Writing Programs

**JRR** · April 03, 2010, 12:17 PM

Hi,
I would like to start to write my own programs for personal use, so i want to find a guide that is easily uderstandable as i dont have any experince with programn writing, and i would like a link to some FREE software that is EASY TO USE so i can start creating my own programs
thanks for any replies

**Doono** · April 03, 2010, 01:16 PM

what sort of programs are you trying to make?

Common languages like C/C++, java and visual basic are what most things are programmed with, they are not languages you can pick up over night mind you.

I find programming is more to do with your logical ability to visualise how code flows than to simply learn the commands.

If your just trying to make programs to automate actions it might be worth learning autoit, more complex programs will require a language like C or perhaps visual basic.
You are going to have to be a little more specific, I know C programming to a certain extent since I use it frequently for Embedded Systems programming on my engineering course.

Self teaching a programming language is pretty difficult if you have no prior experience with other languages in my opinion , might be worth getting some lessons to start with.

http://www.cprogramming.com/ tutorials and so on

http://www.codeblocks.org/ apparently a good free c/c++ compiler, i have never used it, I use either visual studio or hardware specific compilers for embedded systems

**JRR** · April 03, 2010, 01:26 PM

i dont really mind what type of program i create, all i want is a way to create my own programs for pc easily and for free

**Doono** · April 03, 2010, 07:42 PM

Programs are only as easy as what you are doing, programming a maths quiz would be considered easy, programming a computer game would not be. You need to decide what you plan on doing. Your answer is ambiguous and uninformative, you give the impression you don't have a plan and want something that you can pick up in 5 mins, this will not happen with programming, it requires dedication to learn to program anthing meaningful.

You say you want to create your own programs, what sort of programs are we talking about, backing up files automatically, little calculation tools, small programs to speed up irritating tasks?

You can pick up the basics of C in a couple of weeks if you have a good mind for programming, remeber though you need to learn to crawl before you learn to walk.

**DukeCanada** · April 04, 2010, 07:42 AM

Like the good man above has stated you need to pick a langauge.

Overall programming is not easy. Im trying to learn in Java and sometimes I want to rip my hair out.

Take classes

**JRR** · April 04, 2010, 10:01 AM

what im looking at programming is my own software for archery scoring (because i do archery) so what i want is a program that allows me to make a program to click on a target and put what scores ive got also i want to be able to plot arrows on a target e.g 12 arrows put them on target where they went that i can find my top 1-12 arrows.

**DukeCanada** · April 04, 2010, 07:28 PM

So you basically want a program that will allow you to click on a virtual archery butt, and it will collect your score. You also want to keep track of what arrow achieves what score.

Thats not to difficult. The hardest part in theory would be to have the program recognize what part of the butt is being hit(this can be done a number of ways I suppose, though I have never tried it).

However, after you have that completed you could simply store the arrow number and score into an array. Then display it as you need it. It would also be smart to send everything to an output file so you can access the information at a later date.

If I was you I would use Turing. Turing is a very easy langauge to understand and learn, its not as harsh on starters as Java, C++, Flash, or any of those langauges. It will also allow you to pull off this pretty easy program. However, if you want a more effecient and clean program then Java is probably the way to go.

For Turing, there is only one way to write in that langauge. Its in a program called "Turing". You can download it from the Holtsoft website for free I think.

For Java there are a number of IDE's (programs that let you write in Java). The best are probably Netbeans and Eclipse, both are good and relatively similiar.

No matter what you choose, do yourself a favour and read some tutorials