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Programming FAQ

paulgraham.com · 681 words · saved by 1 readers

What editor do you use? vi. How can I learn to program? Find a friend who knows how to program. Get them to set you up with a system where you can edit and run programs. Use whatever language they suggest for a beginner (probably it will be Python or Ruby). Then get the O'Reilly book and start working through it. As you learn the mechanics of writing and running a program, start thinking about specific programs you want to write. That will motivate you to learn more. Don't start with a problem that's too big. A good way to begin is to take an existing program and modify it to do something new. Initially your programs will be ugly, but don't worry about that. Everyone's are. Just keep going, and they'll get better. As you learn, you'll find it useful to look at programs other people have written. But you'll learn more from this once you've tried programming yourself. Finally, find friends who like to write programs. They can answer your technical questions; you'll get new

What editor do you use? vi. How can I learn to program? Find a friend who knows how to program. Get them to set you up with a system where you can edit and run programs. Use whatever language they suggest for a beginner (probably it will be Python or Ruby). Then get the O'Reilly book and start working through it. As you learn the mechanics of writing and running a program, start thinking about specific programs you want to write. That will motivate you to learn more. Don't start with a problem that's too big. A good way to begin is to take an existing program and modify it to do…

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