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Get Into Programming

A

atomstryker

Senior member
From a purely educational standpoint; what would be a good language to begin to learn how to program? I am quite familiar with Windows, Linux, HTML, and basic computer things, but I'd like to learn programming. Money is not an object here. Where can I get tutorials and information? Recommend just picking up a huge book with the compiler in it, and go?

TIA
 
I just started learning C++ with "C++ How to Program." The language is cross-platform, fast, and has free & open source compilers (gcc for Linux or gcc+cygwin for Windows). Of course, you could still purchase and use the overly bloated M$ Visual Studio .NET, but that's kind of pointless, especially for beginners, because you're not going to be using the advanced features for quite some time (you start out writing console programs that don't need any GUI functions).
 
I would start with C++. It will get you into shape for most of the Microsoft's languages. I'm currently studying languages under VB.net like aspx and VB script.
 
Python is probably a good choice, although I'm not a big fan of it. C or C++ shouldn't be too bad either if you get a decent book.

visual basic is very easy to learn and quite powerful
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But it's not a good starting language because it gets you into bad habits that don't work with other languages.

Anyone here learning Delphi?
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It's basically Visual Pascal. Kylix seems to be only available for Linux right now though there seems to be trials of the other things for Windows.

Borland® Kylix? provides both ANSI/ISO C++ and Delphi? language programming?two powerful object-oriented languages in one development solution.
 
Originally posted by: igowerf
Originally posted by: ugh
Anyone here learning Delphi?
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I actually want to try out Delphi. Are there any free compilers/IDE's?
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Not that I know of. But it's good if you can learn Pascal first. IIRC, there's a free Pascal compiler from Borland.
 
Originally posted by: Nothinman
...C or C++ shouldn't be too bad either if you get a decent book.
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Does "C++ How to Program" by Deitel & Deitel qualify? I just started working through that one, but would rather stop now and find a different book if that's not going to be the best.
 
VB, C, C++, Assembler, Perl, Java - in that order.
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Assembler??? You programming for 8088's or something??? Performance gained from writting in assembly is in no way worth the trouble.
 
Originally posted by: Nothinman
Python is probably a good choice, although I'm not a big fan of it. C or C++ shouldn't be too bad either if you get a decent book.

visual basic is very easy to learn and quite powerful
Click to expand...

But it's not a good starting language because it gets you into bad habits that don't work with other languages.

Anyone here learning Delphi?
Click to expand...

It's basically Visual Pascal. Kylix seems to be only available for Linux right now though there seems to be trials of the other things for Windows.

Borland® Kylix? provides both ANSI/ISO C++ and Delphi? language programming?two powerful object-oriented languages in one development solution.
Click to expand...

He's right. I started with VB and became very proficient at it. Now I am doing some C++ and JESUS CHRIST, its a bit more difficult. VB programming makes you kinda lazy.

VB is still my language of choice though.
 
Originally posted by: Kntx
VB, C, C++, Assembler, Perl, Java - in that order.
Click to expand...

Assembler??? You programming for 8088's or something??? Performance gained from writting in assembly is in no way worth the trouble.
Click to expand...
He didn't say anything about performance. It's good to understand assembly.
 
C and VB are NOT learning languages, they are working languages and sacrifice good principles for ease of use. Go for something that was designed from the ground up to be a clean, concise learning lanuage like pascal which has already been stated.
 
He didn't say anything about performance. It's good to understand assembly.
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True, it helps in debugging. But I would definately put Java or Perl ahead of asm in order to learn, there's just not a whole lot of use for asm any more. And if you use a language like Java, Perl, Python (even C and C++ to an extent) you can semi-easily have a portable program that's not tied to any one platform or processor.

And being that Intel-compatible boxes are the minority at my house, that's important to me.
 
My vote would be for C/C++. It is very frequently used and object oriented which is very popular these days. Java and pascal are close substitutes. The advantage in learning one of these is that it is just a bit of work to learn one of the others rather than learning a whole language.
 
Originally posted by: Shalmanese
C and VB are NOT learning languages, they are working languages and sacrifice good principles for ease of use. Go for something that was designed from the ground up to be a clean, concise learning lanuage like pascal which has already been stated.
Click to expand...

What in the world does C sacrifice for ease of use? What sacrificial qualities of VB are in discord with principles at the time VB was released.

 
My vote would be for starting in Java. It's object oriented, the development tools are available for free on all the platforms, and the syntax/structure is similar enough to C/C++ that you'll be able to easily transition into those when you're ready. I'd advise against starting with VB myself. I started with regular BASIC and learned VB later, and I'll tell you it's nota great language, for using nor learning. Start with Java, get good at it, then learn C++ (and C. you really need a good C background to do C++ well). When you need a development environment I've found none better than Borland's C++ Builder for Windows, and it's Kylix counterpart for Linux.
 
Another vote for Python ... I think it's a great beginners language, yet still powerful & complete enough to be useful later on.
 
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