5 replies to this topic

[zCaptain]

What is a good programming language for someone just starting to have an interest in programming? I don't know anything about programming, zip, nada! I want to learn a language that is easy but at the same time useful and SELLABLE in the market. When I finish my first language I want to be able to get work selling my skills in that field while I progress onto more more powerful and technical languages.

Anyways if you have any suggestions for what programming language I should start out in please post a reply to my thread, and tell me why you think it's the best. Please be detailed and give me as much info as you can! Thanks, I really appreciate it everyone :)

[WingedPanther]

It depends a little on what type of programming you're interested in. PHP is good for websites, but you'll also need to learn HTML and CSS. C# is pretty easy for standard apps, if you're on Windows. Lazarus is also good, and is cross-platform. You'll probably hear somebody make a case for almost any language out there.

[zCaptain]

Well I'd like to be able to make websites, but I'd also like to be able to get into the gaming industry one day but I'd have to be a pro to do that yeah?

[WingedPanther]

Even the gaming industry isn't as unified as it used to be. Many games are written in flash, now. Most games like Warcraft are written in C++, but there's also a lot of room for things like python.

The requirement to get into the gaming industry depends on whether you want to work for one of the big dogs (gotta be a pro), or start your own (gotta have good ideas you can implement).

[artificial]

Another good language for programming websites is Ruby. You can use it as a "normal" language on your PC but also for web development (--> Ruby on Rails).

Big games (e.g. World of Warcraft, StarCraft etc.) are usually written in C++. But this is often just true with regard to the game engine. I've heard of many games that use a script-language like Python or Lua for in-game logics.

Greets,
artificial

PS: You shouldn't concentrate too much on being able to sell your applications. It takes some time to learn a programming language and the (first) results won't be very awesome, if you know what I mean.

[WingedPanther]

You can also write simple games like Yahtzee and Mastermind for starters. It will push you a lot without having to worry about cool graphics immediately. I wrote both using ASCII graphics in Pascal early in my studies.