steviemac,
It's a universal situation that learning a particular program is necessary or an enhancement to education or work.
I don't a know much at all about programming, but believe the method for research, acquiring, and learning programs is similar over a wide of computing skills.
In 2010, I decided that it was necessary to learn 3D CAD and rendering. I had used 2D CAD since 1992 and did a bit of research into the programs that were mentioned as desirable in adverts for employment for architecture and industrial design. This indicated the professional and industry frequency of use and in my example found that Autodesk AutoCad, Revit, were commonly mentioned, plus Google Sketchup, 3ds, and Dessault Solidworks, Autodesk Inventor, and Rhino for industrial design.
This list was anecdotal, but certainly a starting point. I could quickly do a search on any of these programs, and it was useful to simply see screen shots and galleries of finished work/projects using the program. This narrowed the field of programs that I felt would be useful and had the capabilities of interest. One useful feature of this kin of quick survey is also noting which programs had too many capabilities or would be too complex and/or expensive to consider.
I found Dessault Catia to be an industry standard of fantastic capabilities, but extremely complex, and cost more than $16,000, Autodesk Maya likewise for animation, but was a secondary skill to 3D modeling and therefore interesting and noted, but something to consider later.
Software companies understand the commitment in buying and learning complex programs and so offer trial versions of their programs, usually for a specific time in hours or days and sometimes with certain functions unavailable such as saving or printing. Autodesk is very generous in this manner and make available tutorials and resources, plus there are embedded sample projects and online, there are thousands of YouTube videos- "How to Design and Detail a National Transportation System and/or Football Stadium in Six Easy Lessons" and galleries of work are common.
Of course, the best situation is one in which a desirable program is simply free and in my example, it seemed almost miraculous that Sketchup, which was mentioned in every context, had a free version. I leaped on that opportunity, downloaded and installed and simply started pressing the buttons. This particular program was so intuitive- the button with a symbol for a pencil draws a line, that in two hours I had done a strange and complex house with textures and an Aston Martin in the driveway. Sketchup was an easy entry into 3D CAD and helpful in evaluating other more capable programs and led eventually to Solidworks.
With regard to your interest in programming, applying the same method suggests starting in effect with the end result > which I will summarize as programming for mathematical /statistical, and possibly scientific research and simulation / experimentation. From knowing several people that do projects requiring creating ans running specialized algorithms and symoblic mathematics, I know that MATLAB is a standard and highly capable program >
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MATLAB
At a glance, it's apparent that MATLAB uses C, C++, and Fortran.
Then, just as with Sketchup, going to the MATLAB site reveals more about it's uses, the way to acquire it through trial and student editions or purchase, and that they are enthusiastic that it is easy to learn- well, if not easy, at least present a logical sequence >
http://www.mathworks.com/academia/student_center/tutorials/launchpad.html
> and a search on YouTubeGB presents 166,000 other learning suggestions>
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=MATLAB&sm=12
> including many for beginners and how to appeoach the programming aspects.
As MATLAB requires basic programming skills, the reverse-engineering to use MATLAB suggests looking into C, C++, and Fortran. C++ on YouTube, for example >
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=C%2B%2B&sm=12
> which has 573,000 listings.
The followup to the above would be to research the hardware requirements to run MATLAB- which I know for complex projects can involve the considerable crunching of numbers.
Anyway, that's how I would approach your enquiry.
Sorry for such a long ramble.
Cheers,
BambiBoom
My motto >
"Never use one word when twenty will do just as well."
HP z420 (2014) > Xeon E5-1620 quad core @ 3.6 / 3.8GHz > 24GB ECC 1600 RAM > Quadro 4000 (2GB)> Samsung 840 SSD 250GB /Western Digital WD1003FZEX 1TB> M-Audio 192 sound card > AE3000 USB WiFi > HP 2711X, 27" 1920 X 1080 > Windows 7 Ultimate 64 > Autodesk Building Design Suite, Inventor Pro, Solidworks, Adobe CS MC, Corel Technical Design Sketchup Pro, WordP Office, MS Office Pro [Passmark system rating = 3815, 2D= 767 / 3D=2044]
Dell Precision T5400 (2008) > 2X Xeon X5460 quad core @3.16GHz > 16GB ECC 667> Quadro FX 4800 (1.5GB) > WD RE4 500GB / Seagate Barracuda 500GB > M-Audio 2496 Sound Card / Linksys 600N WiFi > Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit > (earlier versions) AutoCad, Revit, Solidworks, Sketchup Pro, Corel Technical Designer, Adobe CS MC, WordP Office, MS Office Pro [Passmark system rating = 1859, 2D= 512 / 3D=1097]
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