what is the quickest way to learn how to write a computer application?

[SSaperstein]

joined the paypalx developers challenge, have the idea, but have never done any developing. reading over things, making sense, but looking to learn fast!

[Michael]

visual basic

[GOOFY]

join a school

[MK12]

Take a course... you won't do well if you're trying to learn as fast as possible. Why would you join this "developer's challenge" if you're not a developer? That's like me saying I joined a soccer team, never played soccer before, looking to learn fast, what's the quickest way?

[Christian]

Computer Programming/Development is an incredibly vast topic. Learning how to program quickly can be done, but it takes some serious dedication.

First, I would suggest, deciding which language you're going to be using, different languages have different pros and cons (i.e. Whether or not they are platform independent, some are superior for databases, while others are better for graphics rendering and processing)

After you've decided on your language, scour the web. There are thousands of sites and pages dedicated to every coding language. I would also recommend taking a look at Safari-IT Online Bookshelf and get some books on your desired language. There are many "Learn to program Visual C++ in 24 Days/Hours/Weeks etc." or "Visual BASIC .NET for Dummies" etc. Safari Website: http://my.safaribooksonline.com/ (It is a PAY service, but invaluable for developers in my opinion)

Paypoalx appears to be a Facebook App, so you'll want to grab all the documentation for the Facebook SDK (Software Development Kit) and read through all that as well. That gives info on the variety of Facebook specific libraries and how ot use them. You can get some really great information on Facebook development at: http://developers.facebook.com/

Hope this helps and good luck to you in the challenge!

[VE9A]

My advice is to start off with basic scripting languages spend about 4-7 weeks on those
til u know them by heart, javascript &/or php with html an CSS would be a good start.
W3schools website has tutorials for this that should get you to an industry standard level
or at least ready to take on advanced topics within these subjects.
My reasoning for suggesting these is that scripting languages were designed to build basic apps with the minimum amount of code, it will allow u to understand the basic principles of programming such as loops, arrays, an conditional clauses with the minimum amount of coding involved.

Once you've mastered these basic concept u can move on to more advanced scripting languages such as C# and finally go to a fully fledged language such as C++

the most important thing is to have fun an draw on knowledge from multiple sources