Real World Programming - It aint in the books!

Greetings

(this message was originally posted to the "Languages" group, but I
thought it was better suited for the "Theory" group. yes? no?)

Real programming, I suspect is more than making objects fly across
pages. However, for the life of me, I cant find a book that really
delves into PROGRAMMING. For example, WHEN is it best to use an array,
versus a dynamic array, and what the heck is a two-dimensional array?
And where the heck are the examples!?!

Now, lest you think I'm just lazy, I've got several books on
JavaScript, VBScript, and ASP. ALL of which just show the basics of
"For..Next" loops and "If..else if" type decision structures. After
that, well they all just leave you hangin'. All that's left is a list
of indexed keywords which (very briefly) explain what they do. Since
my platform is Win95/PWS 4.0, I have tried to concentrate on VBScript
(I'm also studying Visual Basic), but again once past the "basics" all
"training" seems to stop. It all becomes "reference-like".

So what's the key? How do I learn the REAL power of programming (in
VB), like doing calculations? How does one decide the programming
tasks? How can I truly learn to get past the limitations of all of
these "intro" type books and get into some real stuff?

How about real life programming scenario's? How the heck do I get
beyond  simple statements when all my reading suddenly say's "That's
it!"

How does one logically go from the list of keywords to creating an
algorithm? What are the FIRST things any programmer should do when
designing a program? How does one begin to "think" like a programmer.

As an example let me pose this scenario:

I want to create...say, a mortgage calculator for my (fictional)
online real estate site.
As a programmer, what are the steps to creating a successful
application? I'm not looking for CODE, but the logical (identifiable)
steps necessary to plan, test, and debug the application.

What should happen BEFORE I begin coding? How to outline the STEPS
necessary to create the application? What would you do?

Help a newbie and feel good all day long!

Perplexed.....
Preston

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