how basic programming concepts translate in real software?

[gergeskirolos59]

What really happens when you try? Where do you get stuck?

simply not able to write a program that do what i want till the end

Also, what is your background?

student

Hard to answer such generic questions except with a lot of hand waving.

alot of people said the same about my questions and i am trying to improve how i ask questions , thanks for feedback

 

[drhowarddrfine]

I would advise you to stop asking questions now and just proceed.
As others have suggested, write a program in some language that prints "Hello, world!". Until you can do that you're only talking about programming and not doing.
Forget about what you said you wanted to do earlier. You don't have the knowledge or skill for that yet. Print "Hello, world!" and then come back.
And show your work!

 

[gergeskirolos59]

I would advise you to stop asking questions now and just proceed.

i did already multiple times and today!

And show your work!

i will for sure when i have something to show!

 

[hruodr]

simply not able to write a program that do what i want till the end

How difficult it is depends on what you want and what language you use.

If you want to do calculations, with C is easy and efficient. It is a program that run once and do the calculations you need.

If you must deal with strings, for example for a cgi script in the web, then it will be a little more difficult in C, you will have to deal with memory management. Better a language that do it automatically like LISP or tcl.

If you want to write an "application" with a GUI, something that looks like a commercial piece of software, it will be much more difficult in C, but you can use tk together with tcl.

And would you program a database in C? For that is SQL, and you can use sqlite3 to bind it to C or tcl programs that ask the db.

 

[AlfredoLlaquet]

1) I apologize for talking before (2nd time) without being aware about the point the conversation was in. I'm still me.

2) OP, why don't you use an AI as a teacher. Tell it: I want to learn to do this step by step using this language (or maybe it can recommend you the language). Then tell it, step 1, go. And so on. And you'll learn with a teacher. And you can ask it questions.

 

[AlfredoLlaquet]

Tell it also: be succinct. Or you will die reading.

 

[Maturin]

If I were the OP, I'd be scared at this point, to be frank. Thankfully, I provided the only truth he needs to know, very well explained, and in very few words.

Sure. You did.
By what you say (and I do believe you) you are a long year experienced professional programmer.
What you said ain't wrong. In contrary, it's right.
You summarized it all to the most abstraction level imaginable. The latter one is my point.
Most briefly ain't always the best way to explain things.
Point is:
If one knows, what programming is all about, one can understand what you said. And it's right and true. I am 100% with you. But if sombeody is completely new to the game, I doubt this person can break it down to understand it, and get something useful from it, know where to start.
Actually you answered the thread's question - brief and to the point exactly.
While others, like me, believe to see, the actual question was, 'How to start with programming.'
But I grant you that I'm mistaken.

 

[AlfredoLlaquet]

Sure. You did.
By what you say (and I do believe you) you are a long year experienced professional programmer.
What you said ain't wrong. In contrary, it's right.
You summarized it all to the most abstraction level imaginable. The latter one is my point.
Most briefly ain't always the best was to explain things.
Point is:
If one knows, what programming is all about, one can understand what you said. And it's right and true. I am 100% with you. But if sombeody is completely new to the game, I doubt this person can break it down to understand it, and get something useful from it, know where to start.
Actually you answered the thread's question - brief and to the point exactly.
While others, like me, believe to see, the actual question was, 'How to start with programming.'
But I grant you that I'm mistaken.

I already apologized, Maturin, for talking without reading. My second post was stupid.

 

[gergeskirolos59]

2) OP, why don't you use an AI as a teacher. Tell it: I want to learn to do this step by step using this language (or maybe it can recommend you the language). Then tell it, step 1, go. And so on. And you'll learn with a teacher. And you can ask it questions.

i use it but as low as i can
maybe because AI will steal few important things including but not limited to ability to search for example , because you ask ai and get answer without search effort

 

[AlfredoLlaquet]

I would advise you to stop asking questions now and just proceed.
As others have suggested, write a program in some language that prints "Hello, world!". Until you can do that you're only talking about programming and not doing.
Forget about what you said you wanted to do earlier. You don't have the knowledge or skill for that yet. Print "Hello, world!" and then come back.
And show your work!

THIS

 

[hruodr]

because you ask ai and get answer without search effort

No need to search, look:

H

Thread 'How to learn tcl language in less than an hour'

Apr 24, 2026

From the beginning I liked tcl mainly because of:

a) Its simplicity and coherence, not bloated and easy to learn syntax.

b) The way it separately denote variable names and variable values that allows to construct strings in an intuitive way.

c) Its LISP taste, but not inflated with parenthesis.

d) its extension tk that allows to easily program GUIs.

Later:

e) Its simple interface to sqlite3 that makes it much more powerful.

How to learn it in record time? In perhaps less than one hour?

---

1. INSTALLING, CALLING THE INTERPRETER AND LEAVING IT

For installing tcl 9.0 and tk 9.0...

• hruodr
• programming language tcl
• Replies: 2
• Forum: Howtos and FAQs (Moderated)

• 
• 

 

[bakul]

simply not able to write a program that do what i want till the end

The way to get "there" is by "divide and conquer" - keep dividing the problem you're solving in smaller and smaller pieces until you know how to program each small piece. But that too is a skill and reading small programs can help you see how others structured the program - what are the pieces and how they are put together, what library functions are used etc. For example, read the man page for some programs in /bin or /usr/bin and then read its code and try to understand how it was structured.

Concurrently I would recommend using an interpretive language like python or scheme or common lisp and experiment building things up bit by bit and test the results at every stage. Don't worry about performance when you're learning. For example, try write a program like "wc" or "cut" or "ls" etc as you read the code of such programs in /bin,/usr/bin etc.

student

You can pick toy programs in your major field of study to experiment.

a lot of people said the same about my questions and i am trying to improve how i ask questions , thanks for feedback

Yes, asking the questions that elicit better answers is a skill worth improving.

 

[Maturin]

The way to get "there" is by "divide and conquer" -

Second. That post is a very good advice.

 

[blackbird9]

Second. That post is a very good advice.

And, do it incrementally. You can't learn everything at once, like any skill; no-one can. Content yourself with learning one area to start, then another, then something else, and slowly you will grow.