Calling all Programmers...

XionTawa

XionTawa

New Member
I have a little programing experience...I have played with Visual Basic a lot, read the first 20 pages of C++ and made about 5 programs, and have read into Perl. I also have a lot of HTML knowledge and little Java Script.

I am wanting to go all out and completely learn a language. The reasons for me learning this language will be for having fun with the language, having the skill for future job oppritunities, and being able to use it to help me out at home.

I do not have much free time on my hands with all that I am doing...so what would anyone suggest me to learn for what I want? (I am leaning towards Perl currently)...
 
[/ambient computer noise] Beep Boop Beep Sqweak Beep

I researched it a while back when I was looking for a language to learn It seemed like C++ was the way to go.

My reasons were...

The interpreter languages are not as fast.
C++ derives a lot of it's syntax from C which is pretty much the two languages programs are professionally written in.
Supposedly you can write programs almost as efficient as in C if you know what you are doing.

A higher level language or script than C++ may be easier to learn, but, I don't know which ones are most popular. Actually I found C++ rather easy to understand considering it's the only language I've attempted to seriously learn. However my problem was I'd read half the book and get away from working on it and forget everything I'd learned, I've read the book halfway 3+ times by now :D . So it may involve more time than you have. Note: I attempted to learn 3D math as well, but, this was far beyond my abilities it still hurts T_T... the numbers... the numbers...

Ask Vibrokatana he seems to be the resident programmer advice guru :)

And yes I've crossed over into the forbidden WoW forums again Mwahahaha! The Mighty Gerbil cannot be "caged"! :p Mwhahaha!
 
Plankeye is a programmer. He'd be happy to answer any of your questions.
 
If you want to make a living off of it...C# or Java are the primarily languages for enterprise applications. Both are also good for hobbyists.
 
I would suggest you look at dice.com or monster for programming jobs in your area and see what languages are most requested. I agree with nattyg that it will most likely be C# or Java as there is a large demand for it in enterprise development.

If you are looking fun and entertaining programming, I would suggest looking into Flash and Flex programming with ActionScript.
 
C# is very different than C++ and has a much lower learning curve. C# is roughly equivalent to Java in that respect. Unless you're keen on writing device drivers, games (which can be done in C#/Java to a point) or have a core need of higher performance than Java/C# - C++ probably isn't your best bet.
 
Problems with C#: It was created BY Microsoft and not very old...

Problems with Java: Only works on computers with Java JVM and also not very old...
 
I currently have a newer book "C++ for Dummies - Fifth Edition" that I am trying to read again...but before I read it I want to make sure that it is the language I want to learn...
 
If you want old and not Microsoft, may I suggest COBOL. Been around since the 60s and is still kicking. I know enough COBOL and JCL to know that it is not a fun programming language. But hey, did I mention it was old?

.NET is at version 3.5 and is a well established language with a great community of developers and tools available to get stuff done.

Java may require a JVM but hey, even my cheap get it free with service cell phone has Java so finding computers and devices without a JVM is pretty hard to do, especially in the enterprise.

C++ is very powerful. I won't deny that, but it is often overkill and can be very frustrating especially after you have to chase your first memory leak in it. I liken it to using a shotgun to remove the splinter in your foot. If you are careful, you only remove a toe, if you aren't, well...
 
If you want old and not Microsoft, may I suggest COBOL
Click to expand...

oh nooees, don't tell him that, COBOL is torture I tell you, total torture! I studied it in college, made the mistake if choosing it as my programming choice for my degree. There has got to be better by now! =P
 
C++ is nice when you need a high performance application, and C isn't that hard to learn from there (pretty much omit object oriented and relearn the IO and C style strings ie char arrays, yuk). One advantage that C++ has that is very hard to beat is the tons upon tons of libraries available. C++ generally will take any C library in and work with it decently, and there are thousands of stuff to pick from. That said it isn't ideal for "rapid development" IMO because you end up reinventing the wheel a lot or learning libraries left and right.

Perl is beautiful for anything involving strings and simple data types, it stores everything by default as an object, string, array of strings, hash or pointer. Perl is a pretty big standard in the industry from what I have seen, a lot of companies have tons of software invested in it and tend to keep with what they have. The main problem with perl is that there is no real threading format developed yet so bigger applications can run into performance issues (there is a really neat model in the works but it isn't really safe to develop on stuff still undecided). Perl can be translated into C and compiled, not that you would want to look at the generated code but it functions pretty well.

C# is a nice language to learn, especially if you are going into ASP development. If you are familiar with C++ it takes just a few days to learn some of the methods. Visual studio makes writing it as easy as pie as most of the methods are inherited to the variable (ie somevar.ToString(), somevar.Contains("somestring")). C# is interpreted like java but is loads faster and is generally much more extensible from what ive seen as wrappers have been popping up all over. Mono for all intents and purposes is C# in the unix platform. Almost everything is supported except for some timers and the windows.forms library. Currently they are working on a wrapper to integrate with various toolkits on various platforms but it will probably be another year or 2 before anything solid comes out.

I don't like java, it is an ugly, bloated, bastardized language that requires a ton of resources to do even simple tasks. It's only real advantage is the cross platform capabilities, which will hopefully be replaced with C#/Mono.

What I love are the little pocket references for languages, it just gives you examples of various programs and reintroduces the concepts and how the language handles it.
 
/peek at other forums...title caught me eye :)

I do C/C++/XHTML/XML/Perl/Java/Javascript/blah/blah/blah....and lua!

Lua is not just for games, it is a powerful scripting language used in many industries.

But, for learning a language AND having fun, what is more fun than learning one that you can use the end results of while playing a game :D

Lua is fun, not too overwhelming, and the WoW Lua community is tremendous with help.
 
Azolas said:
/peek at other forums...title caught me eye :)

I do C/C++/XHTML/XML/Perl/Java/Javascript/blah/blah/blah....and lua!

Lua is not just for games, it is a powerful scripting language used in many industries.

But, for learning a language AND having fun, what is more fun than learning one that you can use the end results of while playing a game :D

Lua is fun, not too overwhelming, and the WoW Lua community is tremendous with help.
Click to expand...

Ive looked at Lua a little but didn't see a reasonable reason to use it over more familiar scripting languages. Given the need to interface with a program I would likely give Lua a nice shot but by itself it pales next to perl and python from what I have seen.
 
XionTawa said:
I currently have a newer book "C++ for Dummies - Fifth Edition" that I am trying to read again...but before I read it I want to make sure that it is the language I want to learn...
Click to expand...

C++ for dummies = bufferoverrunpwnage

C#/Java are particularly good for newer developers as they shield them from the havoc they are likely to bring to machines due to "off by N" errors
 
nattyg said:
C++ for dummies = bufferoverrunpwnage

C#/Java are particularly good for newer developers as they shield them from the havoc they are likely to bring to machines due to "off by N" errors
Click to expand...

Not really, I've never gotten a buffer overrun in C++, of course I pretty much run everything I write in my head so I know what the results will be (or at least know what it will look like).
 
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