Programing!?!?!

I'm becoming very frusterated, I want to begin programming and I can't decide which language to go with. I want to develop windows programs and everything I read is a complete mind****. I want something that is usefull for working with sockets. I want something powerful like C/C++ but something that I can lay out forms like in VB. That's what C# is supposed to be, but trying to find info about that is almost as fun as trying to swallow a fork. Does anyone know of a site that lays a bunch of languages out with descriptions so that one might see them comparitively? That would be nice. Isn't there anything for a beginner? I don't know wtf .NET is or any of that... how the hell would I? Damnit someone calm me down.

OK If anyone else is in my shoes I just found this

http://www.csharphelp.com/archives/archive95.html

It's kinda helpful. Still waiting for replies.

Calm down ;), I first recommend learning some stuff like HTML and Javascript, these are not programming languages but they give you a feeling. Then I'd learn Python???
The first programming language I started with was Java (I already knew HTML, Javascript, CSS, XML), it's not extremely hard but not easy either. Python is much easier than Java but Java looks more like C/C++ programming. Also you have the SunONE editor (never used it but I did use Forte) wich allows you to drag-and-drop gui elements (and it's free)

The language used is most often determined by the type, scope, and needs of the project and the timeframes involved. C/C++ is a great language, very powerful, very robust. But along with power and flexibility comes pitfalls, and steep learning curves.

Java is another very powerful language. Java has eliminated allot of the traps run into by newb programmers in C/C++. IMO Java is slower than dirt. I don't much care for it. Plus if GUI's are what you're looking for, AWT and SWING are a pain in the ass to use. Unless you're using MSJ++ then you can use MFC if you are really into torture.

Visual Basic is another great languge, fun, fast, and in the right hands very powerful. Easy to learn GUI's and forgiving code. VB is whats known as a type safe language. It will not allow you direct access to chunks of memory. Which is fine, especially for someone starting out. There is simply no need to use pointers, and access block space. Allot of people will say "VB sucks!" "VB's slow" and on and on. Mostly these people just don't know enough about it.

Then there is the timeless PERL. A true one-of-a-kind. All around good lang. Check it out.

-sbg

There's nothing wrong with Visual Basic except for the fact that it makes you lazy and that is only works on Microsoft but that's not a problem as SevenBleach want's to develop windows programs.

Can I edit forms with PERL? I just wonder what the point of programming command line programs is anymore it just doesn't make any sense to me. I understand for some things but I like graphics.. I guess I'm just a GUI junkie. I might check out VB cause I programmed with Q for a long time so at least I have my foot in the door so to speak.

Perl program have no GUI.

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Originally posted here by SDK
Perl program have no GUI.

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PERL programs absolutely can have a GUI. Ever heard of GTK? ;)

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Originally posted here by SexyBadGirl
Visual Basic is another great languge, fun, fast, and in the right hands very powerful. Easy to learn GUI's and forgiving code. VB is whats known as a type safe language.

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Trust me... if your starting out never start out with a language like VB. For one thing the syntax will throw you off when learning new things, mostly all languages won't correct you as much as VB does, and another thing is it makes you lazy as hell. It will tottaly put you in a block when learning new stuff. Trust me I started out with it. And now I feel as if I had completly wasted my time on it. If you ever plan on moveing to new things you might as well jump straight into some form of C since it ties into the same familiar qualities of other languages so well.

What do you think of C#? Do you know much of anything about it? Is developing Windows Apps in C a possibility?

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Originally posted here by |The|Specialist
Trust me... if your starting out never start out with a language like VB. For one thing the syntax will throw you off when learning new things, mostly all languages won't correct you as much as VB does, and another thing is it makes you lazy as hell. It will tottaly put you in a block when learning new stuff. Trust me I started out with it. And now I feel as if I had completly wasted my time on it. If you ever plan on moveing to new things you might as well jump straight into some form of C since it ties into the same familiar qualities of other languages so well.

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Experiences are subjective. Just because VB has impaired you, doesn't mean everyone will have this problem. VB 3 was the first language I ever studied. Now I actively use several languages, as do many other developers. And since you mention VB's syntax lets have a look at a quick comparrison.

a VB conditional: if(condition)then [< >] end if
a C/C++ conditional: if(condition) { [< >] }

Is that really that different? I don't think so.

How about istantiating a new object.

a VB object: dim objName as new object_type
a Java object string[] strVariable = new string[]

Is that much different or obfuscated? Not really. I think VB is MUCH more clear and concise as far as legibility goes.

But to each their own! :D

-sbg

First of all im not "impaired". Because your new im just going to let that little statement slide.

I wasn't implying VB was hard what I was saying is that it often is the introduction to bad codeing habbits. You basicly said it yourself... 'its easy' & blah blah blah. But I think it rather spoon feeds users alot. As I said before, it can make you lazy at times. Oh and im sorry but I still find that C has more in common with other languages than VB does... No matter how many times you post code or call me impaired. :p

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Originally posted here by |The|Specialist
First of all im not "impaired". Because your new im just going to let that little statement slide.

I wasn't implying VB was hard what I was saying is that it often is the introduction to bad codeing habbits. You basicly said it yourself... 'its easy' blah blah blah. But it rather spoon feeds users in a way that you normally wouldn't see in other languages. And I still find that C++ has more in common with other languages than VB does.

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If you are/were going to let it slide, then why did you give me a red dot? Besides, don't be easy on me. I like it rough. ;)

This is a pretty open question and for everyone it changes. I first learned by doing little things with batch files and qbasic. Then I moved on to turing, which in my opinion is an amazing language, DOS based, but amazing, in fact I beleive you'll find some tutorials on here about it. After turing I decided it was time to do something windows based so I worked with VB. I've coded in both VB 6 and VB .Net and I personally think it is a great language. It's flexible and allows you to do anything you really want. I've also played with c, c++ and c# (very recently) and enjoy them all, C# reminds me a little too much of VB though. I'm also a large proponent of python, you'll find some tutorials around for it, and I think it's an incredibly powerful language. I have experience with other languages as well. If you want to program windows GUIs, then I'd say stick with VB or else move over to C# if you are just starting out. If you want to do console programming and you want an easy implementation of sockets then check out python. It runs on pretty much every OS and works quite nicely with sockets and everything else.

Hi,

First decide if you want to learn compiled languages over interpreted. I like Java because it is robust, it is type safe, doesn't have pointers and because of that, you can't address memory locations and screw things around / poke around where you should not be poking around.

Java can be fun to learn and it has automatic memory collection. You can do a lot of web development with it and you do not need to know about the Common Gateway Interface to do it.

You can probably program C++ because it is used everywhere and the editors that are available for it are very GUI oriented, you can probably get to do a lot of code that can be run on any platform, if you find the right compiler for it.

C++ is my favorite because the code just plain makes sense to me so there you have it, or if you want to be more up to date, use C# which is like C++ and Java mixed together and has all the new tools created by Microsoft.

These tools start with the .NET SDKs but it goes further than that, I am talking about the IDE code editors, like Visual Studio 2010 and the Expression line of graphical editors. enjoy Programming.

The first Language that I learn was C++, then VB.... Now I;m doing Business Programming using VB and SQL and Access.

You can get some recources from here "www.a1vbcode.com"

Just to stick in my 2c -

I would use Delphi - Visual Object Pascal.

I can't get on with C - I've used most other languages at some point - Started with Comodore Pet Basic

Steve

Do .NET programming languages need .NET installed on the computer they are being executed on?

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Originally posted here by SevenBleach
Do .NET programming languages need .NET installed on the computer they are being executed on?

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Yes you will need the .NET SDK or CLRs.

So why does C# advertise portability?

Because the CLR (common language runtimes) have been ported to most platforms.

Could you point me in the direction of a resourse I could use to learn about all this .NET bla bla bla craziness? a book or a website would be cool.

These links should be a good starting point for you.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframewo.../faq111700.asp

Also here is a link to the MONO project. It's a .NET CLR port for *nix platforms.

http://www.go-mono.com/

Hope this helps! good luck!

-sbg

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I wasn't implying VB was hard what I was saying is that it often is the introduction to bad codeing habbits. You basicly said it yourself... 'its easy' & blah blah blah. But I think it rather spoon feeds users alot. As I said before, it can make you lazy at times. Oh and im sorry but I still find that C has more in common with other languages than VB does.

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Bad coding habbits come from....well coding badly. You can do things the right way or the wrong way in any language. As for making you lazy VB was intented for RAD (Rapid Application Development) that is, making a working prototype quickly and for this I think it works quite well. If you would like to use C++ to code a GUI for a simple Win32 app go right ahead, you could also try to use COBOL to code a 3D Game engine, I don't give a **** but the fact is you need to use the right tool for the job, and for some jobs, VB is the right tool. And who cares what the language looks like? If you want it to look like C then use C for gods sake.

-Maestr0

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Originally posted here by Maestr0
I don't give a ****

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In that case why bring this back up after other things are now being talked about and it has been knocked down a page or two.

I took C++ in college and found it to be very easy to learn.

I went c++ to java, and know it seems like everything just looks the same, just different. Figure that one out!

Well i have learnt the following (in order from first to last):
C, VB, HTML, Oracle, JS, JAVA. Each have their advantages and disadvantages.
I want to learn:
C# thing, waiting for more resources to be available.
ASM, i have downloaded some good tutorials and ebooks, waiting to get some free time.

:)

hey gigabite I have found several really good resources for c#... www.csharphelp.com was one of the best... I've decided to go ahead and just start learning c and c++ cause I have found some very good resources concerning creating windows applications. If anyone is interested in this let me know so I can help get you started. Thanks for all your help everyone.

Dude, Java.

I reccomend the book "Java Methods" by Maria Litvin and Gary Litvin

And if you liked that, also check out "Java Methods AB" It has to do with Data Structures. This book is by the same authors.

I started with VB and went on from there. It messed me up somewhat because everything was being done for me in a way. It was a pain in the ASS to look for that ONE METHOD YOU DIDN'T CAPITALIZE OR FOR THE ONE ";" YOU DIDN'T PUT IN BECAUSE YOU ARE SO USED TO VB PUTTING EVERYTHING IN FOR YOU! Damn VB...Damn Microsoft...Damn Bill..give me some money.

But yeah, those two books are really good, check them out.

Is there any arguments for Java over C? I guess it really doesn't matter.. I've begun programming in C and I'm addicted... I love this I think it's the most interesting thing I've ever done... I wish I had a book or something cause there is SO SO much to learn about every header file and all the functions they include... anyhow C rocks and I'll be sticking with it for awhile. I am wondering if I shouldn't just go with C++... is there any reason I should stick with C?

Learn both :D

Don't decide on which one to do, do them all. Learn C then C++ then Java then whatever interest's you.

Here SevenBleach check this site out great resource for any programmer .. from beginner,intermediate, to experienced ...
http://www.programmersheaven.com/

As for me I have been slowly trying to learn C++ which of course takes a great amount of time to learn it well and properly just like any other language does. I would also recommend that you at least dedicate 1-2 hrs a day to reading and practicing the language that you want to learn.
Example 1st Hour : Read, Highlight Key Info, Memorize, Practice with the language of your liking ... [ex:C/C++,C#,Ruby,Python,Java,Assembler,VB,Delphi,BASIC,Pascal,PERL,VB.NET etc ..]
The second hour dedicate it to reading, learning one of the many Operating Systems available such as [ex:Linux ( Debian,Mandrake,SuSe,Slackware ... ),Windows ( 2000,NT,2003,XP),FreeBSD,Plan 9, MAC OS, Solaris etc ..]

Check out this site as well contains some good info that you might also find useful
http://www.cyberdiem.com/vin/learn.html

Note: I dont recommend on learning Assembler as your first programming language since it can be really hard to grasp it ... unless if you have an infinite amount of patience .. this language can be at times quite frustating to learn and understand ... but it is a very powerful language ...

hey SevenBleach,

Thanx for the link, and will look forward for more resources.

:)

A good language to start off with is PERL or Python or C++. All have fairly intuitive programming structures and are fairly easy to learn. There are lots of tutorials out there. I had a few bookmarked but they've disappeared on me, give me a day and I can find em again.

thank you to the person who first posted this thread, it has been a great help, especially providing the web address for the C# for beginners site and reading everyone elses advice

Even if it's pedagogic and little bit in disparation way langague (Sorry For the Pascalmanias), Pascal is the simply way to learn how to write program. When you're feeling ok with it use Delphi For the GUI. its not only a Pascal GUI version but it's the most powerful GUI Windows based program language AFAIK. Good Luck.

Even if it's pedagogic and little bit in disparation way langague (Sorry For the Pascalmanias ;-), Pascal is the simply way to learn how to write program. When you're feeling ok with it use Delphi For the GUI. its not only a Pascal GUI version but it's the most powerful GUI Windows based program language AFAIK. Good Luck.

I first learned C and then C++, now Im even taking a programming languages class and I can none of the languages weve been touching have been hard for me to undersant, so I guess what I recomend is getting a good C++ base because it worked for me jeje.

My first language was Pascal. It has a good syntax and pretty straighforward. If you want to develop applications in windows, you can use Delphi. Its good. Anyway, learning C is a little hard but it pays off at the end. You would understand more about programming and make you a better programmer in the sense that you will be more careful with what you are doing.