Getting into programming in high school is easy because the barrier is pretty low with graphing calculators being as capable and wide spread as they are. Unfortunately, graphing calculator programs don't really get you anywhere career wise. They're more of a stepping stone into other languages. Graphing calculator introduce you to BASIC and, if you're driven, ASM; Some calculators can even introduce to you C and Lua. They're a great introduction to the capabilities and the wonders that programming offers.
Apple announced today that more than 30 community colleges now offer a curriculum related to "
App Development with Swift" for this 2017-2018 school year. These courses enable students, most of which may have no prior background in programming, to create complete apps based on the open source Swift language, which
Apple announced and released in 2014. With Swift, developers can create apps for both iOS and macOS.
However, there are plenty of other programming languages offered at community colleges and four year colleges. For those of you who are attending college this semester or quarter, are you taking any programming courses? What are you taking and what do you hope to get out of it? Is this class part of a larger curriculum, where you move onto other concepts and languages?
For those of you still in high school, are you looking at any languages beyond the graphing calculators? Does your school offer any programming courses, and if so are you taking them?
Here are some recent topics our members have created for programs outside of graphing calculators:
That list is a bit short so please post about your computer and mobile programming projects
I'd love to read about them, whether they are personal or academical projects.
One of my regrets of graduating from high school soon is that our school is revamping the computer science department. Previously, only a VB.NET, Java, AP Comp Sci, and iOS class were available, but in the coming years, the school will offer Swift, AP Comp Sci, C# w/ Unity, and Android development.
The only class my high school has related to programming is the robotics/PLTW class. I wish they offered more, I'd take one in a heartbeat.
My school has a programming class for Python. I'm moving through it quite quickly, and I might be able to finish it within the next month!
Outside of that though, I'm learning C++ and Processing. I've been working on
this which is going pretty good
I'm making a game about critters in C, but I haven't touched the code in a few days and it might be dead
I am thinking of a few cool ideas, including a game where it presents several
crappy AI interpretations with different strategic weaknesses on a simple 2d map, and you have to beat them by thinking and exploiting their weaknesses.
Hilariously enough my high school isn't even offering a C class; it offers Honors and AP Comp Science, both of which focus exclusively on Java. Not a bad thing by any means; Java is a simple language to learn and is great for a school setting, where people like me who are experienced in programming practices take the same classes as guys who don't know where to start. I only say it's hilarious that my school isn't offering a C class because that's the language I've decided to do the most convoluted stuff in so far.
But so far the Java class has been alright, the farthest we got in the Honors class was a basic introduction to Java's graphics, more specifically, JFrames. I've heard that the AP is of course harder, but I'm not sure how hard it could really be if I've already made entire games. I'll have to wait about 2 weeks and see.
Jeez guys. My high school didn't even offer a programming class. It was kind of a bummer
I'm sure they may offer it now but that's some 9 years after I've graduated.
Battlesquid, what exactly is Processing? Is that a focus area of programming (much like distributed systems) or something else entirely?
Processing is a programming language. I have seen it used a lot alongside Arduino boards.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Processing_(programming_language)
I'm in my senior year of High School and I'm immersing myself with C++, and I'm learning Python really slowly. I'm taking the only programming class my High School offers currently, which is AP Computer Science Principles. I'm planning to do a lot of things with C++ in the future.
I'm learning C#. I wish I didn't have to learn the # part.
Although (to my understanding) C# isn't really
C, I'm hoping that it'll still make it easier to learn base C.
Also a question: would it be better to learn C as I'm doing C#? Or should I get comfortable with C# before I tackle C?
TheLastMillennial wrote:
I'm learning C#. I wish I didn't have to learn the # part.
Although (to my understanding) C# isn't really
C, I'm hoping that it'll still make it easier to learn base C.
Also a question: would it be better to learn C as I'm doing C#? Or should I get comfortable with C# before I tackle C?
C and C++ are indeed much, much different from C#; I would claim that C# has more in common with Java than with C/C++. I'd actually do the reverse: get comfortable with C and/or C++, then tackle C#.
Wow, happy to see this thread pop up as I move into my comp-sci program in college (I was in an applied sciences program, which I opted out of to do some CS instead). I am currently enrolled in a 3-year CS program where I will learn the following (in order):
Java
HTML/CSS
COBOL
SQL
JCL/RPG
C#
PHP
I've already started the two first ones, Java and web design, and I must admit, my
cemetech training really helped (ti-basic won't do much, but html is very easy and java vaguely ressembles VBS). I am also taking CCNA courses 1-4 on the side, but those are for my job, (not coding at all, but related...).
This semester, I have an entire class dedicated to computational mathematics, which I will surely find very interesting (vectors, matrices, algorithms, etc.) Basically linear algebra, but a little less mathy and a little more computery
I'm surprised PHP comes after SQL. I'd rather learn PHP and then move into SQL, but I guess Java interacts with SQL databases. I look forward to seeing topics related to those classes pop up on the forums
mr womp womp wrote:
I am also taking CCNA courses 1-4 on the side, but those are for my job
Represent! Same here. While my job is more Facilities related, we do have some overlap in networking (running cables, creating drops, etc) so I figured it'd be wise to get formal training in IT. So if I ever move to a smaller company, I can take care of both departments or something.
Alex wrote:
Battlesquid, what exactly is Processing? Is that a focus area of programming (much like distributed systems) or something else entirely?
Cause I can't use big words :
Processing.org wrote:
Processing is a flexible software sketchbook and a language for learning how to code within the context of the visual arts. Since 2001, Processing has promoted software literacy within the visual arts and visual literacy within technology. There are tens of thousands of students, artists, designers, researchers, and hobbyists who use Processing for learning and prototyping.
Basically, it's programming languages simplified (specifically Java). There are a lot more applications to it, such as Arduino (using the Firmata Libary) to create Arduino programs with output on the computer. There's also Processing.py for Python, iPhone (iProcessing) mode, Android mode, Spde, Quil for Clojure, etc. I don't even know what the last few are about, but the main point is that it's pretty flexible (If I wanted to port a program in Java mode to Android, the commands wouldn't have to change much (to my knowledge)).
I hope I got all that right Here's a link:
https://processing.org/
It's very good for modeling things, as it's very versatile and makes things like setting up a screen, drawing to it, and accessing files (and more) exceedingly easy, which lets you get to the meat of your program faster. (that's why I love TI-BASIC)
Alex wrote:
Apple announced today that more than 30 community colleges now offer a curriculum related to "
App Development with Swift" for this 2017-2018 school year. These courses enable students, most of which may have no prior background in programming, to create complete apps based on the open source Swift language, which
Apple announced and released in 2014. With Swift, developers can create apps for both iOS and macOS.
Is this a paid ad by Apple or something?
When I was in high school, I was able to take a class in both Visual Basic and Java. Visual Basic classes were discontinued, though, in favor of having Java be a two-part course, which I fully support.
I'm in my third year of college and I am taking a C++ course this year.
Honestly, Apple's "Swift" language is awful, for the same reason I did not like Visual Basic. It's just Apple's attempt to try to trap developers into only producing for their platform, when they should be focusing on making it easier to build software for every platform. They're always the biggest pain to work with.
There's so many better alternatives. For high school, there's Java and Python, which are portable, easy to learn, and widely used. At college level, you should probably be learning C/C++, and others depending on your degree focus.
I'm taking a C course, and it's pretty easy. We are learning what fprintf( does and what variables are and whatever.
I'm 4 weeks into my CIT class (Computer Information Technology, in other words their computer science major). So far I haven't learned anything, since he's taught stuff I already know about. We should be getting to C programming here soon which I'm excited to learn. So far he's done a beginners introduction to binary, hexadecimal, pseudocode, algorithms, and now we're doing some MIT Scratch programming.
Michael2_3B wrote:
I'm 4 weeks into my CIT class (Computer Information Technology, in other words their computer science major).
Same here! But I'm taking the Computer Networking side for work (the CCNA). I'm kinda bummed we won't get into programming but at the same time pretty relieved.
amihart wrote:
When I was in high school, I was able to take a class in both Visual Basic and Java. Visual Basic classes were discontinued, though, in favor of having Java be a two-part course, which I fully support.
I'm in my third year of college and I am taking a C++ course this year.
Is that two part Java course like two different school years?
You should totally share some of your college, and personal, C++ projects!