Hey Tek, I'm actually very interested in Computing, communication technology and such, It's really something I have interest in and I really like the community. I have built my own PC and such. I've taken IT at school. we program in Actionscript 3 in Flash.
The problem is that I suck. I know that to learn programming is a trail and error thing but my feeble mind cant remember shit about coding. I'm very stressed with the other things at school. if any of you men have had hard times in the past. Can you tell me what your motivations were that made you continue? What are some things that I have to keep in mind when programming. Good methods, top tiers sites that explains Scripting language
BTW: I have Assburger and I've begun taking Concerta again, a form of Ritalin.
ActionScript is one of the harder languages I've seen. It's OOP tends to be complicated, but it's powerful. If you want to learn and have a good base in programming in general, I would pick up something like JavaScript or Java first and then come back to it when you understand a bit more.
Flash is a dying technology. HTML5 will eventually put it out of its misery. And ActionScript is needlessly complex. It is not a good language to learn how to program. If you are having trouble grasping programming concepts, I would blame it on ActionScript not your ability. Since you have already been exposed to ActionScript and since it is syntactically very similar to Java, you should probably start learning Java. Java is a better language to use for learning how to program. Plus, knowing Java will help you better understand ActionScript.
I also would not consider having Asperger’s a disadvantage in learning how to program. Being able to narrowly focus on things can actually be a tremendous asset for coding. My son has autism spectrum disorder and he started to use this to his advantage. He has not started learning how to code yet, but hopefully soon. The thing I will say helped by son is changing his diet, more so than medication. Reducing the amount of sugar he ate and removing all artificial food coloring, flavorings, and chemicals from his diet did wonders for him. It took about three months for his diet changes to take effect, but once they did, it was amazing. I have no idea why it is even legal to put artificial food coloring in human consumed food.
I don't know much about ActionScript or Ritalin - aside from sneaking suspicion that Ritalin is over-prescribed to kids who are generally bored and were forced in a venue they have no interest in.
I'd advise you to find something you are fascinated with. When I was younger I took apart watches, toys, which evolved into taking apart software and operating systems, which led to putting it back together, writing code, designing software infrastructures, then high demand applications that scale horizontally etc.
It was a job, now its a hobby, I am an artist and designer by profession.
If you find that programming is something that you really love doing and can disappear for days working on a problem, can sit through mind bending migraines (brain plasticity) in the first 1-3 years of doing it, not give up for days or weeks until all venues to solve the problem are exhausted, read terse manuals and spec documents with the same fascination as your favorite book or video game... then you found the right profession.
If not, don't torment yourself. Find something you can be passionate about long term - its the only sensible approach to life - because you will be highly mediocre at anything else. And there is already a lot of that around.
As far as language recommendation - I would recommend JavaScript. Maybe with a higher level wrapper like CoffeeScript or TypeScript once you get more advanced. JavaScript has about as much in common with Java as banana has with a tractor.
Java is great to learn object oriented programming with, its based on a decent platform that also incorporates functional languages like Scala. I would learn both imperative and functional programming styles. If you don't like JVM (i can't stand it) you can go with .NET or Mono and learn C# and F#. F# is a beautiful functional language based on OCaml that doesn't give up imperative practices, and teaches one really solid habits.
But back to JavaScript - yes it is slow(er) than C, less featured out of the box, syntax can get ugly, but at the end of the day its underlying structure is so flexible - it will let you do anything (paradigm wise) that any of the languages above will.
I write nodejs (javascript) and c++ most of the time these days. Its a good place to be in.