what's a good programming language to learn?

[cameron marical]

Ok. Maybe I anounced my loyalty to early. I just read what I took to be a time limit, and that this python thing would expire in a month. Man, I thought I finally found a free one that will actually work.

 

Does anyone know of any links of any programing language that would come in handy and is free and without a time limit or do I have to go out and buy a compiler, interpreter software etc... myself?

 

What is an average cost and where would I buy one?

 

What is the language that is best used in things like programming robots? Since that is my obsession I would like to learn it.

 

Also, {I am kind of new to programming}, is visual where you set things up with pictures etc... and the program you type it in converts that into program language then that is decoded into machine language? Is visual more popular/easy versus the others?

 

Would I be able to say, given that I knew a programming language and had a compiler for that language, go into notepad and type a program and save it as an EXE. or whatever, would that be viable? would it compile it and be a program or would I need some other program to help me?

 

Thanks.

[bascule]

Eh? Time limit? Python is free and certainly doesn't have any kind of time limit. What exactly did you install?

[cameron marical]

Never mind. I misread it. I also installed visual basic and that did have a time limit and I think that I may have been reading the wrong one or someting. Either way, I am now on my way. I downloaded an Ebook for learnign python, and I am reading the tutorial that came with it, so hopefully I will have it down soon enough.

 

Thanks for the recomendation to python bascule. It seems that many others think highly of it too. I searched some more before I downloaded it and there is quite a bit of good talk about it.

[Xittenn]

Visual Studio has what's known as express editions(they are free) ............ and VS2010 is in Beta release ......... not that I have any opinions in regards to what you learn Cameron or anyone else, it's what I'm currently using until I purchase a copy of 2010 when it is released. It has parallel programing architecture yay!

[cameron marical]

Don't the express editions have a 30 month limit unless you get a 'free' key? I looked into it, and downloaded it and everything, and then it told me I need a key to keep it for more than 30 days, so I tried to get my free key, but I then had to sign up to some website and they werent taking my email because it was a hotmail or something, so I just gave it up and uninstalled it, and went back to python.

[timo]

Would I be able to say, given that I knew a programming language and had a compiler for that language, go into notepad and type a program and save it as an EXE. or whatever, would that be viable? would it compile it and be a program or would I need some other program to help me?

I think all programming languages and environments keep their source codes as normal ASCII files. So you can program with notepad if you want, what you save is the source code. What you then do with the source code depends on you and the programming language. The two typical options are running it via an interpreter installed on your computer or compiling it into an executable file and then running the compiled executable. A compiled file does not need the compiler anymore so in theory you could copy it to another machine and run it there. However, the target machine and the machine you compiled on need to have similar architectures for this to work, making this type of spreading software more typical in the Windows world.

 

I know it is cool having created an "independent" "real" program rather than just a script for some interpreter. But in practice the actual advantage is not really that great - I personally see having to compile as a disadvantage since at least c++ compilers can be somewhat slow (during my diploma thesis I could go for a 20 minute coffee break if I had to compile and had touched some core files since the last compilation - and that happened about once a day on average and not necessarily at coffee time).

[Xittenn]

Don't the express editions have a 30 month limit unless you get a 'free' key? I looked into it, and downloaded it and everything, and then it told me I need a key to keep it for more than 30 days, so I tried to get my free key, but I then had to sign up to some website and they werent taking my email because it was a hotmail or something, so I just gave it up and uninstalled it, and went back to python.

 

http://www.microsoft.com/express/vc/

http://www.microsoft.com/express/vb/Default.aspx

 

Huh? No!

 

Great now I have Visual Basic installed................yuck!

 

Wait, what do I do with it?

 

=> uninstall

Edited August 25, 2009 by buttacup

[cameron marical]

And you can keep that visual basic indefinately?

 

Then whats the point in buying one?

[Xittenn]

Well there are more tools for debugging your programs if you buy it. Also it isn't a license to make commercial software and most individuals who program are doing so with the intent to make commercial software; well aside from lab coats and nerds.

[ferrywayes]

Hi

I am suggest you to learn JAVA, and i think you can learn easily, It is also object oriented languages, Its difficult to learn But you may do this

Thanks

[davidhardner]

Hi Everyone,

 

I think C++ is one of good programming language. Most of the languages have some of its keywords or data structures.

 

So I believe It should be learnt.

[walsh155]

you can try and learn python or cc+ or at the worst i can programm in java

[getingwats]

According to me PHP is the good programming language.Because PHP is an open-source, interpretive, server-side, cross-platform, HTML scripting language, especially well-suited for Web development as it can be embedded into HTML pages.

[bascule]

Personally I think PHP is a terrible first language. In general, it's very messy and uncohesive, and its semantics are rather ad hoc as opposed to being planned. It has some of the worst type coercion I've ever seen ("3 dog night" + 2 = 5?!!!). Object orientation was tacked-on after-the-fact and is not used by the standard library. The standard library is enormous, with many functions that duplicate each other. Determining which version is best for the task at hand is often difficult (I should use mysql_real_connect instead of mysql_connect?), and worse, often writing things yourself in PHP are better than using the hooks into C libraries provided by the stdlib, which is totally counterintuitive (I assume because the runtime used to be even slower than it is now).

 

The PHP interpreter is also extremely slow (in some cases slower than the standard Ruby interpreter), however the language is not featureful and expressive like Ruby, so you're really getting the worst of both worlds: a slow, low quality language.

 

I would suggest learning another language like Python or Ruby first, then moving to PHP later.

[RyanJ]

I second bascule. However Ruby does have some very strange language syntax structures and some people find it difficult to move to other languages like PHP or C afterward.

 

Personally I started head first with C++ and it never did me any harm. Except for that dent on my head just won't go away after bashing it against my computer in frustration for weeks on end.

[doG]

I vote for C as a launch pad to programming.

[maxxcon]

Hello.

According to me, it's depend on our skill. but basically we must have knowledge about C and C++ language. I am currently working as PHP Developer and I want to go in J2EE but due to time problem I can not join any institute to learn J2EE but I have good knowledge of Core JAVA and C/C++ and PHP. I am learning this all language at home.

 

Thanks for sharing this post because it is very interesting.

[carolw]

I would suggest you to learn Programming languages like Java and .net. They are recent ones and also easy to use and understandable.

[alamzeb]

From my experience I think C and C++ is good programming language to learn.which make an excellent programming basis for you.

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[CarolSmith]

I suggest you C language as U didn't hav any knowledge abt programming. U will learn programming basics by C language after that U are comfortable in doing programming on any programming language & no need to ask which language I will use ?

[johnmarsh]

yes i give vote c language because c is mother of all language

[Fredrick Boggs]

I also work with a lot of legacy code most of it is Fortran. I really don't mind using Fortran- all the modern compilers allow variable names greater than the old and silly 6 character limit. Also with Fortran 95, you can even do OOP if you feel that your modifications to the existing code base would benefit. C++ has the great disadvantage of memory considerations. I have been programming C/C++ for 20+ years now and I still forget to delete objects and properly fill in destructor.

 

 

 

 

 

[zheng sheng ming]

If it requires significant speed to be useful, C is the obvious choice. C is also, in my experience, rather painful to use.

 

If you want something relatively simple that can do the modeling (just not as quickly), try Python. It's fairly simple to learn and you can probably find pre-existing Python code that'll help you do what you want. O'Reilly's Learning Python is a good place to start.

 

 

yes , I think it is so!

[bede1983]

I think PHP learn easy for starter. Like this site pickgf.com make by PHP with me, you can find it by google with keywords pickgf

[Ludwik]

Modern computer languages SUCK when it comes to performance and when it comes to mathematical descriptions of physical processes such as the atmosphere. Trying to force scientists and engineers who model physical systems to think functionally is just wrong. That is not how they think. They think procedurally. FORTRAN was written for the scientific community and has evolved with continual oversight by the scientific community because it works well with the way they think. ...

 

I agree with this. Learning new languages only because they were added was a great pain in the neck for me. Fortran was my first language. At some time someone convinced me that I must learn Pascal, because "that is what your students are required to learn now," they said. By the time I mastered Pascal students were required to learn C.

 

Ludwik Kowalski (see Wikipedia)