Programming Languages - An Introductory Tutorial

[Rewandythal]

This tutorial attempts to answer the question that seems to be asked most days, here on AO:

What's the best programming langauge to learn?
It answers this question not by giving a definite answer (e.g. C++ is always best) but by giving a brief description of some of the most popular languages, and their uses as well as their estimated ease of use / learning.

Hope it's of use to someone!!

The tutorial covers:
->HTML
->JavaScript
->PHP
->Java
->Basic & VisualBasic
->C / C++

[nabylbt]

i know i will get flamed for that but how about assembly language....
true you can't write any oop programs, user interface or for that matter anything that is supposed to look nice
yet you get full hardware control no matter what. i'll admit it is a pain in the ass to write in but i find it more effecient then writting c and decompilling it... better use of memory and stacks ...
and it's simply the fastest language !
other then that i don't recommend it to anyone unless you need to control hardware ressources to the bit, ie a ldd or a ldab+ ldaa ... but if you are into microp/dsp system no way around it ...
just look up any microprocessor classes in any univeristy to find examples and sources samples
enjoy and feel the pain of forgetting to create a stack.... lol

[Rewandythal]

Well, I would've written about ASM, but I decided that since it was aimed at newbies, and ASM is rather difficult and time-consuming, I'd avoid mentioning it... Though, it IS the fastest because it gives direct interaction with the machine...

[Cheeseball]

I tend to find it more logical to talk to the windows API in assembly than in C......Just a personal thing I guess.....it is 100% possible to program GUI programs in assembly (it is actually in some cases easier than in C). If you REALLY wanna get into it, you can do directx or openGL (a can of beans I just figured out about 2 days ago). I know you are probably saying "hey, won't using the windows API kill your size and speed, and thus the reason for using assembly?" The answer is no....you still get to all the speed and controls you did before, just you have to go thru the pain of writting prototypes for all the API calls you want to make (This part is where includes come in). If anyone is interested in this sort of thing you can get masm32 (an easier to use assembler for win32 programming) at www.movsd.com and some REALLY great tutorials (easy to follow) at win32asm.cjb.net. I would write a tutorial or two on making windows programs in asm, BUT this guy has done an excellent job already.

Cheeseball

[Dr Toker]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but i would say that C, C++ are the best because they can be compiled on *nix as well. HOwever If I am wrong Please don't flame the shyt outta me.Correct me and be done with it. As you can tell i have had only one day of programming experience.
(I made a ping sweeper) So all i know is what he told me that day.However, nearly everything this guy told me was a lie....so i would like to be set str8.

[Rewandythal]

Most languages can be compiled on most platforms (except Microsoft VisualBasic, which is Windows-only, as far as I know)... They will more than likely need modifications depending on the platform they are being compiled under, for example, different includes are needed on Unix/Linux to Win32. However, Java is truly platform independent, and the same code will work on any platform that the Java runtime is installed on.
Not that I'm trying to sell java here - I'm with you that C / C++ are the best, cause they're the most poweful, besides Assembler.