Self Study for Basic Programming

[undrcvrbro]

I'm a chemical engineering major and I noticed that my second semester I'll be taking chemical engineering computations, which entails "basic programming language." I don't know the first thing about programming, so what books could I study this summer as a good intro? Sorry if I'm being a little vague about the exact topics the course will cover, I have no clue.

 

[malawi_glenn]

First decide what language you want to use :-)

I suggest you start with Java, it is quite easy.

Search here for books here:

https://www.amazon.com/?tag=pfamazon01-20

There are many intro books about programming, and there are many reviews and comments that is useful for you.

Then you can google for a course home page where you can find material for an introduction java-course.

 

[rhz_prog]

I suggest you to learn Matlab, it have complete chemoinformatics library inside. Most works in programming is learning to understand which part of the program had been made anyway.

 

[malawi_glenn]

but then he needs to buy matlab.

 

[rhz_prog]

but then he needs to buy matlab.

hmm, you are right, although java might be a little harder, since you will need to understand html, or at least that is how I learn java, by download and splicing. There is no need for any compiler though, since the browser itself is can act as the script reader.

 

[malawi_glenn]

dowload java and blueJ, that all he needs.

 

[redbrain]

Download java and netbeans thought i have never used bluej, Matlab is great! but its only really good when you have the time to spent learning the amount of stuff it can do, if you just wanting to get some quick programming done its not really that fantastic java is nice or c++, java isn't hard to learn at all

 

[monjaraz85]

Try learning on notepad first, try not to use IDE's, its better to learn the code. There are several "free" books on the web that you can download for c++ or java.

 

[Tacomablack]

If you just want to get a understanding of programming i suggest you start with python. This language was made to be a learning language you should have any problems getting down the basics.

 

[Integral]

I'm a chemical engineering major and I noticed that my second semester I'll be taking chemical engineering computations, which entails "basic programming language." I don't know the first thing about programming, so what books could I study this summer as a good intro? Sorry if I'm being a little vague about the exact topics the course will cover, I have no clue.

Seems like a lot of people need to work on their reading skills. OP says he needs to learn BASIC, that is a specific language.

OP also needs to learn the fundamentals of programing. How to use loops, conditional branching, how to use arrays etc. Most of these concepts are common to all programing languages, where and how to learn them is the question.

The most common place BASIC is found in this day and age is in MS Office Macros. Visual Basic seems like what you will need to learn, look for a book on Excel VB macros, you should be able to get a leg up.

HOWEVER, it seems that you still need to learn the basics of programing. There should be numerous sources on line for that, do a bit of searching, looking for programing tutorials. Of course if you can find them in basic it would help.