Can someone recommend me a book that explains how to approach actually creating programs? Not for any particular language, but just general programming. I understand loops and variables and functions and arrays and all that stuff, it's just putting it all together to form the concept I have in my head into the program I want to create that's the problem.

Thanks.

I think that you will find that to a large extent the language will both depend on and constrain how you write your application.

For example, if it is a web application then you will probably use a completely different approach than if it is a standalone desktop application.

That said, for general development of even simple applications I find some level of UML modeling to be more than helpful. If you are not familiar with the UML then some simple searches should turn up some helpful tutorials. Many UML resources will probably seem over complicated, so look for the ones that jump off the page at you shouting, "I am simple and obvious!". Think of it as full-featured flow charting, and look for resources that take that level of view. Search for terms like "Use case", "Activity" and "Sequence" in a UML context.

A quick search turned up this one, looks about right: UML Tutorial.

The important point is this - model your application first, write code later! Without a model, what are you writing?

Also, if your application makes use of a database then you will need to decide what features are best performed in the query language and which belong in the API code.

Anything worth writing is worth building on the object model (OOP, object oriented programming, etc.), so searcch online for object model tutorials (no flames please! ).

Actually there are a number of development methodologies, and tools that use them. I usually follow what is called a Use Case Driven Mehtod - search online for that and others. It is not practical to try to master them all, so mostly do a little reading on each one that you find, explore further the ones that make most sense to you.

Also, use available tools as they are needed, but don't spend a lot of time looking for a magic development environment or something to do it all for you - there is no such thing! Learn the basics, learn the necessary languages for your project and get it going at the lowest level first, hands on, then grow your tools as you grow your project.

Good luck!

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Start off by deciding what you want the program to do (and don't just say "play starwars" ).

Break the program down into smaller subprograms (objects or tasks - depending on what seems more natural). Figure out how you want the program to interact with the user and what you want it to do behind the scenes.

If you are writing a gui app then you have a lot more learning to do than if you stick with text.

If you give an example of what you want to write we can be more specific.