Title: I taught myself to code (everything from Visual Basic to Assembly Language) as a teenager in the 1990s, but have had a couple of decades off because life happened. I’d like to get back into it now, but things have changed a lot.<p>I learn better by experimenting with other people’s code than by a textbook gradually taking me through improvements to “hello world”. I have some ADHD-like aspects to my personality, so I need to see results quickly to be able to sustain my momentum.<p>I’m looking for recommendations of textbooks, online tutorials, or easy-to-get-to-grips-with open source projects that encourage a hacker&#x2F;circuit-bender mindset. Arduino seems spot on, but I’m more interested in pure software, especially on a commercially viable platform like Android (although I’ve been a bit put off by the convoluted Android Studio IDE), so I guess Java would be the best language.<p>I would ideally like to avoid having to learn to navigate the ins-and-outs of an overly involved compiling process, a complicated IDE, or loads of SDKs. I want to be able to get straight to the coding.<p>There are a couple of things that really interest me, so bonus points if material relates to one of these in some way: agent-based modelling, simple iterative evolutionary processes, and simple AI (e.g. non-instructed collision detection).<p>Any pointers very gratefully accepted.
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