Thread: Wanting to learn some programming, help me pick a language!

Originally Posted by hijinks21

I can teach my dog how to code a gui.. learn c/c++. A good programmer knows how to do algorithms. I idle in the C++ channel on freenode and you don't know how many people come in saying they made a gui but can't sort a number list.

Amen to that
Stay away from all JIT compilers, they are the devil.

c/c++ is the only way to go, once you master it you'll never look back.

Depends: If you are going to be programming strictly in Windows I would learn C#. If you want cross platform code I would go with C++. VB is not a good way to start becuase the coding style will screw you up for any other language. C++ and Java are good to learn because you will definitely be using them for a CS degree. (I also had to learn Scheme.... ) I thought I was going to like Java but then I learned it kind of sucks if you go anywhere past a basic program. C# is nice becuase it does all of the garbage collection for you and you don't have to worry about destructors, as you do in C++. Last of all, Java, C++ and C# are so similar if you learned one it would be fairly easy to pick up one of the others.

Originally Posted by RS3RS

Visual Basic: I've always kind of heard that this is a not so powerful language, and have many times heared of it laughed at and not considered a "real" programming language by many people. I've always thought this to be true, until I saw Frodo Player... What's the general opinion on this? Is it powerful enough to mess with learning? How about for stuff once you get past the basic carputer front end, is it a powerful enough language to be used to write general computer utilities, etc?

VB6 is a very capable and powerful language. There is almost nothing you
cannot do with it. (Especially if you know C++ too). Unfortunately it's on
it's way out. (Of course it will still be useful for several years)

If I were to choose to learn a new language today, it would be C#.
(Now if you ever intend to go cross-platform, learn C++)

Frodo

Originally Posted by akw

Java is only good for basic programs? That's interesting, but unfortunately incorrect. As far as coding a GUI, Java isn't quite as capable as some of the others. But when it comes to coding enterprise web applications, Java is king. Also, take a look at the number of open source (GPL, LGPL, Apache License, etc) that are available to the Java programmer today. It's absolutely astounding. Some of the best software available is written in Java and it's completely free (as in beer). I personally work on a distributed Java product that is over 90,000 lines of code and supports tens of thousands of users. I wouldn't consider that "basic".

Oh. And by the way. Java does its own garbage collection too. ;-) I have to agree with some of the other members though. Java isn't a good choice for a car computer UI.

Alright maybe I phrased that the wrong way. What I meant was that Java isn't as efficient with large applications. I realize that it you can do just about anything with it (also very nice because of portability), but when it comes to large scale applications it just isn't as efficient as C++. Yes indeed, Java does its own garbage collection.

Originally Posted by stric

Hi, I have some knowledge in Pascal. I know it not very useful, but what do you think about Delphi? Is it worth to study it?

Even though you know pascal, it would probably be just as easy for you to pick up a better supported language / library like c++ and MFC. Delphi as a language is good and once you learn its just as capable as anything else, however, the delphi development enviornment can't touch visual studio .Net in terms of usability and you will find alot more people using c++ or even VB or C# and therefore alot more resources for help with problems and code examples and libraries for many more things.