Question

Looking for some Advice on entering computer science and coding as a hobby. I am a chem/math student at a Uni and wanted to get acquainted with coding as it is often applicable to many sciences. What is the best way to start?

I am aware that MIT opencourse has many courses online for coding basics and computer programming. I also have resources for many programs such as Mathmatica, etc.... Thanks for your time!

Answer 1

It seems as though you have already found the resources so the best way to start, in your case, is to simply take that first step and do it.
As a beginning language I would suggest 'C' because many of the science tools out there--as well as most higher level languages--are very similar to the C syntax.

Answer 2

Right now Python is popular in some parts of math, but for the PhD stuff, there are esoteric languages for it. Fortran was the former mathematical research language. In bio/chem, Python is very popular these days. It lest you do the code things you need without being a hard core programmer. As for C, that is more of an OS design language... not very friendly to starting programmers. It was my second language and I sill have nightmares at times. C++ would be a much friendlier place to start if you need to head towards C. In C, it is easy to blow your foot off. C++ makes it harder to even shoot yourself, but if you manage to, you blow away the whole leg. C#, from the parts I have seen, won't really prep you for C. It is like VisualBasic with more of a C syntax. And all that is assuming you really need to head towards C for some reason.

The main advantage to Python, at the moment, is that you can learn all your computer terminology for $0.00. Free books, free classes, and lots of quality. For a lot of other languages, the quality of the free classes is a bit questionable. So Python, even if you end up not using it much, can be an effective way to get the language of programming out of the way. Then reading a book on C++, Java, etc. is far easier.

When it comes to programming as a hobby, it all depends on the goal of the hobby. What do you want to be able to do? Make an Android ap? Learn Java. Get better control of your computer, data, or files? Use a script language like perl or Python. Get into numerical computing? Python is a good start, then look into Haskel or another functional language once you have a solid foundation in doing some programming.

Answer 3

Sounds like python will be my starting place. My goal for hobby is to do have more control of my computer, data, and files. I'd also like to be able to understand the processes (that the programs do) that computers do. Since computers are such a huge part of every science I thought it couldn't hurt to see how far down the rabbit hole of coding I could go.. Thanks for your time! @e.mccormick , and @eSpeX