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digitalmars.D.learn - How to continue after the book?

reply I =?UTF-8?B?TGluZHN0csO2bQ==?= <nota.real address.com> writes:
After getting the basics down, how did you continue when learning 
programming in general?

I do have a need for which I've been trying out a few languages 
and D seems by far the best for me. Should I just start doing 
that project and learn as I go by googling and asking here, or 
are there some other things you did before starting your first 
"real" project.
Mar 28 2017
next sibling parent rikki cattermole <rikki cattermole.co.nz> writes:
On 28/03/2017 8:27 AM, I Lindström wrote:

 After getting the basics down, how did you continue when learning
 programming in general?

 I do have a need for which I've been trying out a few languages and D
 seems by far the best for me. Should I just start doing that project and
 learn as I go by googling and asking here, or are there some other
 things you did before starting your first "real" project.


I read the docs, played around for a bit before doing anything serious.
That's a great way to get going with PL's.
Mar 28 2017
prev sibling next sibling parent Satoshi <satoshi rikarin.org> writes:
On Tuesday, 28 March 2017 at 07:27:31 UTC, I Lindström wrote:

 After getting the basics down, how did you continue when 
 learning programming in general?

 I do have a need for which I've been trying out a few languages 
 and D seems by far the best for me. Should I just start doing 
 that project and learn as I go by googling and asking here, or 
 are there some other things you did before starting your first 
 "real" project.



You can develop your skills just by doing it not reading about 
it. Theoretical base is good when you can associate learned 
information with your practical skills.
Mar 28 2017
prev sibling next sibling parent XavierAP <n3minis-git yahoo.es> writes:
On Tuesday, 28 March 2017 at 07:27:31 UTC, I Lindström wrote:

 I do have a need for which I've been trying out a few languages 
 and D seems by far the best for me. Should I just start doing 
 that project and learn as I go by googling and asking here, or 
 are there some other things you did before starting your first 
 "real" project.


If you have a project in mind and that's the reason why you've 
looked into D, just start it now. After reading a book and 
preferably before, doing is the way to learn programming.

Worst case, you'll decide later to re-design a lot of your code. 
But you will have used your time in learning much more, more 
relevant for your specific needs, than with any toy exercises.
Mar 28 2017
prev sibling next sibling parent bauss <jj_1337 live.dk> writes:
On Tuesday, 28 March 2017 at 07:27:31 UTC, I Lindström wrote:

 After getting the basics down, how did you continue when 
 learning programming in general?

 I do have a need for which I've been trying out a few languages 
 and D seems by far the best for me. Should I just start doing 
 that project and learn as I go by googling and asking here, or 
 are there some other things you did before starting your first 
 "real" project.


I have never actually used a book to learn. Practice is the best 
way to learn, at least for me. It differs from person to person 
how they learn best.

What I have used books for though, is improving knowledge on 
fields that I most likely know or to learn basic knowledge or 
different views on certain fields.

I haven't read a lot of books, especially not for D. I've only 
gotten Andrei's and Adam's book. Looked a tiny bit through Ali's, 
but yeah. I'm not much of a book person when it comes to learning 
programming or anything alike. I do enjoy reading them, but 
generally it's to expand my current knowledge and not to learn 
anything new.

What I usually do is to pick a certain type of project, write 
down each requirement and feature it needs and then see what 
certain skills I'd need to finish it and then take one thing at a 
time, then after each time I scrap the project and start over to 
re-write it with improvements.
Mar 28 2017
prev sibling next sibling parent Laeeth Isharc <laeeth nospamlaeeth.com> writes:
On Tuesday, 28 March 2017 at 07:27:31 UTC, I Lindström wrote:

 After getting the basics down, how did you continue when 
 learning programming in general?

 I do have a need for which I've been trying out a few languages 
 and D seems by far the best for me. Should I just start doing 
 that project and learn as I go by googling and asking here, or 
 are there some other things you did before starting your first 
 "real" project.


I learnt a lot by reading others' code in a domain that 
interested me intrinsically.  Originally the same way Walter did 
- typing in programs from magazines and then changing them. Pick 
something that suits your skill level and is a bit beyond this - 
growth comes from pushing your limits and it should be a bit 
uncomfortable if you are doing it right.
Mar 28 2017
prev sibling next sibling parent reply I =?UTF-8?B?TGluZHN0csO2bQ==?= <nota.real address.com> writes:
Thanks all. Your answers gave me a lot more confidence in 
starting. What I've always found to be the hardest is to know 
what you can do, and that's what I use books for. "Can" in the 
sense of what's possible and how. These forums and the docs on 
the site have given me a pretty decent idea about how to proceed 
and do things. It's not the work itself that I dread, but more 
the "can I find out how to do something", but some of your 
answers touched on this and I will take heed.

A lot to learn. You can expect me to come pester you guys if I 
hit a snag. Heh.
Mar 28 2017
parent reply Laeeth Isharc <laeethnospam nospam.laeeth.com> writes:
On Wednesday, 29 March 2017 at 05:53:22 UTC, I Lindström wrote:

 Thanks all. Your answers gave me a lot more confidence in 
 starting. What I've always found to be the hardest is to know 
 what you can do, and that's what I use books for. "Can" in the 
 sense of what's possible and how. These forums and the docs on 
 the site have given me a pretty decent idea about how to 
 proceed and do things. It's not the work itself that I dread, 
 but more the "can I find out how to do something", but some of 
 your answers touched on this and I will take heed.

 A lot to learn. You can expect me to come pester you guys if I 
 hit a snag. Heh.


plus IRC chat if you get stuck.
Mar 28 2017
parent JamesD <none mail.com> writes:
On Wednesday, 29 March 2017 at 06:39:17 UTC, Laeeth Isharc wrote:

 On Wednesday, 29 March 2017 at 05:53:22 UTC, I Lindström wrote:

 Thanks all. Your answers gave me a lot more confidence in 
 starting. What I've always found to be the hardest is to know 
 what you can do, and that's what I use books for. "Can" in the 
 sense of what's possible and how. These forums and the docs on 
 the site have given me a pretty decent idea about how to 
 proceed and do things. It's not the work itself that I dread, 
 but more the "can I find out how to do something", but some of 
 your answers touched on this and I will take heed.

 A lot to learn. You can expect me to come pester you guys if I 
 hit a snag. Heh.


 plus IRC chat if you get stuck.


All great tips above!

I have some rather simple examples here:
https://github.com/jasc2v8/dwt-support

I had created a vhd copy program in AutoIt, and set a goal to 
convert to D.

The result is a much better utility, as well as learning the D 
language from the very basics to a useful gui app.
Mar 31 2017
prev sibling next sibling parent aberba <karabutaworld gmail.com> writes:
On Tuesday, 28 March 2017 at 07:27:31 UTC, I Lindström wrote:

 After getting the basics down, how did you continue when 
 learning programming in general?

 I do have a need for which I've been trying out a few languages 
 and D seems by far the best for me. Should I just start doing 
 that project and learn as I go by googling and asking here, or 
 are there some other things you did before starting your first 
 "real" project.


If you want to practice your skills, I would highly recommend 
HackerRank (https://www.hackerrank.com). They provide you with 
challenges and you are encouraged to solve. Fortunately, D 
happens to be supported (at least in the algorithms section).

And if you happen to be a good problem solver, you can get hired 
(everything is skill based). HackerRank is quite something these 
days. They have some job offers too 
(https://www.hackerrank.com/careers): bottom of page.
Apr 01 2017
prev sibling parent Vasudev Ram <vasudevram gmail.com> writes:
On Tuesday, 28 March 2017 at 07:27:31 UTC, I Lindström wrote:

 After getting the basics down, how did you continue when 
 learning programming in general?


Many other good suggestions here already.

1. Another idea: pick some small tools or utilities that you 
would like to create, and write them in D. (And another - start 
writing small parts of your planned app in D, using the knowledge 
from the book you read. Learn more bits of D as needed, and use 
that to implement more parts of the app.)

2. Along the lines of JamesD's link below, here are some small D 
example programs from my blog, but complementary to his, since 
these are mostly command-line ones (at the time of writing this).

https://jugad2.blogspot.com/search/label/DLang [1]

There are few posts at the above link that do not have actual 
code examples, such as a few D videos etc. View or skip those as 
you wish.

Here are the post titles so you can get an idea of what examples 
are there:

Porting the text pager from Python to D (DLang)

Simple parallel processing in D with std.parallelism

Using std.datetime.StopWatch to time sections of D code

Read from CSV with D, write to PDF with Python

Command line D utility - find files matching a pattern under a 
directory

min_fgrep: minimal fgrep command in D

num_cores: find number of cores in your PC's processor

Calling a simple C function from D - strcmp

Func-y D + Python pipeline to generate PDF

file_sizes utility in D: print sizes of all files under a 
directory tree

deltildefiles: D language utility to recursively delete vim 
backup files

[DLang]: A simple file download utility in D

Getting CPU info with D (the D language)

All of those posts are available at the link marked [1] above.

HTH,
Vasudev
---
Vasudev Ram
Site: https://vasudevram.github.io
Blog: https://jugad2.blogspot.com
Apr 13 2017