should I study C or C++ or Java or Visual Basic?

G

grappletech

I took Pascal and BASIC in a couple of beginner programming courses about a
decade ago and did well with them. I am good with pseudocode, algorithms,
and the mathematics of programming. I decided I should perhaps learn a
more powerful language to program my own apps. I got a "Beginning C" book,
but the C programs won't compile in the free compilers I have downloaded.
The syntax is different. I guess I have to buy a programming package, but
money's tight. Any recommendations?
 
O

Ondra Holub

grappletech napsal:
I took Pascal and BASIC in a couple of beginner programming courses about a
decade ago and did well with them. I am good with pseudocode, algorithms,
and the mathematics of programming. I decided I should perhaps learn a
more powerful language to program my own apps. I got a "Beginning C" book,
but the C programs won't compile in the free compilers I have downloaded.
The syntax is different. I guess I have to buy a programming package, but
money's tight. Any recommendations?

You can get many free compilers for various platforms (for example Gnu
C/C++ is available for almost any platform). You can find many of them
at http://www.thefreecountry.com/compilers/cpp.shtml

Question "C or C++ or Java or Visual Basic?" is not good for C++ forum.
The answer is of course C++. You can ask on java forum and you'll get
answer java, etc. I (personaly) would recommend C++ or java. C is also
good. But definitely not Visual Basic (no flame - it is just my
personal opinion).
 
F

Frederick Gotham

grappletech:
I took Pascal and BASIC in a couple of beginner programming courses
about a decade ago and did well with them. I am good with pseudocode,
algorithms, and the mathematics of programming. I decided I should
perhaps learn a more powerful language to program my own apps. I got a
"Beginning C" book, but the C programs won't compile in the free
compilers I have downloaded. The syntax is different. I guess I have
to buy a programming package, but money's tight. Any recommendations?


C++, it's the Swiss army knife of programming languages.
 
D

Daniel T.

grappletech said:
I took Pascal and BASIC in a couple of beginner programming courses about a
decade ago and did well with them. I am good with pseudocode, algorithms,
and the mathematics of programming. I decided I should perhaps learn a
more powerful language to program my own apps. I got a "Beginning C" book,
but the C programs won't compile in the free compilers I have downloaded.
The syntax is different. I guess I have to buy a programming package, but
money's tight. Any recommendations?

Yes. You should also study SmallTalk, Python, and Ruby. As well as
Scheme, Lisp, CLOS, Eiffel, and Ada.
 
M

Mathias Gaunard

Daniel said:
Yes. You should also study SmallTalk, Python, and Ruby. As well as
Scheme, Lisp, CLOS, Eiffel, and Ada.

There are a lot of languages that could be removed, either because they
are redundant or obsolete.
On the other hand, there is no representative of the ML family.
 
R

Richard Heathfield

[Followups set to acclcc++]

grappletech said:
I got a "Beginning C"
book, but the C programs won't compile in the free compilers I have
downloaded.

C is C. Sounds like you got a lousy book, so the solution is to get a better
book. "The C Programming Language", 2nd edition, by Kernighan and Ritchie,
is the definitive guide to C, and worth every penny. (Dennis Ritchie is the
creator of the C language.)
 
S

Stuart Golodetz

Mathias Gaunard said:
There are a lot of languages that could be removed, either because they
are redundant or obsolete.
On the other hand, there is no representative of the ML family.

In that case I recommend Objective CAML. Obviously partly because it just
sounds funny :)
 
E

eriwik

I took Pascal and BASIC in a couple of beginner programming courses about a
decade ago and did well with them. I am good with pseudocode, algorithms,
and the mathematics of programming. I decided I should perhaps learn a
more powerful language to program my own apps. I got a "Beginning C" book,
but the C programs won't compile in the free compilers I have downloaded.
The syntax is different. I guess I have to buy a programming package, but
money's tight. Any recommendations?

If I were you I'd studdy C++, C is also good but it does not have any
OO which is good to know these days. The reason you should go for C++
is that it allows you to do very low-level stuff and program at a very
abstract level. The low-level stuff is good since it teaches you how a
computer and programs work, which is a very good thing. The abstract
thing is good since that's how you should program mostly (there are
exceptions of course). If you are quite good at C++ you'll be quite
good at most languages (except functional ones), the same can not
always be said the other way around.

If you are running on windows I'd recommend trying Visual C++ Express,
a very good environment.
 
M

Master Programmer

Visual Basic 6.0 is the undisputed GOD of programming languages. It
allows for very rapid development times. Don't go for VB.NET as the
newer versions are really a bit of a step backwards and do not offer
the same development speed. Most of the "post vb 6.0" versions are a
bit unstable as well. VB 6.0 remained the same for 8 years, so it has
no bugs like the newer flaky version.

Hope this helps
The Grand Master
 
K

kwikius

Gernot said:
Enough said.

Yeah but what's he a "Grand Master" of? He certainly seems to be a
Troll, but I don't think he is much of a master at trolling as his
posts to now aint't been sophisticated enough IMO, That also means he
can't be a Grand Master of everything. Now maybe he is a Grand Master
BASIC programmer, but in that case why isnt he on some Basic newsgroup
expounding his pearls of wisdom to his apprentices? He certainly don't
seem to have much detail on programming as such, but then I suppose
once you reach such a high level, everything is nothing and nothing is
everything and all that mumbo jumbo. Maybe when you reach the lonely
mountain peaks of programming you turn to Visual Basic as some sort of
"retro programming chic"challenge?.

I guess thats the power of being a Grand master. You can speak what
seems to me be absolute crap, but which is in fact incredibly profound,
except no one understands it, unless they too are a Grand Master. Thats
a lonely position to be in, but this could explain why he's here.
Perhaps its only that on comp.lang.c++ where enough Grand Master
programmers exist, where that programming depth, knowledge and
experience exist, that there is some hope that here someone might
understand? I guess maybe the loneliness of greatness in the world of
VB has become too much to bear?

regards
Andy Little
 
R

rossum

I took Pascal and BASIC in a couple of beginner programming courses about a
decade ago and did well with them. I am good with pseudocode, algorithms,
and the mathematics of programming. I decided I should perhaps learn a
more powerful language to program my own apps. I got a "Beginning C" book,
but the C programs won't compile in the free compilers I have downloaded.
The syntax is different. I guess I have to buy a programming package, but
money's tight. Any recommendations?
What do you want to do and what are you doing it on?

If you want to write programs with a Windows/GUI interface then I
would suggest a language that comes with a standard GUI API built in -
VB, Java, C# or similar. If you just want to write console programs
(green on black text only) then languages without a standard GUI API
will also be possible - C, C++. GUI APIs are available for both, but
they are not standard.

If you are on Linux then Java is probably a good choice; C# and VB are
only really options if you are working on Windows. C and C++ are
available for both platforms. I do not know what is available for the
Mac, probably C, C++ and Java.

C is a lower level language than Pascal or BASIC. C++ has the kitchen
sink and everything thrown in, it can be low level, high level or
anything in between. It has a steep learing curve because it is so
large. Having also started with BASIC and Pascal (and Algol 60!) I
would think that Java (Linux or Windows) or C# (Windows) would be the
best to start with. VB would probably be a step backwards from Java
or C#, and since you already know some BASIC it would be good to learn
a different language.

Once you have picked up one language it is easy to pick up others.

rossum
 
F

Francis Glassborow

grappletech said:
I took Pascal and BASIC in a couple of beginner programming courses about a
decade ago and did well with them. I am good with pseudocode, algorithms,
and the mathematics of programming. I decided I should perhaps learn a
more powerful language to program my own apps. I got a "Beginning C" book,
but the C programs won't compile in the free compilers I have downloaded.
The syntax is different.

Then you have either a badly broken book (very likely as the majority
are) or a broken compiler (much less likely). Quincy + GCC or MinGW with
MinGWStudio both work fine as C compilers as do several others.
I guess I have to buy a programming package, but
money's tight. Any recommendations?

Absolutely unnecessary but tell us which book you are using and give us
an example of code from the book that fails to compile.
 

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