Easy programming at home - Part 1 What is programming in the first place?

It is an actual screen (with R)

Hi. Good morning / afternoon / evening. I’m ponpokorin (@ponpokorin_24).

As a new learner of programming at university, I decided to write this article to help parents who would think that "Children's school is closed due to the new coronavirus, but I don't have anything to teach children anymore..."

This article is an introductory article because it is Part 1.

Part 2 is here

At the end of the article, I will put a link to the Part 2, so if you have finished reading this article, please check from there!

There are various types of "programming languages." Depending on the language, the commands and notation required to perform the same operation differ. Just like languages for humans such as Japanese, English..., there are languages for machines such as Python, R...

Python and R are recommended languages, if you use Python and a small computer called Raspberry Pi together, you can easily do electronic work, and R is quite used in universities because it is relatively strong in statistics, so do I think there is no loss.

Furthermore, the topic of machine learning can be done in both Python and R. Want to try it?

When I become a parent, I want kids to learn programming using these real programming languages from the beginning.  So, in the hands-on (part 2 and beyond), I'm going to write articles to keep children as bored as possible.

In this article, I'm going to tell you how to get acquainted with programming as a student in university. In that, I want you to know about "What is programming".

It's not difficult, and anyone can use R or Python for free. Please relax and read. 

Table of Contents

• When I met programming
• Get used to programming
• What is programming
• Recommended approach
• Let's install R!
• Afterword

When I met programming

The first time I learned programming was a freshman in university, and the language was R. I was nervous when I learned it for the first time, but I quickly got used to it.

In the class I did the following tasks.

• the four basic arithmetic operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division)
• Assignment (If you enter "a <-10" in R, 10 is assigned to a. For details, refer to the hand on part.)
• Read csv file and Excel file

For those unfamiliar with programming, it may not seem easy, but if you just try it, you'll get understanding right away.

Get used to programming

After six months in class, I felt that programming was not particularly difficult.

The important thing here is that "what we do today" was decided. (It's naturally because it’s a class.) There is a wide range of things you can do with programming, so if you are doing programming as a hobby, your goals may be fuzzy. So, the most important thing in programming education is to determine the tasks and write codes to achieve them.

Then, naturally, you can learn how to deal with it, such as "Hmm... It is troublesome to write the same command each time to make this calculation... I can use "for loop" for this part."

Also, if the code of the process you want to do is published on the web, it is OK to just copy it, and if you try to understand it at best, you will gain knowledge. (Be careful with copyright.)

At first, I looked at the teacher's code and copied it as it was. When I got the results I expected, I thought and understood the mechanism by using paper and a pen. In this way, I learned naturally.

In addition, once you become familiar with one programming language, learning a new programming language becomes relatively easy. Because you get familiar with the general mechanism and terminology.

What is programming

I've been programming for the past three years, and what I have realized is that "programming is a tool that tells computers what you want to do".

This "what you want to do" is a task that takes a lot of time for humans to do, a task that is too boring for humans to do, and a calculation of the amount that a human would want to throw out. Also, It could be detecting when you press the △ button on the game controller.

Once you can write a program, you will be able to realize your desire to do this on your computer or machine. It would be great if you could use a computer through programming to create some useful machines and software (including games)!

Recommended approach

As mentioned earlier, I think it is important to motivate that there are tasks.

So, I will write articles with the tasks. However, I think that my articles will only be an introductory part, so if you are interested, you can buy a Raspberry Pi and a book on electronic work, check out more machine learning on the Internet, and buy a textbook about programming. 

Let's install R!

The first time you do the installation procedure, it's kind of exciting, so it's a good idea to work with your child. (Rarely it doesn't work, but that's part of the experience.)

If you search for the following words on Google, etc., you will find an article, so please refer to it. It is basically OK if you follow the article that appears on the search top. Still, if you are uneasy, you can feel safe if you scan with antivirus software after installation.

If you use Macintosh

Search by “How to install R mac”

If you use Windows PC

Search by “How to install R Windows”

Note: It may take some time depending on your PC, network

Afterword

When you start programming, you will find technical terms (such as "directory" and "workspace") as you go through various researches. Please check it out by searching such as "What is directory." Sure, you can understand.

I think children like to explore. I hope you enjoy it while checking it out together.

Thank you for your reading! See you again!

Part 2 is here