You certainly can, the secret is not to initially think of the physical connector, but to think of the protocol you wish to use, and then think of ways to get that protocol across (ultimately this could be with 'USB-to-xyz' adapters, since you cannot directly wire a USB type A to another USB type A, this is not supported in the USB standard, and the Pi [caveat: only discussing the full-sized Pi models here, not the smaller ones] USB Type B or USB type C [on the Pi 4 as far as I understand] connector is wired for power only, not communications).
However, to step back a bit, using USB is not a normal way of programming a Pi, there are better ways to connect your laptop for programming purposes.
If you are trying to do everything through VNC, you should definitely set up the local ethernet connection between your pi and laptop, or optionally do it with inbuilt WiFi option. For both methods, you need to know beforehand the IP of your RPi, through IP scanner apps available, after that you could do whatever you want with your PI in headless mode.
Can you provide some more detail to narrow down an answer to your question?
There are a number of different methods to make a connection to the Pi from a remote device. Once the connection is established you can access a number of programming languages supported on the Pi.
You can make a connection to a Pi from a remote device using:
wireline network
wireless network
serial connection
USB connection
Are you looking to connect your laptop to the Pi and then interact (program) the Pi?
When you say "program" the Raspberry Pi, this could mean a lot of things. Too vague for the folks who have responded. Some possible guesses at what you mean:
Write programs on the Raspberry Pi.
Copy various data to the Raspberry Pi to be used there.
Also, what O/S is your laptop running? MacOS? Linux/Unix? Windows?
You do not usually need a direct hardware connection to the RPi. If both computers are sharing the same router (same LAN), then the simplest thing to do is connect to it with one of the IP protocols. To do that, first find out the IP address of the RPi in one of two ways:
(a) On the RPi with keyboard, mouse, and display, run `hostname -I` in a terminal window. Standard output shows you the IP address.
(b) Assuming (a) is not possible because the RPi is currently "headless", login to the router and figure out which connected client is the RPi.
The following comments apply to laptops running MacOS, Linux, and Unix; Windows has equivalents.
Once you have the IP address, assuming `ssh` services are enabled on the RPi, you can connect to it in a terminal window. Suppose that the RPi is at 192.168.1.201. Then, execute `ssh -X pi@192.168.1.201`. The -X option allows you to run X-Windows programs at the RPi like `leafpad` or `gedit` for editing RPi local files with a GUI.
Also, knowing the IP address of the RPi, you can copy files from the laptop to the RPi (or vice versa) using a network copy utility like `scp` or `rsync`.
Please tell us some more of what you are trying to do.
Alas! Lot of buzz for such task, (which itself has created a community in itself), and no response from Larry leads to basic assumption, he got what he wanted.
Meanwhile, one can experiment with creating his own USB link for programming as well as data sharing, from onboard peripherals, since the data lines aren't exposed on the original one.
Your response mirrors my own conundrum from the members question. The word programming could have a number of connotations given the diversity of members in this community. I'm stingy with the time I take to respond. Unless I am crystal clear on the requirements or the dialog is to flush out the requirements, I try not to make suggestion.
The polite thing to do for one asking a question is (1) post again at some point and (2) mark the question answered when this is the case. Maybe, I am old-fashioned.
I've found installing this on windows is the easiest way, assuming you only have 1 raspberry pi on the network (or they each have different host names)
