So You Want to Become a Programmer

From Compsci.ca Wiki

First Steps: Know Your Environment

• ASCII
• File extensions
• Command-line
  • Commonalities between *nix and Windows shells
    • Spaces to separate arguments
    • PATH
  • Differences
    • Less need to modify PATH on *nix (/usr/bin and /usr/local/bin)
    • Running executables in current directory
  • Bridging the gap
    • Cygwin
• Filesystem hierarchy

A Little Bit of Theory

• Source code as simply text
• Compilers/interpreters taking that and turning it into a format a machine can understand
• Statements vs. Expressions
• Entry points (what order things are executed in)