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Thread: Programming Languages

  1. #1
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    Programming Languages

    What would you recommend to start with? I'm already good with html but I want to go beyond that. I heard QBasic is easy is this true?

  2. #2
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    Arrow

    If you want to stick to the web stuff, try PHP since you know HTML already. QBasic is easy, but I'd skip it and go to C or maybe Pascal if you want to go that way.
    \"If you torture the data enough, it will confess.\" --Ronald Coase

  3. #3
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    Cool My suggestion..

    Personally, I started with a bit of QBasic, soon moving onto VBasic which has made learning C a lot easier for me. I didn't learn to much of QBasic/VBasic (It was only a one year middle school course), but the basics are easy to understand, and are at least similar to C (I'm learning C++ right now).

    Anyway, that's how I did it, but no matter what, I would suggest C/C++, mostly because what I've learned so far has been easy enough, and not to obscure.
    Preliminary operational tests were inconclusive (the dang thing blew up)

    \"Ask not what the kernel can do for you, ask what you can do for the kernel!\"

  4. #4
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    depends on what you want to be able to do...

    the best overall i have found is C/C++, which is what i currently use, and with an understanding of C comes a greater ability to learn other languages, many tutorials for other languages refer to C,

    if its to hard (please don't take this as an insult) learn Javascript or a similar scripting language, much easier to learn and will prepare you for more difficult languages,

    i learned Javascript after learning html, and it has helped me
    \"I am convinced that societies which live without government enjoy an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who do.\" Thomas Jefferson

  5. #5
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    Yeah, eesy JavaScript is pretty good. In fact Im learning it now.
    If anybody needs any JavaScript help feel free to PM me!
    I'd be glad to help.

  6. #6
    perhaps i'm jsut "slow" but i'd advise this...

    STAY AWAY FROM JAVA

    its been my downfall
    visit clublouie.com!!

  7. #7
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    aarobonob,
    Would you care to elaborate on why its been your downfall??
    I'm quite interested in learning a serious programming language, and I was considering either C/C++ or Java...

    What was the problem you have with Java???

  8. #8
    problems with java.. hm...

    ok, first of all, i always recommend C++ or C or anything better than java. for learning a serious one first that is. but after learning C, definatly learn java. The thing is, java is cross platform so it takes many more differnt styles of programming all into one.
    Perhaps its the way i'm going about learning it, cuz i know it cant' be that hard, but if you'll notice java is hardly mentioned at all. i'm not exaclty sure why this is, tho. Sorry i can't be more specific.
    visit clublouie.com!!

  9. #9
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    Cool

    I always suggest that you learn Visual Basic first if you are trying to just get the fundamentals down. If you want to become a serious programmer and you are a fast learner take C++ first. Don't take java first unless you wish to become mixed up later when you try to learn C++.
    Wine maketh merry: but money answereth all things.
    --Ecclesiastes 10:19

  10. #10
    Junior Member
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    My usual rant

    Well, as usual I'm going to just say steer clear of BASIC since it encourages bad programming habits and isn't at all useful in the real world. Something worth bearing in mind if you're planning to learn QBasic or VBasic (or just about any other dialect) is that there's only /one/ BASIC interpreter (that I know of) for Linux, and it's Backwater BASIC (quite a lot like GW Basic). On the other hand, C is a nice standard language and there are compilers on a wide range of systems, including Windows, Linux, BeOS, MacOS, and hundreds of others.

    If you only want to program for Windows (an unreliable, expensive, unpleasant doomed system) VBasic is fine. Also, knowing any one programming language does, it has to be said, generally make it easier to learn another so it's not like learning VBasic will be a total waste of time. If you ever want to do any serious programming, I'd recommend learning a standard language to begin with, and in my opinion the best one to go for is C, since that will make it dead easy to pick up C++ and Java later.

    As for these warnings against Java - well I don't understand what there is to worry about! Java is definitely one of the nicer OOP languages (as compared to C++ and Ada) that I've met. It's small and consistent, which is rare in object oriented languages. However, I would say that I'd go for C as a first language because Java's basically interpreted nature does somewhat reduce its usefulness (the 'compiled' code runs about a twentieth of the speed of machine code generated by an optimising C compiler - which is pretty good, but only if you compare it to the performance of other interpreted languages).

    Recently, I've actually gathered the impression that learning an interpreted language first might help people to enjoy the experience more; you don't have to wait for your program to compile before you can run it. The languages are usually less useful, but you can often play with the interpreter interactively, which is educational and lots of fun because it feels nice and 'immediate'.

    Good interpreted languages (in my opinion) are Perl and Tcl; if you like the idea of building GUI applications, check out Tcl/Tk. You won't be disappointed! Its not one of these 'visual' programming languages, but I for one would say that's a /good/ thing!

    Anyway, enough of my ranting; I always say exactly the same set of things on this subject anyway :-)

    Oh...actually, I will say one more thing. The suggestion to try JavaScript is, in this case, a good one. It'll build nicely on your knowledge of HTML and be lots of fun, while still being pretty easy, and may well take the edge off learning C a little since a fair bit of the syntax is similar.

    - Freon
    NightKingdoms Progressive
    http://www.nightkingdoms.net/
    \"Circumventing the limitations of technology\"

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