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Please help with my programming

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Hi,
I'm a college student who just got introduced to computer programming as part of my curriculum and would be very happy if I could be advised on free websites and materials that may help me learn programming from the scratch.
Thanks a million...

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by tony hopkinson

to start on, what does your curriculum talk about?

I'd like to be able to point you at a site just for programming as a discipline, but I know of none I could recommend.
Most are how to program in language X.

Bear this in mind.
Programming is taking a complex or repetitive task and breaking it up in to simple repeatable steps.

If you were to write down the steps involved in making yourself a cup of coffee, how many would there be?

You could start with
Turn on Kettle
Put coffee in cup
Wait until kettle boils
Fill cup from kettle.

Now then, was the kettle plugged in?
Did it have any water in it?
Define fill.
What does wait mean ?
Which steps must be done in order, which are required for the next one to be valid? Which could be done in parallel?
How many sub steps are there in put coffee in cup. How much coffee? Milk and sugar whitening, cream, a dash of vodka?

How does your 'program' change for making another cup of coffee, for making more than one at a time?

How much you can do in each step, and how you express it is defined by the language you choose. What you can do, by the environment.

You don't need a computer to program and in fact I consider it a distraction to learning what programming really is. :D

You can re-invent the science of programming with a few simple household tasks.

For instance, what if two people want to make their own coffee, but you only have one kettle or cup, or only one of each.

I could illustrate the main theories behind multi-threading with that scenario. :p

Pick a language , make a start, ask yourself good questions. If you can't answer them there's always, google , a book or someone on TR.

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