11 replies to this topic

[Slurm]

Hey CodeCall community!
I'm a 17 year old (soon to be 18, wooh! :w00t:) boy from Estonia, a small country on the coast of the Baltic Sea.
I'm going to be honest with you all, I don't know anything about programming ... but that's the reason why I'm here. The only things I do know, are a few of the names of many languages that can be used in the vast world of programming.
As the demand for IT specialist and programmers is growing day by day, I thought why not use that to my advantage and try learning some of it :) So I just searched Google for "programming forum", and CodeCall was the first thing that popped up on the list. I clicked it and was amazed at how in depth and big this forum is.
So at last, I thought why not register and say hi to everyone :)

[WingedPanther]

Welcome aboard!

[Slurm]

Thanks a lot :).
So I'll ask my first question - what programming language should I start with? I'm sure you guys know the best answer for this one.
I think it should be one that's widely used, but still not very hard, and covers most of the basics. Any ideas?

[WingedPanther]

That's apt to start another language war. It depends a lot on what you want to do, what platforms you want to develop on, etc, etc, etc.

[Slurm]

Well, that's the problem. I really have no idea on what I want, because I don't know what possibilities I have. I'd just like to get some guidelines on how and what I need to do to get started :)

[WingedPanther]

Start with this: Web app or standard application? Windows or Linux?

[Slurm]

I guess a standard app would prove to be more useful, and probably Windows because I've never in my life used a Linux based system.

[WingedPanther]

If you want to get something going quickly, C#, VB.NET, or Lazarus are all fairly good options.

[Slurm]

I also heard that Java is required on many positions in the programming business. Is it too hard for a starter?

[WingedPanther]

Many colleges use Java as the first language they teach students, but unless you're using a good tool, getting a nice GUI assembled can be a bit of a pain.

[wim DC]

The most basic things:


[TABLE]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]Java[/TD]
[TD]C#[/TD]
[TD]VB[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]IDE[/TD]
[TD]Free of choice[/TD]
[TD]Visual studio[/TD]
[TD]Visual studio[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Platform[/TD]
[TD]cross platform*[/TD]
[TD]Windows only[/TD]
[TD]Windows only[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]readability of the code[/TD]
[TD]clear syntax[/TD]
[TD]clear syntax[/TD]
[TD]VERY clear syntax**[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]creating a GUI[/TD]
[TD]Writing (a lot of) code***[/TD]
[TD]Drag & drop[/TD]
[TD]Drag & drop[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]



* Note you end up with .jar files, and not .exe files like C# or VB. This means that for users to be able to run a .jar file, they need the Java runtime installed.
** Visual basic actually uses "end if" to declare the end of an if-block. While Java and C# use the curly brackets {}, so VB is more readable for a "normal human".
Do I care about that as programmer? No, I prefer the curly brackets because it's less to write = faster.
*** Some IDEs also provide the option to drag and drop for creating GUIs I'm thinking of Netbeans and IntelliJ here.

Note that Java and C# are VERY similiar:
C# hello world:

public class Hello
{    
  public static void Main()  
  {      
    System.Console.WriteLine("Hello, World!");   
  }
}

Java hello world:

public class Hello{

  public static void main(String[] args){
    System.out.printlnt("Hello world");
  }
}

So once you know C# or Java you pretty much know for 70% how to write the other language.

All these languages are capable of doing all the things you probably want to do. They all can make normal applications as well as web applications.
They all can make GUIs, they all can do the basic stuff like talking with databases.

And people's opinions will mostly vary on what they themselves like most.
Me for example, I like Java. Why? I can't tell, it's the language I know most of, and I'm more familiar with.
Does that make it better than C#? of course not.

Sure Java is x% faster at doing this, and C# is y% better at that.
In the end both languages are used globally and it's impossibly to say Java is worse than C# or the other way around.


Edit:
Oh, and welcome ^^

[Slurm]

Thanks for the warm welcomes :). Also, thanks wim DC and WingedPanther, you both cleared up a lot for me :)
I guess I'll start looking in to Java mostly, as I've seen many cool applications that use Java.

E: Oh and where should I go to, to start understanding what you just wrote in that piece of coding :D
I know there are many sites, but I guess you would know the most appropriate one.