Thank you for the reply. I did not see the "Answers to Exercises" in the back of the book I will have to check it out online. As far as teaching materials go I have always just used youtube and what ever info is available / recommended by the community. Instead of quitting I just moved on to another chapter / find something new to review / watch wolfram videos online. I certainly am determend to learn but I feel like I am spinning my wheels and not grasping core concepts. I will definitely read through some more and keep trying my best to learn.

This community has been very helpful so far and I am grateful for that. Any other general advice for a beginner?

Just this week we rolled out our feature for checking answers to exercises on the Elementary Introduction to the Wolfram Language web site:

In another few weeks our cloud system will be updated to allow for tabulating and saving all your work. Besides our documentation on reference.wolfram.com, I suggest the Fast Introduction to the Wolfram Language as nice starting point if you are familiar with programming concepts in general:

http://www.wolfram.com/language/fast-introduction-for-programmers/

along with various video tutorials, like our Hands on Start series:

http://www.wolfram.com/broadcast/c?c=141

We are currently in the midst of updating our learning center site, which should become the ultimate starting point (soon), but another great place to start, which I highly recommend, is the Wolfram Language .org site which gathers resources from all over the world:

http://wolframlanguage.org

Did you see the "Answers to Exercises" chapter at the end of the book? It has all the expected input, or at least one possible version that will work.

I understand your frustration that the problem with the purple cylinder took so long to solve and then it was "just a silly bracket". But getting better at spotting these kinds of issues is a large part of learning to program in most languages. So even with the printed solution at the end of the book, you still have to read and compare your code and the solution carefully until you get a better grasp of these details. (But it will happen faster than you think, don't worry.)

And if you really do get stuck, just post here on the Community forum with that concrete problem. We don't bite anyone's head off unless they're clearly and blatantly trying to get us to do their calculus homework. ;)

Just out of curiosity, can you point to a learning resource for programming (in any language) that you think is didactically better suited for beginners? I have no background in education, so I feel I can't judge teaching material particularly well unless I'm currently trying to learn from it... I'd be interested to get that sort of input, because the Elementary Introduction looks pretty good to me, with the caveat that I already know the material.

Edit: Just in case you haven't seen it yet, I thought I'd drop the ultimate collection of reference links here as well so that you can hunt for other resources if you want to.

Is there any way we can escalate this to an admin? It seems quite ludicrous that they make a guide for beginners that I can guarantee you will deter ANY beginners trying to learn this language..

I can't even get basic things done due to this..

Example: "Make a graphic of a purple cylinder."

It took me 30 minutes trying to figure out a simple problem due to the lack of info in an elementary introduction. Turned out I had a misplaced bracket that was not highlighted.. Yet it took me 30 minutes to figure this out instead of being able to look at an example... atrocious and unacceptable.

What would you recommend I use to learn Wolfram Language since it's own resource is completely unusable for me. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I want to learn how to create applications and express general creativity etc.

Thank you for the reply back. I am specifically talking about the elementary introduction / programming lab examples.

https://www.wolfram.com/language/elementary-introduction/07-colors-and-styles.html

So if you scroll down to any of the 7.1+ Exercises on this page you notice it has an "Expected Output" and a way to check your answer. Unfortunately, I do not see any way to check the input / code for any of these exercises. This is an elementary introduction so obviously it would be beneficial for me to check if I wrote my code in a similar fashion or different. Also, if I get completely stuck I have no example to go off with just an output / answer check.

I hope this explains my problem.