Books vs the classroom

[hop-frog]

How does learning to program from books compare to learning in a classroom setting? Would I learn just as much and be as proficient from reading a couple books as opposed to spending $500 and taking a couple of courses? Would I be missing out on some important concepts? Are there many professionals in the field who learned from books?

[UID500]

Originally posted by hop-frog
How does learning to program from books compare to learning in a classroom setting? Would I learn just as much and be as proficient from reading a couple books as opposed to spending $500 and taking a couple of courses? Would I be missing out on some important concepts? Are there many professionals in the field who learned from books?

it depends on what type of learner you are, some ppl can learn by reading alone, some are auditory, some visual...some all or both.

nobody can tell you how you learn best.

[Thrasher]

I dont know about programming, but It all comes down to your level of reading comprehension. If you can read something and pick it up quik with a bit of practice, spend the 500 on books !! But if you need a little more instruction and like to hear the explanations, take a class or two.
Good luck. :)

[ricstr]

My opinion is that you should use both. You cannot learn everything just form a book and the same too the classroom.

Learning about a subject from different sources helps learn faster as keeps the attention span longer and more focused.

[louiscypher]

I'd encourage you to read, program like crazy, and test out of any beginning programming classes. Unless you're in a situation where the professors are very talented and too stupid to use it to make money, most beginning classes are taught for people who don't have much chance of becoming successful programmers.

Also, read the various programming groups (google) which are working in your language of choice a couple times a week. Rip open FSF source code and see how they manage to get problems solved, then adapt it to your own problems. (That's sorta the whole point behind Open Source.)

Develop good programming habits by setting consistent, reachable goals that you hold yourself to and you'll learn so much more than a basic class can possibly hope to teach you. You'll be swinging through binary trees in a month if you're really motivated. Within a few months you might consider contributing to an open source project so you can start getting the feel for to coordinate your efforts with a team.

Good luck!