What programming language?

**KyleYankan** · 04-17-2005, 10:47 PM

Hi everyone. I've been a programmer for a few years, as a hobby. I mostly do PERL, and I'm pretty good with it. I'm not too good with OOP. I've learned some C++ in school. I learned some C++ out of school. I am proficient with C++, even though I use my book when programming with it. Also, anything I've needed to do in C++, I can do in Perl twice as fast, so I don't have alot of practice with it.

So my question is: What language should I learn? I want one that is robust enough to do low-level programming (IE parallel port), and still have easy to use GUI. I heard VB is good, but I've also heard it's like selling your sould to bill gates. :-/

Any thoughts?

**0l33l** · 04-17-2005, 10:53 PM

Awesome VB replacement: Delphi. No need to use MS products

And yes, you can do parallel port programming, and ASM code if you want. Also a great interface IMO

Delphi is basically object pascal

What I don't like about it: for every delphi example, there are like 20x VB examples

**mushin** · 04-17-2005, 10:57 PM

Personally, I would say stick with C++. Sounds like you've already got your foot in the door, and it will complement your PERL knowledge nicely (as their problem domains don't overlap all that much). C/C++ is in extremely widespread use, so even if you don't consider it your 'language of choice' it is a good one to know, and it will handle any low-level task you ever want to do with it.

That said, for GUIs it's only as good as the library you use (and most are pretty clunky). .NET (managed C++) does it pretty well (for Windows, of course), but then you're back to selling your soul to gates

.

That's my $0.02 anyway. I'm sure others will differ.

**0l33l** · 04-17-2005, 10:59 PM

Originally Posted by mushin

That said, for GUIs it's only as good as the library you use (and most are pretty clunky). .NET (managed C++) does it pretty well (for Windows, of course), but then you're back to selling your soul to gates

.

Please stay awy from .NET!!!

Its slow

**mushin** · 04-17-2005, 11:06 PM

Originally Posted by 0l33l

Please stay awy from .NET!!!

Its slow

I find loading in the debugger to be inexplicably slow, but otherwise I wouldn't say it's particularly slow. I believe there are some objective benchmarks you could check out. I'm hardly a fan of Microsoft, but they did alot of things right in .NET (except for the stupid name...) They don't employ a huge pile of top language gurus for nothing.

**lastberserker** · 04-17-2005, 11:14 PM

Originally Posted by mushin

I find loading in the debugger to be inexplicably slow, but otherwise I wouldn't say it's particularly slow. I believe there are some objective benchmarks you could check out. I'm hardly a fan of Microsoft, but they did alot of things right in .NET (except for the stupid name...) They don't employ a huge pile of top language gurus for nothing.

That, and you can always run ngen on your .NET executable. Good thing v2.0 and 64-bit support will probably be out by the time I set up my carputer

**0l33l** · 04-17-2005, 11:20 PM

Originally Posted by mushin

I find loading in the debugger to be inexplicably slow, but otherwise I wouldn't say it's particularly slow. I believe there are some objective benchmarks you could check out. I'm hardly a fan of Microsoft, but they did alot of things right in .NET (except for the stupid name...) They don't employ a huge pile of top language gurus for nothing.

Look at Centrafuse. Even after rewriting all the skin code with win32 API, people are still compaining that its slow!

You can port Delphi application to linux using Kylix

**lastberserker** · 04-17-2005, 11:26 PM

Originally Posted by 0l33l

Look at Centrafuse. Even after rewriting all the skin code with win32 API, people are still compaining that its slow!

Let me guess, it's because 90% of carputers are underpowered?

Originally Posted by 0l33l

You can port Delphi application to linux using Kylix

...and increase your user base by a whole lot of two linux carputer users out there

**0l33l** · 04-17-2005, 11:29 PM

Originally Posted by lastberserker

Let me guess, it's because 90% of carputers are underpowered?

Exactly why I'm not building a VIA machine

But really, the language is slow, just download a copy of CF for yourself. Even VB is faster

...and increase your user base by a whole lot of two linux carputer users out there

Hey, some people use linux

**lastberserker** · 04-17-2005, 11:48 PM

Originally Posted by 0l33l

Exactly why I'm not building a VIA machine

But really, the language is slow, just download a copy of CF for yourself. Even VB is faster

Oh, I will. Now that I have my setup running on a desk (wow, those MiniATX boards are tiny!), I'm going to try all popular software (and some hardware as well) to see what I want to keep

Still, CF being slow doesn't mean .NET is slow - I saw a few nice C#/.NET applications that run like champs. And I'd rather through more CPU/memory than my spare time at apps I code