Survey posted 2000-09-30 06:43 by Andy Selle.

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In my opinion...

C/C++/Java can be a major pain in the a** if you are beginner, they are fun once you get used to them

VB perfect for High School students, very useful and efficient in real life

HTML/JScript/VBScript if you consider them to be programming languages (I know that they are not real programming languages) are good for beginners, I am not sure about real life.

TI Basic / Assembly Perfect for TI calc <EM>constant<EM> users, great for killing time, not very efficient in real life


Conclusion: C will be gone in a short time, C++ is probably going to be replace by Java in the future (I don't really care, they are both OOP languages and very similar), VB has good future because of its simplicity, however, it makes people veeeeeeeery lazy.


What about C#? Any comments?

Two things about C#:

1) From what I've read, people have described as "the bastard child of C++ and Java;"

2) How in the heck do you pronounce it? C Pound?

C-Sharp

1) From what I've read, people have described as "the bastard child of C++ and Java;"

From what I've seen on the Microsoft csharpinfo page, it's the worst of both worlds.

2) How in the heck do you pronounce it? C Pound?

C sharp. Not C-pound or C-number and certainly not C-octothorpe. I would have wanted to call it C--.

I first just want to say that for those of you who have not experienced the thrill of programming, I feel very bad for you.

Second of all, about the languages. C++ is my most used language, but as C++, Perl, and Java are all extensions off of C, if you can program one, with a little training, you can program the others.

Perl is a great language, especially for CGI, because it is so versitile. That partly stems from it being the "garbage language" of all programming languages. It contains a little bit of everything so it can get everything done.

For those of you who want to learn/teach yourself programming, I recommend on buying the Teach Yourself in 21 Days books, or Teach Yourself in 24 hours books. Both are published by SAMS and are very good resources, especially for beginners and the like. (The 21 Days tend to not go into much detail as the 24 hours. Go figure...you can learn more in a day than 21 of them.)

Okay, well that's my spiel. Auf Weidersehen.

Dark Ninja

eskuse me?!?!? what does Java have to do with C??? besides basic stuff like type definitions and blocks, every other thing is different, even sintax. besides having to program in the classes themselves, which is difference enough!

Yep basic it is, for me, only because i havent taken the time to learn asm programmin. Not only is it easy to utilize but it is an outstanding first language for the beginner. On the other hand as we all know it isnt as advanced and powerful as asm. I'm one of those few that believe, that if you know what your doin you can program a basic game thats as fast and powerful as an assembly game.

Basic, always and forever. Easy to program, on-calc programming, compatibility with all AMS versions(unlike many ASMs), and, most of all, a language normal people can understand. The first time I even played a calculator game, I started hacking Lunar Lander and was amazed that I, a high school freshman at the time, could rewrite the code to change the game! As you can all probably tell- TI-BASIC #55.

For me its basic for the Burroughs B20-38 line of computers with BTOS II... then its something like basica qbasic visualbasic 6.0 c c++ (for linux) c++ with mfc (windows)...

I must say though for all practicallity that Sometimes it is better and easier to use Visual Basic mostly for the ease of programming and development... But when performance is a must i prefer to write a c++ dll to link into with a visual basic interface that way i get the best of both worlds :)

i put ti-basic only because they didn't have VB on the list...

Before I get flamed by the 121 ASM programmers for my above comment, allow me to qualify myself. I write only math/science programs, for which BASIC works just fine. ASM is better for games, but since I do not program games, I can only refer to BASIC in the question "What is your favorite way to program?"

<Straps on Nomex jumpsuit, runs from impending flames>

I meant 49 asm programmers, not 121.

Well, yup I am a c++ programmer, as well as a C programmer, perl programmer (though not that good in perl) and assembly (mips and x86 mostly just a tiny bit of 68k) also pascal (have not in several years) and basic.


I noticed a discussion of learning c++ books. Well the learning c++ in 24 hours books suck major ass for anyone who has half a brain. I would recommend the following book (actually there is a later edition, but I do not have it ;>):

Data Structures and Other Objects Using C++, Michael Main and Walter Savitch, Addison Wesley Longman, 1997

Also books by Strousup (I cant spell the freeken guys name) the dude who created c++. All of his books are wonderful, abit a bit dense, you will however learn a lot from them.


Also for any c++ programmer worth his stuff a reference book is good. I personally have the C++ Bible by Jamsa. It is an okay book I have seen better, but it covers a whole lot (even winblows).


Also for you people starting out programming I would recommend the Linux environment and gcc. A BSD distro such as FreeBSD would also be a good choice. I would recommend staying away from Visual Studio it will get newbies into bad habits. I also would not recommend the Turbo c++ series because it is outdated.

Thats just my two cents ;>

Assembly because it's awesome and POWERFULL for calculators! And of course Visual Basic for computers just because it's so easy and VISUAL :) I do wish I knew more C++ though... then it might be my favorite...

This iMac a great surfer but for pgm I use 286 [I am over 50 so can lawfully use one :-)]... C++ may be the rage but I use Fortran 66 for I fear not DO loops. [MIT has a BASIC for DOS online that is super for maths.] All pgm fall into 3 groups a wise fellow told me ... those written in Fortran and dependents, those written in Pascal etal by sensitive types who eat sugared cream puffs and those writ in M.L. by those who like to show off This is as hopeless a conversation as HP vs TI or MAC vs PC or even Jew vs Arab and as all those not resolvable by zealots.

i voted "i dont program" although that's not entirely true; i did a little c++ and java in high school, and who doesnt program TI-BASIC. right now im not doing any programming, but that will probably change sometime soon. what with me being a computer engineering major.

You're probably right. I doubt that anyone could get a CE/CS degree without doing any programming.

TI-Basic is nice because it's simple and portable. It also takes the monotony out of any class. The bad part is thinking of something to program...

I have learnt to program C++ from a book called 'Using C++' by Rob McGregor, from QUE. ISBN 0-7897-1667-4. It's a great book of 900 pages. When I was on page 200 I was able to use the most basic functions.
Many people say C++ is hard to understand, but this book makes it easy!

Why isn't HTML up there?