercises.

But I had 2 problems. The first being---did I start with the right language? Is there a better language? There are somany options and variations my head is swimming.

The second, and bigger, problem is---what do I "do" with it? When I finished the VB.Net book I was so excited to get started, but so utterly frustrated in not knowing how to proceed or what to build/do/create with it that I walked away from it all.

So I guess what I'm asking is-- what would you tell a complete beginner to do to get his feet wet? I guess because of my work it would be beneficial to learn how to create/work with databases.

I don't really have the money to attend college courses. So any suggestions about which path to start down, and any recommended resources, would be most appreciated.

Again, I'm sorry for such a wide open question. I know the respnses can be many, and varied. But I appreciate you takig the time to read this.

Thanks,
Don

Re: Your help needed in getting started, please.
 

VB.NET is a good langauge to start with, though there are better languages out there to start with (eg. python, ruby). In the way of better languages, it depends on what you want to do. There are specialist languages and more broad ones to language (eg PHP: website programming, C++: Video Games etc).
Try to make something "business" like, eg: a register program (that's always fun). A Database of products that you can search. Anything is possible. THose were some of the projects I started with when learning VB.NET.

Re: Your help needed in getting started, please.
 

Databases would be a good path. Check out Microsoft SQL Server - it integrates really well with Visual Basic, as they're made by the same people.

You'll see a Learning link on the left. I've not browsed it thoroughly, but it looks to have some useful starting points. It does recommend getting a book - I would too.

Re: Your help needed in getting started, please.
 

Actually, yes. I would agree. SQL is very good to learn.

Re: Your help needed in getting started, please.
 

Congratulations. That sounds like quite an achievement, and if you can apply the same singlemindedness to programming, you should do great.

Sounds like you have the necessary mindset. I mean, 90% of learning anything is the motivation, and the best motivation is deriving enjoyment from it, and it seems like you enjoy it.
Well, there really is no 'right' or 'wrong' language in general, despite what some language fanboys will tell you. I myself am partial to C, C++, and C#, but that doesn't mean they are intrinsically better. Certainly, some languages are better for certain tasks, but if someone tells you one language is the best all-around, they're full of shit.

That said, I'd recommend grabbing a copy of one (or more) of the 'express' editions of the Visual Studio languages, as they're freely available from Microsoft's site. The learning curve for C++ might be a bit steep (but by no means insurmountable) if all you've been exposed to is VBA, but VB.NET should be easy to pick up. C# will be midway between the two in terms of difficulty, but many people prefer the syntax of C# to VB.NET. All of these have ample tutorials and other materials online, so you won't suffer from a lack of resources.
This is probably your biggest problem. The best way to approach this is to look for an unfulfilled need that you can meet with programming. As an example, say you've got a lot of CDs, DVDs, LPs, or what have you. You could write a program to track them all, so that you could enter artist, album, etc information, and then look stuff up later. This way, you could quickly find which album had a certain song on it, for example. While there are programs to do this sort of thing, it's really not a hard program to write, and it has the advantages of a) potentially being useful, and b) giving you an opportunity to learn about accessing databases in code. Of course, it might not be useful to you, but you get the idea- pick something that you will enjoy somewhat, and give it a go. You'll no doubt encounter problems, but that's what we're here for.

Another idea is a simple game, such as Tic-Tac-Toe, Tetris, or Scrabble. The latter also offers a chance to tie in databases for the 'dictionary' used to validate words, though it's an awful lot of typing unless you secure the word list from elsewhere. All three of these game ideas can potentially be made into online multiplayer games, giving you the chance to learn about sockets and such, so you can play against a friend in another location.
Well, you don't really need money. In fact, despite my college courses, I found I learned far more practical material on my own. Really, the most important reason for going to school for this sort of thing is to get some kind of certification, to show employers you've learned the skills. Unless you're planning to take this up as a career, you're probably best off saving your money.
My pleasure. Your post was clear, not full of 'leet speak' or other such crap, and you weren't demanding answers to homework questions. The only issue was the double thread post, but we've all been there when the forum glitches, and we submit a post more than once.

Welcome to the forums. :)

Re: Your help needed in getting started, please.
 

Thank you all for your responses!!! I greatly appreciate everyone taking the time. You gave me alot to think about.

But first, let me apologize for the double post. I clicked the link to register, and did so. When I got the confirmation email, I clicked the supplied link and it brought me here. I created my post, but when I attempted to post it I received a message that "you are not logged in". So I logged in and that's when my post doubled. Sorry for the inconvenience.

I have a few questions, if I may. I was interested in the suggestions about MS SQL, so I took a look around. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I read it seems that SQL is used to "access" different databases (like MS Access, Orale, Sybase, etc). None of my daily work is in any of these databases, so would this avenue be a waste of time?

And your suggestions that I start with something that I can apply to what I do every day was right on the money. It would be much more meaningful to me to work towards something that has some value to what I do.

All of my work is in Excel. This is for 2 reasons. 1) I'm good with Excel so it's easy for me. But the second reason is the main reason. My bosses, while not very good at all with Excel, they are familiar with it. So I have set up an "interface" sheet (so to speak) and they can go there and easily "ask" questions of the database that I've built. MS Access, which is available to us, scare the crap out of them. And the learning curve for them would be horrendus.

So, referring back to a suggestion lectricpharoah made, what language could I use to create my own database from the Excel data that I have? Will SQL pull info from Excel as well? If I were to put my data from Excel into Access, what could I use to build a simple interface to pull info from Access, and allow dunderheads to research info from the database?

I realize that it will take me CONSIDERABLE time to accomplish this. But it will give me something really functional to focus on.

Sorry to ramble on. Thanks again for your help.

Don

Re: Your help needed in getting started, please.
 

MySQL is a database, much like MS Access. SQL is used across the board to query data and execute statemens in the databases. You would certainly not make a mistake learning SQL.

Instead of VB.Net, I would have suggested C# for .NET programming. With C#, you can access data in your database and develop an interface to that data of your own desire. You can make it as hard as complex as you need.

It would be an interesting project to take your data from Excel/Access and import it into a MySQL database. Then using the same language (C#) create a standalone application or a web application/service to provide to your bosses.

Re: Your help needed in getting started, please.
 

Thank yo Infinite! I greatly appreciate the information.

Now to sound completly stupid...what software do I need to begin? Any suggestions?

Thank you again.

Don

Re: Your help needed in getting started, please.
 

It wouldn't be a waste of time at all. Many applications these days are tied to databases for a number of reasons. One reason is it allows for greater data integrity. If you've got multiple sources accessing- and potentially modifying- the same set of data, having a DBMS (database management system) mediate access is a good idea. Another good reason to use a database is because sorting and searching are among the most common operations on data, and by using a database, you can take advantage of the work that a lot of clever people have done to optimize the searching and sorting routines.
Well, Excel is a spreadsheet, not a database, but you can transfer data between it and, say, MS Access. A simple table in a database can be represented as a single 'sheet' in Excel. It's when you get to inter-related tables that it gets more complicated.

If you go on MSDN, you will find examples and articles about interfacing Excel with various languages, like C# and VB.NET. To answer your other question, it's quite simple to pull data from a database (MS Access or otherwise) into a .NET application, and update the database from the application. This way, you can have the app present a friendly user interface, with fields that the user fills in, and the app does all the work of displaying and updating things. This sounds a lot like what you're looking for, making me think a database is a better tool than a spreadsheet for your needs.

Re: Your help needed in getting started, please.
 

As lectricpharao suggested, you can easily start with one of the Express Editions of Microsoft. I could determine from the topic, you are a VBA master. Many people say VBA is something else than VB, but I didn't notice big differences. If you like VB, try the express edition: http://www.microsoft.com/express/vb/default.aspx - I built some great databases with it, it's perhaps something VB is best at.