What is a powerful but easy to learn for free?

[Microman171]

What I want is to learn a powerful, easy to learn, and free language like C and JAVA. What is your opinion on the best language?

[Psion]

Learn it for free?

It's called a book.

I think I saw them at my local library.

Get one with a CD for creating C programs.

 

Best language....

 

Whatever is being used to program robots and stuff right now.

 

I mean, whatever has the most appliable use. All languages are different somewhat and have their uses.

 

I stopped learning languages though, but I keep up with webdesign and actionscript. Those don't seem to be going away anytime soon.

They keep upgrading which becomes annoying.

 

I think the language used to program robots is better. C+ or something? I forget. I like that stuff better because you can create electronics and program them to do things, like fight. Of course more people are getting skilled with other languages to use on electronics, I think the C series is the best start.

 

In all truth, all languages are good to learn.

Learn to increase knowledge by practicing programming, joining forums on programing discussion, and working with people in projects.

 

http://www.accu.org/resources/public/terse/learn.htm

http://www.tundraware.com/Technology/How-To-Pick-A-Programming-Language/

[Klaynos]

Java, is very powerful and you can download the SDK, Runtime Environment and The Java Tutorial all for free from http://java.sun.com/

 

But saying that, it does depend what you want to do with it?

[joerdz]

The languages to create robots and all that kinda stuff are forms of Assembly language. I've seen some simple code and it gets... complicated. It look very different from C.

Unlike C, where "one written command == many computer commands", Assembly is a 1/1 relationship.

[Klaynos]

For most "every day" applications assembly is not really feasible as like you say it is a second level langauge. I've done some electronics programming in it but it gets deeply complicated very quickly.

[mezarashi]

I agree. Assembly language is ridiculously tedious. Figuring out what's going on in that language is an eyesore. The best two languages in my opinion, and I think I'm being objective here, are:

 

C++ and Java

 

They are languages which can serve as foundations for other languages you may be interested to learn in the future. Plenty of documentation and books are available for them, so they are fairly accessible in that sense. With C++, I've been able to program myself real practical programs that someone who likes to fiddle with computers would want on their desktop. My point is, it is a general-use sort of language, while other languages are more specialized for a particular application.

[Pangloss]

I don't think there's any question that Java offers the best combination of free advanced tools, free support, and wide range of application uses. While not free, "Absolute Java" by Walter Savitch is a good book for starters, and is often available off the discount shelf at bookstores.

[albertlee]

In Internet, the world of freedom, errr, have you heard of something called p2p??

 

Use your imagination!

[postgrep]

I think the language used to program robots is better. C+ or something? I forget

 

 

!

 

I think you mean C++ hehe.

 

I'd recommmend learning Python. http://www.python.org.

 

Nice clean language.

[xa]

Yeah, I'd suggest a nice easy scripting language python, perl or LISP(it looks crazy at first imho). Then learn C/C++. I've heard good things about java, but if you snort source code for breakfast the SDK and such is proprietary and closed-source. I prefer C(I also know C++ but I find it a lot larger executable wise) and Python.

[Dave]

I'm surprised that nobody's bothered to mention C# here. It's a mix between C, Java and Visual Basic, but, in my opinion, it's extremely good and very powerful. You can have a look at the Visual Express edition if you want to give it a go. Also, the Mono project has free compilers/interpreters for Linux and Windows.