Programming language

neocon · 24 Jun 2007 at 13:50

Whats the best programming language to learn for a beginer?

Java?

Jaffa_Cake · 24 Jun 2007 at 14:09

Edit: Ignore my advice :cool:

Una · 24 Jun 2007 at 14:24

There is no such thing as the "best" language to learn for a beginner. It depends what you want to do really. Vb6 is a horrible, stay well away.

neocon · 24 Jun 2007 at 14:39

maybe its not programming at all then

im interested in learning about web servers, the interweb, etc

is java the most popular language on the internet is it .Net?

Una · 24 Jun 2007 at 14:52

You seem pretty confused.

Web Servers are written in C/C++ normally because they need to provide high performance but you can write one in any programming language, but I don't think your asking about this.

.NET is just a term which encapsulates a range of technologies from MS (Framework).

The most popular server side scripting languages would probably be PHP, ASP(.NET) at the moment. Though there are plenty of others.

Java is mainly used for application development now (java applets still exist but are a past technology imo). You might be mistaking it for Javascript which is a totally different language and is used heavily in web dev.

neocon · 24 Jun 2007 at 15:25

Una said:
You seem pretty confused.

Web Servers are written in C/C++ normally because they need to provide high performance but you can write one in any programming language, but I don't think your asking about this.

.NET is just a term which encapsulates a range of technologies from MS (Framework).

The most popular server side scripting languages would probably be PHP, ASP(.NET) at the moment. Though there are plenty of others.

Java is mainly used for application development now (java applets still exist but are a past technology imo). You might be mistaking it for Javascript which is a totally different language and is used heavily in web dev.

ok thats cleared that up

I think i'm interested in server side scripting language.
I might buy a 'dummies' guide or something.
thx

Shoseki · 24 Jun 2007 at 15:30

For the love of god don't try C++ as your first language.

Srsly. I use it on a daily basis, and it is *nasty*.

Una · 24 Jun 2007 at 15:32

Yeah, it seems like you want to create dynamic web pages / web applications. I would look into Php, Asp(.net) or python/ruby to learn as a first language.

Shoseki · 24 Jun 2007 at 15:37

One thing further, if you are looking because you want to learn programming languages in general, it is better to get a book that teaches you beginners guide. Once you have your first programming language under your belt, its horses for courses, learn what you need to, and try to use open source projects instead of reinventing the wheel, as much as possible.

If, for example, you were saying you wanted to make an interacive website with multiple articles etc, I'd suggest getting a content management system such as Joomla, and focussing on the coding of xhtml/css/javascript to produce your pages.

Rich43 · 24 Jun 2007 at 19:03

don't use Visual basic.. Its a terrible language. Try Python, Perl, Ruby.. you can make gui's with all of them

If your doing webpages only, Go for PHP.

Theres wxPython, wxPerl, wxRuby for GUI's.

psyr33n · 24 Jun 2007 at 19:49

Desktop = Python
Web = PHP

Inquisitor · 25 Jun 2007 at 01:11

psyr33n said:
Desktop = Python
Web = PHP

Nail on the head as far as beginners' languages are concerned

Edit: Ruby might be a better option for a server=side language in fact.

n3crius · 25 Jun 2007 at 11:55

Jaffa_Cake said:
Visual Basic 6

Its what they teach in colleges.

Do not, under any circumstances, take that advice seriously.

To learn use a nice, sophisticated language. Earlier procedural stuff like Pascal or straight-into-OO C#/Java would also be good languages to play with.

noob · 25 Jun 2007 at 12:40

azteched · 25 Jun 2007 at 12:46

Shoseki said:
For the love of god don't try C++ as your first language.

Srsly. I use it on a daily basis, and it is *nasty*.

C++ is in no way "nasty", if you take the time to learn to use it properly, and learn the more advanced features.
However, it'd be pretty tough as a first language.
If you want a good grounding & a challenge, try C.

Dj_Jestar · 25 Jun 2007 at 12:47

Smalltalk.

NathanE · 25 Jun 2007 at 12:56

VB.NET or C#.NET

I'm surprised at the number of 'open source' language suggestions considering just how bad their documentation and support is.

Dj_Jestar · 25 Jun 2007 at 13:16

NathanE said:
VB.NET or C#.NET

I'm surprised at the number of 'open source' language suggestions considering just how bad their documentation and support is.

On the contrary, many OS languages kick the ass of corporate languages for support, documentation and community.

The_KiD · 25 Jun 2007 at 13:19

If you have any basic programming knowledge, the PHP and mysql is quite easy to pick up.

I used to do lots of mIRC scripting and found PHP to be very similar in the way it is written.

I also got a copy of this book: http://www.sitepoint.com/article/php-mysql-tutorial

Which I found to be very useful and simple to understand.

NathanE · 25 Jun 2007 at 18:31

Dj_Jestar said:
On the contrary, many OS languages kick the ass of corporate languages for support, documentation and community.

Not many will have, say, a Boyer-Moore algorithm example available on the 'net that you can just pinch and use... Only really popular languages will have such "niché" samples on the Internet.