Favorite programming language

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well with actionscript you can make movies,games,and interactive worlds.. of course you can do that with c but i'm pretty sure it's faster to manipulate all of that with macromedia flash. plus there's always going to be money in flash games. cartoon network has tons of them.
 
John000 said:
I am learning C++ from a book called, Sams Teach Yourself C++ in 24 Hours. In the book is has a paragraph titled Should I Learn C First. The paragraph says " Stroustrup and most other C++ programmers agree: Not only is it unnecessary to learn C first, it is a bad idea because you can learn some bad habits that C++ prevents you from using." How come that is totally opposite what you guys are saying?

Yeah I got sams teach yourself C++ in 21 days, and same paragraph, although I was unaware stroustrup invented the language so that does somewhat give me doubts as to its authenticity. Although as someone who is learning C++ as his first language, it's been a welcome experience and not too hard. So take it from me, if you can understand simple logical thought processes like algorithms and you understand algebra with assignations instead of equalities when refering to '=' symbols, you shouldn't have a problem learning C++ as your first language.
 
As someone who also learned C++ as his first language years ago, and has since learned many others, take it from me, there are better places to start.

It's not easy to explain why C++ is a difficult language to start with. If you were an experienced programmer, already familiar with the differences between language families, I could explain it in a few sentences, but then we wouldn't be having the discussion.

Since you don't already understand the whole landscape of programming languages (and you won't until you've learned several different languages) you can't really understand the differences between languages yet.

For example, you will hear a lot about object-oriented programming (OOP), but you won't really know what that actually means until you've learned at least one good object-oriented language, and at least one language that is not object-oriented.

One of the best reasons to not learn C++ is that it will give you a worse impression of OOP, as C++ in many ways represents OOP done wrong.

However, if you read about Python or Scheme, you can easily understand what makes these languages great places to start.

Python has a very clean and natural syntax, and even as a complete beginner you can master it in a much shorter time.

http://www.python.org/

Scheme is a dialect of Lisp, and will provide you with an elegant set of tools for of thinking about programming that many programmers will never encounter. It is used as an introductory programming language at MIT, and the textbook used there is available entirely online for free.

http://www.swiss.ai.mit.edu/projects/scheme/
http://www.schemers.org/
 
Yeah I suppose you have a fair point there. AsI've only really come across java and C++ then I wouldnt know if there were better places to start.
I'm gonna give python a try as I've heard a lot about it.
 
inimino said:
For example, you will hear a lot about object-oriented programming (OOP), but you won't really know what that actually means until you've learned at least one good object-oriented language, and at least one language that is not object-oriented.

One of the best reasons to not learn C++ is that it will give you a worse impression of OOP, as C++ in many ways represents OOP done wrong.

However, if you read about Python or Scheme, you can easily understand what makes these languages great places to start.

Python has a very clean and natural syntax, and even as a complete beginner you can master it in a much shorter time.

http://www.python.org/

Thanx for this beautiful information. This is what good argument about. I will read about python because u r not the only one who gave bad comments about C++'s OOP. I would really love to see a new thread about the best web programming language because i wantta know what is the position of PHP against ASP ... etc.
 
i agree with whomever the above poster was quoting. c++ can be frustrating and strange at times (but it still has nice features)

though scheme is just as frustrating.

(yik (yak
(yok yey yoy)
(yuk yuy)))

now what does that mean?

i'd post a real example of the confusion it can create but i can't remember any. just remember, parentheses are EVIL!
 
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