Programming Challenges for a beginner [duplicate]

You are self-taught and have never taught anyone else and you "...still have a heck of a lot to learn." This is going to be challenging.

Make sure you have a very good understanding of what you're about to teach this other person. They will ask questions and some of them will be questions you won't anticipate. So be very well prepared with the material or be prepared to admit you don't know, look up an answer and get back to them. Go slowly and adjust for their skill level/learning pace.

Also, I don't think it matters much if you use C# or VB. You know C#, and if you are inexperienced with teaching, changing your tools at the same time as teaching someone else could make things difficult.

My opinion only: teach user the basics first, use this link: http://www.tedfelix.com/qbasic/ but ignore the fact that it says qbasic, and ignore the fact that it says for kids. Start at chapter 4. Teach him the following (in your language C#)...

1. Print
2. Taking User Input
3. If...Then
4. Do...Loop (while, until)
5. Case...Select
6. Random Number (Why not?)
7. For...Next
8. Some String functions if applicable to your job.
9. How to make functions
10. Saving and Reading Data
11. Error Checking

This list is just some fundamentals that everybody should understand. I am sure C# has it's on little tidbits like library and what not, teach that too. Whenever you need a deceptively simple module(function) give it to them to write. Otherwise, while you are still in the teaching mode make them do simple programs what use the above in order to reinforce concepts.

This might not be the best approach but it is the one I would think off hand.

Sorry to say this but I think starting programming in C# and especially by using Visual Studio is a bad idea. C# got alot libraries and therefor a lot of things can be done without any understanding about programming just browsing throught the documentation. I know many C# devlopers that after years still don't know what realy happends in there programmes. By using Visual studio with auotocompleat and telling you what functions are available and what parameters they expect.

Start simpel without flashy editors and GUI. Take the oppertunity to learn somthing youself and pick a language you don't know and you can learn it together.

The only thing, IMHO, that makes this question not a duplicate is that you are teaching a colleague how to program.

In that particular case, I would give him some of your real work to try to at least get something directly productive out of that time. Ideally you would have some tasks that are so simple you could almost write a program to generate the code for you, except the generator would need to be able to read English to do it (I've had some tasks like that on rare occasion).

I would give him the easiest stuff I could find, then review it all with him. Depending on how much time you have it may be more or less a sink-or-swim experience, but in the long run if he can't teach himself for the most part he probably won't be a very good programmer, and if he can you are doing him a favor by teaching him the real things he needs to know.

Make sure to do it all right though - have him check everything in to a local repository as he goes, push to your central branch once you are both done with it (or whatever your process is), etc. Again, might as well learn the real thing as something made up.

Easier languages for beginners are python or ruby. Complex syntax can really slow down learning so I'd pick one of those two. It's also nice to have an interpreter where you can test out short snippets of code quickly (like with python or ruby). Having to compile things just slows down the process. MIT, by the way, uses python to teach their beginner programming classes.

As for challenges/exercises, I'd start with Project Euler (projecteuler.net). It's language agnostic so you can use any. It starts off easy but gets increasingly harder. You don't have to do all the exercises as there are a lot of them, but just maybe the first 40 or so. I found the site very helpful for getting the hang of new languages.

The ones who do well in this are people who have a lot of initiative and don't need too much hand holding. You can explain variables and all that, but they should be doing a lot of the learning themselves. Have the student practice on different problems and get into the habit of figuring out things on their own. Of course they'll get stuck here and there and you help them out of those situations.

One strategy, for an inexperienced teacher and student combination, is for both of you to learn a new programming language (or topic) at the same time, but for you to stay one or two steps ahead. Then what you just learned will be fresh in your mind as something that needs to be taught.

Pick a new programming language that you want to learn (and that is reported suitable for educational purposes, e.g. lots of teaching materials available at multiple levels).

They say, best way of learning something is trying to teach it :) It would, perhaps, be better if you were teaching to more than one person. But, in any case, that would also mean that you should be putting a lot of effort in understanding the stuff you're talking about (which is a good thing). I would start with getting some books myself and putting down some notes on how to bring thing together so that they pedagogically make sense. You can also skim through the course material of colleges to find out the usual order of topics. I would also recommend writing on the topic (start a private blog?) before teaching about them, since writing make you ask more questions about the subject matter.

I guess C# is fine to start with.

I am (mostly) a self taught programmer as well, and I would say that areas where I had the most success were ones where I had some practical problem at hand to solve. (Necessity is an exceptionally good motivator in learning a new skill.) So if I were trying to teach an individual to code, my first step would be trying to figure out why that person wants to code in the first place. Ask your student for use cases and determine what they want or need to do. (It is possible that our colleague has no actual need to learn how to code in order to accomplish their goals.) From there, deconstruct the problem and figure out what they need to know in order to do what they want to do. This will help you figure out language choice as well.

From there, I would try and get a sense of your student's academic background. Ask them about algebra. How much do they remember? Can they give you a definition of a variable in their own words? Can they explain the order of operations? Can they read greater than / less than expressions? Do they know what a function is? Ask them some questions about logic. Can they tell you the formal difference between AND and OR? Quiz them about negation.

Once you know the answers to these questions, you will have a much clearer idea of what your starting point is. From there, work on data types, control structures, and basic data structures (e.g. arrays). Once you get the basic grammar down, work on actual practical problem solving and designing algorithms in the chosen language.

Start with Javascript. It's as bad a language as all the others for learning programming (except logo for total beginners, or basic for beginners).

What's best is it's getting used by tutorial programmes for teaching beginners to programming. (I should learn better grammer to rewrite that sentence!)

Here's one that's getting some interest: learn to code in 2012.

Apparently the Khan academy is getting some learn-to-program stuff going with javascript too. They describe the reasons why.

I'm not convinced JS is the best thing to learn, but it gets you going, is easy to learn with interactive web editors that give instant results (important), is pretty ubiquitous everywhere from web apps to Metro apps, and you'll never be lacking job opportunities once you know it.

I wouldn't start with C#, Object Oriented is a bit complicated for start as it requires a certain frame of mind which isn't the easiest to grasp for a newbie.

To get the "feel" of programming, I would definitely go for something like C, which is a great language to learn the idea of problem solving through structured instructions, you could definitely benefit from watching an introductory to computer science class, and there is a great one:

MIT introductory class

An interesting take on programming challenges is Pex for Fun and it's in C#. As opposed to most which are "write a program that turns these inputs into these outputs" it has a hidden function which you have to work out writing a function, seeing which inputs gives a wrong result (and shows the expected result) and iterating on yours.

In my opinion I would start with the basics like you said (variables, classes, functions, loops, timers, etc). From there I would pick a language! Good Luck!

Start off with C,gcc and gedit combo

Start with the basics : arithmetic operations,loops,conditional statements,etc

Then play with pointers and arrays

Move on to IO,file IO

Now relatively advanced topics like functions,recursion

Finally, finish off with a simple project like a Brainf**k interpreter