Most of us have, at some point of our lives, done a little programming. And that means most of us have at some point been beginners at it. And that means we have successfully survived a living nightmare without losing our minds. Congratulations.
Shall I recount my own experiences?
First, I had to install a compiler on my system. After spending fifteen minutes installing one that was recommended to me, I realized that the environment was completely different from the one I used at school. After struggling a little with with DOS ( about which I knew next to nothing) by typing commands whose meanings I did not know, I managed to type a simple program. Then came the moment of truth...compilation.
It didn't go smoothly.There was a huge list of errors (or so it seemed). You probably know how intimidating the command prompt window looks to someone who's always used GUI. After trying in vain to correct the errors, I gave up on that compiler and decided to download the one we had at school. After downloading the whole thing ( which took another fifteen minutes) the software had the audacity to tell me it was not compatible with my system! I could have screamed. What was the bold text on the website saying
'FOR WINDOWS 7' supposed to mean, huh? I had had enough. I gave it up for the day.
Two days later, when my disgust had somewhat lessened (and my submission date come a little closer), I downloaded another compiler successfully on the second try...only to see it crash when I tried to use it.
In despair, I went to my father, who made me a little more comfortable with the first compiler. Finally, I had begun the task of actually writing the program.
Then came the second most annoying thing. Parse errors. I forget a semicolon, and the compiler shows a huge list of errors that makes me think I'm a failure. However, here I must note that there were few things more satisfying than watching that list disappear when I put that semicolon where it belonged.
After a lot of debugging and rewriting and recompiling with bated breath , my code was done. That's when I remembered that I would have to try it on the compiler we used at school. My spirits deflated faster than a helium balloon with a hole in it. Something was bound to go wrong.
My intuition didn't disappoint me. Header files had to be changed, and the corresponding functions had to be altered and an error that had somehow not shown up previously began to plague me. Eventually, most of that was sorted out too.
If you're new to this as well, don't let it scare you. Once you get used to writing the code, you can focus on the logic behind your program, and that bit is actually fun.
As a conclusion, here are some tips from a veteran 'first timer' (if that makes any sense):
Tip 1. Get someone to teach you how to format your code properly. It becomes so much easier to debug.
(thanks dad!).
Tip 2. Learn how to use your editor properly before struggling with it when you have to. Quite often, there's an easy shortcut that you just don't know about.
Tip 3: Don't be intimidated by long lists of errors that seem to be written in gibberish. Take a deep breath and look for the line number and words that you recognize. Often, a small error makes a lot of things go wrong.
Tip 4: Don't program if you're sleepy or tired. It's twice as frustrating.
Happy programming!
Now let me go deal with that function that simply won't work...
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