Language Choices

[adamtherio]

So I know all of you reading this don't owe me anything so I appreciate the responses given. I'm a fresh computer maintenance tech in a small computer store and I don't aspire to be doing that work for the rest of my carrier.

I'm not planning on becoming some kind of code guru. More as a skill I can put on a resume and a hobby.

I wanted to know what version or C i should start with that would be most practical for writing simple programs to do routine tasks... I loved how VB was so easy to edit and change what buttons did, though ive heard its not very powerful. Should i use Visual C++? C#. C++ or just C? Is there a big difference or are they just slightly different?


TL;DR >> Where should a new person start to get into C quickly with UI's. And what version of C to use...

[adamtherio]

Oh and sorry this seems bias to C, If anyone have any other languages like say python or something they would recommend im all ears. Thanks alot!

[ZekeDragon]

C# and C/C++ are two very different languages, and C and C++ are arguably also different languages since they have two very different ways to write idiomatic code.

However, to answer your question about which one you should choose first for a hobby language, I'd say download as many free languages you can get your hands on and try them all. Write small programs in each one and see which one's fit better with how you like to program or just what feels more natural for you. There are plenty of free packages out there for you to get, let me give you some suggestions:

C/C++: Code::Blocks
C#: Visual Studio Express (C# Edition)
Java: Java Development Kit
Python: Python Interpreter
Pascal: Lazarus
Lisp: Ufasoft Common Lisp
Perl: Strawberry Perl
Ruby: Ruby on Windows 1-Click Installer
PHP: PHP Win32 Installer
Haskell: Glasgow Haskell Compiler
Caml: Objective Caml
Eiffel: EiffelStudio GPL Version
Smalltalk: Cincom ObjectStudio and VisualWorks

There are plenty more languages out there you could try, in no way is this a limiting list, but hopefully it gives you an idea of the possibilities out there. To be honest, most of these you'll try once or twice (I have) and you'll drop 'em. But a couple of them will stick out, they will be enjoyable to program in, they'll feel right for you. Those are the ones you learn with, and when you get into professional coding whatever language comes your way will be similar in many aspects, so picking it up will be much easier once you have programming concepts down.

Hope this helps, and doesn't just lead to more confusion and indecision.

[WingedPanther]

What's wrong with just continuing to use VB, since you're familiar with that?

[adamtherio]

What's wrong with just continuing to use VB, since you're familiar with that?

Well im hearing from people in my job site that its not "pure" enough, and that it runs slower than most of its harder brothers.

To ZekeDragon: I think you're right and i thank you for the time you put into thouse links even if it was just a copy/paste. I've posted on 2 other boards and i think i just need to narrow it down to 3 or 5 and just make hello world apps and see whats right... Thanks for your time sir's.

[WingedPanther]

"purity" is nonsense. I dislike VB for aesthetic reasons, but it works pretty well, overall. There are a lot of programmers who don't like VB for one reason or another, probably bad experiences with VB6 and earlier. VB.net is essentially the same as C# (with different syntax), since they both compile to .NET executables.