Programming

[MikeHof]

I've got a buddy who asked a question on our gaming site & well we aren't the most computer knowledgeable people so I thought I'd post it here. I'll send him a link to this if you all would be good enough to answer it.


"What sort of languages do you recommend learning if you want to get into some computer programming...I only know of a few myself (beyond web coding) and figured that there was probably some order that was the most efficient/productive for self-education??"


Mike

[RADAR1797]

C, C++, Visual Basic, Java, and Visual Basic .Net will get you started. If you are interested in databases, then SQL would be a must as well.

-RADAR

[eagle1]

Yeah, you can start with C++, VB and Java.
PHP scripting is quite cool too if you work with web pages or just like to simply play with the OS (useful in unix based systems).

[lost-and-found]

I started with Java, now going the c++ route. Since the two are very similar (Java is based on C) learning c++ is really not difficult.

[vass0922]

once... not long ago we had a real group of forums for these questions

Now all we get is A forum named web development... blech nothing for general purpose programming questions

If you would like you can start off learning programming for free depending on what you want to get into

Gaming - C/C++ definately
Application development - VB/Java/C++ are the heavy hitters
Web development - PHP/ASP/Perl

Myself I mostly do scripting to automate tasks in our network. We have a large number of servers and users so doing things manually isn't very fun.
I use a lot of VBScript (fairly easy, free to learn and use but limited specifically to windows) and I'm starting to learn a bit of Ruby also free and can be used on any platform.

Java and C++ are probably the more difficult languages to learn, C++ being the most difficult... but also the most powerful and can be used in nearly any task.

What direction do you want to go in, in development?

[SpookyEddy]

Ok, first please bare in mind that very few members of this community code at all, most answers should be taken with a grain of salt.

That said I would strongly recommend Ruby and Python as excellent languages for someone who is completely new to programming and wants to get a grasp of the basics. They are both interpreted languages that make it quick and painless to play with new features and will scale well for developing full blown applications (cross platform support is another bonus). Many libraries exist for both languages that make it simple to add extra functionality to your code.

Of all the "professional" languages (used in the loosest possible sense) I would recommend C++. If you adopt an approach based on using the STL to solve problems it really is fairly painless and you can avoid messing around with memory managment until you are comfortable with the language. You could not pay me enough to write a major project in C or Java, but its all a matter of taste really.

Anyway, my vote goes for Ruby or C++ depending on what you want. The only time I touch C is if I need to tinker with some Linux kernel stuff.

<edit>
This idea that C++ is the most difficult language seems really strange to me, but as with everything YMMV.

If you want a more formal introduction to programming you could give Scheme a try.
</edit>

Regards

ed

[eagle1]

If you want a more formal introduction to programming you could give Scheme a try.

OH GOD... PLEASE NO .. OH MY GOD!! AAARRRRgggHHHH!!!

lol I hate Scheme.!