Programming Language's

[Sethenor2]

Hi i am really wanting to learn programming languages but i am not sure what they all do

so if some one or some people can give me some explanations so i can understand

right now i am going crazy on amazon for programming books so help is required :P

These are the ones i want to know about (or anymore that is worth learning)

Visual C++

Visual Basic.NET

Visual Basic

ASP.NET

PERL

Ruby Rails

UML

XML

Note: just a quick explanation to what they do not a full detailed :D

Thanks

[Danny696]

It really depends on what you want to do. Web development, software development, Both, etc..

[Sethenor2]

I wouldn't mind doing both to be honest so yeah both

[Djkanna]

C#

Useful for desktop applications, as well as web applications in the form of .NET

Ruby (rails framework)

Heard a lot about it, and it has a very clean syntax from what I've seen.

Python

Some people swear by it others hate it, I've personally never used it however I've heard it's the language of choice when it comes to scripting for software such as 3d modeling, video games etc.

Food, I'll add more later.

[rulerofzu]

Food is good....i like food.

[Sethenor2]

C#

Useful for desktop applications, as well as web applications in the form of .NET

Ruby (rails framework)

Heard a lot about it, and it has a very clean syntax from what I've seen.

Python

Some people swear by it others hate it, I've personally never used it however I've heard it's the language of choice when it comes to scripting for software such as 3d modeling, video games etc.

Food, I'll add more later.

Ok mate thanks for your imput

[rulerofzu]

Have a read here in case you missed it.....Bertie knows!

Object-Oriented Programming the way to go?

[Spudinski]

In order, with some explanations:

Visual C++

More known as C++ (plus plus), it's an high-level object orientated programming langauge mostly used for "Windows" desktop applications and games.

It's older brother, C, is almost exactly the same but does not offer object orientation and mostly used on Linux/*nix systems. Another sibling is Objective-C, mainly used for programming on Macintosh.

Visual Basic.NET and Visual Basic

Visual basic is an old langauge, but surprinsingly still very much in use. Visual basic is an drag 'n drop IDE, and the syntax is quite simple, although some people find it harder because it does not resemble any other programming language's syntax but is rather much more like Pascal(Delphi). .NET is an addon type, with web functionality and more used and with much more support.

ASP.NET

Many debates with PHP, even though PHP "is" still more popular. It normally goes hand-and-hand with C#(sharp) to make it function better and more flexable. I'm not an expert with ASP, but I do know it is Microsoft's version of a web-programming langue.

PERL

It's the old predecessor of PHP, and a fun fact: PHP 1 and 2 was made with Perl. In the old days it was Linux's native scripting language, and mainly used for maintenance tasks and drawing up graphs on the spot.

Use this with caution though, it is rather easy to learn among the others, but it is kind-of dying out at the moment.

Ruby Rails

Excellent language, really. But you usually don't see it being used on it's own though. Offers many of the same features others do, but more scripting style to it. I'm also not an expert on it, so sorry I cannot give info on it.

UML

The only thing I know is that it is a modeling language, used for object-orientated system programming. Sorry.

As I don't use or see it regularly, I wouldn't suggest you learn it for a startup language.

XML

Also a modeling language as above, but more popular, and much more support for it. Learn it, no second thing about it. You WILL use it, and it WILL help you.

[a_bertrand]

Visual Basic is mainly dead and replaced by VB.NET which is not 100% the same.

Visual C++ is not a language. C++ is and Visual Studio allows to code with it.

ASP.NET is again not a language but a framework / library which can be used by any .NET supported language. Honestly use either C# or VB.NET

UML Is not a language but a standard for diagrams and development documentation.

XML is not really a programming language but a data markup.

Ruby on Rails is again not a language. Ruby is (nearly Python) and Rails is a framework for web development.

So now that I clarified a bit ;)

You should choose between what you want to do, and how you want to do it. As I said multiple times I would personally choose between the Java environment and the C# / .NET one.

Both offer nearly the same kind of features, beside C# / .NET offers a better / smarter support for web applications and Java offers a bit better portability over multiple platforms.

[War_Hero]

Python

Some people swear by it others hate it, I've personally never used it however I've heard it's the language of choice when it comes to scripting for software such as 3d modeling, video games etc.

I'm currently learning Python at University. It's relatively easy to use/program in once you learn. It's different from most languages in the fact that you don't need a delimiter. An example in PHP and Python:

 

PHP

print "Hello world.";

 

Python

print "Hello world."

 

Also, indentation is vital in Python. But as I say, it's a nice language. (Bet I won't be saying that in a couple of weeks when I need to create a game using PyGame. :S )

 

As stated above by several others, it's best to decide what you specifically want to do, and then decide how you want to do it. :)

[Sethenor2]

Thanks for all the answers !

just another few questions

for game development what is best to use?

for application development what is best to use?

[Spudinski]

Depends on what you want them to work.

3D game development, C++ or C# would be best.

App' dev', depends on the system. C++ and C# for Windows, C for linux and Objective-C for Mac.

[Kieran-R]

For Game Development (browser): PHP/MySQL

For Apllications : C++ (<<Not too sure)

[Sethenor2]

Thanks Spud and kieran

[bluegman991]

i have a question about visual basic and its windows only compatibility thing before i learn more about the language

so visual basic all in all (c#,c++,asp,.net,etc...) after compiled does it only work on windos os's?

or is only 1 of them a windows only thing?

and if i were to make an app,2d,3d game with any language would i have to use a diff language for diff os's (windows,mac,linux) or would i only have to use 1 language but have access to the different os's to make it compatible

^basically im asking is it like javascript... with the different browsers having different functions to do the same/different things

[Spudinski]

For 2D and 3D there are frameworks to use such as DirectX and OpenGL. You will have to recreate each build for every OS though.

Visual Studio, when compiled, uses the microsoft framework..(forgot what it's called)... 3 which serves as cross Windows platform compatibility.

The simple answer is yes, and no. Yes for windows, no for others.

[a_bertrand]

Kieran-R: Web game development are certainly not best served by PHP. It works, but by no mean is the best solution for all kind of web devel. PHP is great for small things, couple of quick page. But as soon as you start with something a bit more complex I would not pick anymore PHP.

bluegman991: VB.NET and C# are 2 different language which use the .NET library. I personally find C# much better. Any of the .NET compiled language can then run on any Mono supported platform (Mac, Linux and more). With it you can develop GUI, web application, soap services, browser rich clients (Silverlight), phone applications and more.

For 3D games, either you take the hard road: C++ which is the one which should let you do all, or C# via XNA for example.

2D / 3D games which run on multiple platform? Sorry but all of those will disappoint you. Multi platform development is an issue because not all runs the same way. Honestly for downlodable games if you do it for windows you will have most of the market anyhow if you really want to support multiple os, then... you need to rely on some library or make your own abstraction library. Something like http://www.libsdl.org/. Or yet better use Unity 3D and develop with C# within an engine which runs on all possible platform: http://unity3d.com/

And no it is not like Javascript with different functions for different browsers.

[Sim]

I thought openGL was cross-platform

[a_bertrand]

Open GL is simply an API for 3D. It doesn't define with which language nor it does all. You have the 3D? Well maybe at least partially, but what about mouse, sound, network, file system and whatever else? Open GL doesn't do that.