The past few times I have signed up for an edx.org course, I have ended up having to drop it. I get too far behind to catch up, which means that work was a bit nutty or something else happened.
Back in an age, long, long, LONG time ago, one would write programming code in a editor file, compile, and run the resulting program. Borland came along and created the IDE (Interface Development Environment) and all the young programmers would bow to its glory. (Mucho sarcasm there) Pressing a button was all that was needed to compile and run the newly written code and the programmers would all gasp.
Over the years, as the IDEs have been come more sophisticated with debuggers and the like, the IDEs are just more complicated.
Borland's IDE for C++ programming language had been pretty straight-forward to understand. By C/C++ 5.?, the IDE was more complicated and made creating a very simple project a huge pain. Next, I had to work with Microsoft Visual Studio. When I got my current job, I had to write DLLs (Dynamically Linked Libraries) that provided code to communicate with the UNIX system within PowerBuilder.
Once I understood the IDE, I learned how to develop screens in PowerBuilder. That way, I had an input screen and could immediately see how the Windows code would communicate to the UNIX system, execute a program on the UNIX side, then see the results translated over to the Windows system. When I got that to work, I was such a giddy little girl that my team lead would stand up with a huge grin and laugh at me. Hey - it was the small things that made me happy.
When I was in college, I had wanted to take the gaming course, but it was a bit more advanced. Also, the course required a different IDE - Watcom. I installed it on my PC at home and thought - Holy crap! Where do I even begin?!
With Java, I had to learn the Eclipse IDE. What a huge headache, but considering I was not that involved with programming, I left it up to my co-workers. I felt that was where I made a HUGE mistake in my career. I was recently reminded on how well my co-workers and I were so immersed in our code that we knew how to create our own test data and pin point why something broke. Today, we have a different group who handle doing the testing and no clue on how to create their own testing data. I recently heard a complaint about something being out of sync between my old application and another. I told them that the issue is easily resolved by increasing the odometer value in the old application - why is this an issue?! When the other manager heard that, he just shook his head and said "That is all there is to that?" Yep - that is all there is to that.
Back to my commentary about IDEs and classes. I am currently enrolled into a Java course for work with Udemy (it is free) and a C# course with edx.org. C# programming is to be done via the MS Visual Studio, which has become more obtainable. In the past, to get the IDE, it would cost hundreds of dollars - I spent $199 to get the student version - the professional version was well over $600, which I could not justify having. Now, I think MS has realized that more and more compilers and IDEs have to be accessible and free.
As I am taking this course, the instructor describes the IDE to use, but no real initial information about how to even create a project - what choices to make? Ugh! So, I will trudge along with the project and see how well I do. I already have a good C/C++ base, so I hope that I can do well in this course. What I am especially happy for - the course is self-paced.
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