Be Excellent To Each Other

For a given value of best....

There's only one way to settle this - a good, old fashioned code-off!

i never felt that i was the least nerdy guy like i'm feeling now

Ruby is nice and has the most beautiful tutorial of any language

http://poignantguide.net/ruby/

VB.NET is good for knocking things together quickly. C# is probably more useful, since it's essentially the same thing as VB.NET (only the syntax is different), and if you know C# you'll be able to pick up PHP, ActionScript, C, C++, Javascript, Java and indeed any other C-style language without a great deal of effort.

PHP works as a starting point since it's incredibly easy to get things working. It also teaches some fantastically bad habits - as do a lot of scripting languages - so although you get the satisfaction of making things work, you're not necessarily learning the best way to do things.

Java is another good starting point. There's not a great deal of difference between that and C#, except that Java is obviously a better choice if you don't use Windows. The last time I used Java (just before the release of 1.5, I think) I found it did have its problems though, mainly because of the iterative way it's been developed (retaining backwards compatibility between versions equals cruft).

Only a mentalist starts learning to program with C or C++.

Have you considered something like Blitz BASIC? You can get stuck into writing interesting games pretty much straight away. The problem with Java/VB.NET/C# is that they're, well, boring. Same with PHP - you can make text appear in a web browser. Not as entertaining as a game. Also, if you write a game, we can demand that you fit it with joystick controls.

If that's the one about programming whilst eating a pizza I will laugh and point at you, sir.

[edit]Phew.

Ruby is a glorious language. Not done anything really with it yet, but it's lovely to learn and tinker with. Not least because that guide is so amusing and unusual, yet still right and good.

However, I can't think of anything that jonarob would ever want to do with Ruby, and it's completely unlike most 'big' languages, alas. Or I'd have recommended Python already.

I dunno, I've found Ruby coupled with Rails to be fantastic for web development

Python does seem nice too

I'm an old school asp/vba/html programmer, and I just don't get on with ASP.NET at the moment. It doesn't seem to give you the control of the outputted html that classic asp does, what with the server controls for form input etc. it seems you have to go through a lot of hoops and control properties to do something that would take 5 seconds in classic asp.

Could you recommend any tutorial sites that are aimed at going from classic asp to ASP.NET?

Heh. Well, yes. But jonarob doesn't want to do webby stuff - I only recommended PHP because it's the simplest, least troublesome C-style language I can think of.

Well I ordered that book and I'm gonna have a go at C# - if it is a bit too much then I'll take CUS' advice and start with PHP because it does look pretty straightforward. Thanks guys! I'll let you all know how I get on

Hello! I don't actually see why people have any problems with it. It's lovely.

/clears throat loudly

*smiles* Yes, that is the thing, you have to unlearn all that stuff. Or rather, forget it. Completely, utterly. If you try to understand the generated HTML output, you will get very, very confused. Well, assuming you could even work it out.

You have to think of the page as a compiled form, similar to a VB program or user interface in Access, click here to do X, click here to do Y. The page "remembers" variable settings and so on - I am not quite sure how, but I vote witchcraft. Instead a client/server relationship, the browser is acting like a terminal window, merely rendering HTML output while all the complicated gubbins happens deep within IIS.

I still haven't got the hang of large bits of it - persisting objects across Postback is well beyond me right now (as indeed is understanding of exactly what happens on Postback and during page build) but when it does click, by God you can do some good stuff with it. Light years ahead of many other things, IMO.

OTOH, setting up a paging, sortable Gridview from a SQL database can be done in a minute in ASP.NET and well, never in ASP.



I started with this book.

At no point did someone say "Nice idea. Now do it properly."

Or was it Grim...'s advice?

I'll take it from anyone.

By default in the viewstate - A hidden field in the page. Although you can change this (And often want to, as the viewstate can get horrifically big) to work in different ways.

But yes, completely different from any other kind of web programming. It's designed to have the same code mechanisms as windows forms and similar.

I should have added, "when there are far easier language to start with". They're my current favourite languages, but I wouldn't start out with either as a beginner.

/me clears throat loudly.

And that's not why Grim... was clearing his, jonny boy.

C? As a first programming language, in this exciting future we live in? It doesn't even do strings!
I rather like C++ and I even wrote the beginnings of a shitty Scramble clone in it (libSDL is lovely for cross-platform gammy stuff). As Mr. jonny's first programming language to see what it's like?

I do rather like your new signature, CUS

I know. I've got something from 1995 on the web somewhere still. Which is kinda cool, I guess.

Anyway, programming. It's the one thing I can't get my head around, despite having used computer for a long time and since a young age - can't even manage HTML. What is the knack to learning programming? Oh, and where do people learn it generally, could it be that as I've never taken any sort of computer-y qualifications or courses (not even GCSE IT) that I'm at a disadvantage?

BlitzMax is fairly lovely -- a nice take on object orientation without the brackets 'n' braces stylings of the c-alikes. Not free though.

HTML isn't a programming language.

Personally I feel if you go off an do VB etc you'll be ultimately wasting your time, doing simple things in c# is not tricky and help is always a google away. Plus it's intelisense and autocompletion is absolutely top notch. I don't see how a webby language like php is remotely helpful to you and all the people pushing their pet niche language are fine and all, but you'll be able to apply it to fuck all.



I hope so, they pay me the medium bucks to do so.

He needs to learn about functions and variables and arrays and strings. PHP is the fastest way there. Then, he can think 'Right... now what do I really want to DO, now that I have some idea of how I go about it?', or whatever. C# is surely the best language for him to actually latch onto firmly, but learning PHP first can get him there faster. Yes.

It is a c-style language with a very similar syntax to C#, Java, C++ etc. It's a language that lots and lots of people know - and which even if they don't, they can easily help him with, due to its clear syntax. C# on the other hand is still too new for some, or just not of interest, with some unique keywords. Also, intellisense and that is great and all, but that mostly just teaches him how to use Visual Studio, and to be potentially confused by OO.

Getting going only RIGHT NOW JONAROB BABY only requires downloading XAMPP, a decent free text editor - Notepad++ is my current fave - and he can start on it right away. Jonarob could literally have learned the basics of programming in a day or two. He can see results on his screen in a useful fashion that requires no compilation to extra steps. Plus, he can say he 'knows PHP' and thereby piss off proper PHP programmers who expect to be paid well to do amazing stuff, and rarely, sadly, ever are. Don't get a job doing PHP, jonarob.

edit: fuck's sake - or what tossrstu said far more succinctly

Winnar! to Stu, obv.

I've fished out my "A Level Computing" book (stolen from college and never returned), and I'm learning the basics of programming with the wonderful TURBO PASCAL.

Turns out, I already know most of this, so I must've been paying attention.

A lot of the script-like languages make picking up the principles of OOP a bit easier, that's all I'd say -- I'm glad I learned OOP with BlitzMax as applying the knowledge to lower-level languages is a cinch. Can't really argue about PHP, though -- that would be a really odd first language. (I'm trying to find excuses to use these most excellent new smilies.)

Friend of mine decided to learn the guitar when he was (much) younger. He went to his first guitar lesson and spent an hour learning how to play an open E string. He never looked at the guitar again and eventually sold it.

Years later, he got another guitar and just played along with records. Now he's rather good at it.

My point is, how many beginners really want to learn the proper way to do things? When I started out I didn't care about functions or variables or classes or arrays or strings or anything else, I just wanted to make some stuff move about on the screen. Same with the guitar - playing the same note for an hour isn't any fun, and although it might teach you the *right* way to play that note, if you don't enjoy it then everything you've learnt is useless because you'll just give up.

I was thinking about this the other day, so I'd be interested to hear what people think. If you were going to teach someone to program, would you show them how to do something simple but interesting (make a sprite move around in a Java applet, for example) and gradually explain how you've done it, or would you start them off with functions, variables, classes, etc, and gradually build towards something interesting? My thinking is that if you don't grab someone's attention right at the start they'll never get past the first few lessons.

I was simply suggesting that he learn what variables, functions, strings etc. are whilst seeing their results on-screen, right now, with little effort, right now guy. Then he could go onto C# with a degree of confidence. Since he's already got Turbo Pascal about, he might as well go straight onto C# after, it'd accomplish the same purpose... mostly... enough, I expect.


But that isn't learning how to program, which is what he asked about. *rethinks* Oh, are you suggesting he... downloads a sample game or something, and sort of fiddles with it a bit? That might work too, I support that's one way to see how you can... make shit happen. It's just completely the opposite way to how I would do it, but YOAYO *shrugs*

I'm entirely self taught in (counts on fingers) far too many languages. Mainly by taking the Nike approach and having an idea and Just Doing It.

The downside to this is that some of the terms used pass me completely by. I couldn't describe what a strongly typed array is* but I will automatically use them all the time, and tell off my PFY (fresh out of Uni with a 1st in Comp Sci) for not type declaring all his variables.

I do believe in a natural aptitude for programming, though. Mine was because of all the (borrowed -Ed.) games I used to have for my Vic-20, C64 or Amiga, where you could only work out the instructions from the reviews and tips pages as (the friend had not lent you the instructions - Ed.).

*Actually, I do. Bad example.

Edit:Forgot the footnote

I just programmed something in Pascal using Notepad++ and some strange free compiler. It kind of worked a bit. I managed to make an exe file and it outputs in a cmd prompt sort of thing, but it just flashes on and then closes. Somehow I managed to make it stay on and the calculation I did was out by a decimal place. Learning is fun.

The real question you need to answer in deciding which language to go with is how far you want to be abstracted from the compiler -- all OOP languages will abstract the problem you are trying to solve, because that's what OOP is, and you will be expressing pretty much the same *stuff* in all of them. The difference is that C-alikes will require you to have a better handle on what's really going on (like knowing what pointers are) and hold the compiler's hand for it (this is the end of the line Mr Compiler;) whereas script and BASIC derivatives won't so much. Can you get interesting things up and running in BlitzMax (might as well keep pushing my fave!) faster than C#? Sure. Does it take a long time to get things running in C# by any objective standard? Not really (see XNA). You can't really go wrong.

I am going to copy Jonarob and buy that book, as I too am a simpleton who can't code yet who got a C in A-level Computing (by programming a simple database in BASIC).

Winnar... or LOSER?

If you want to learn java I can get you a lovely free copy (pdf, natch) of a very good textbook. It's being written by one of the lectures at our university and is a very good way of teaching things. Well, some of the examples are fucking crap and the guy likes to do things in very round a bout ways, but the fact is it sets you nice little exercises.

Why not try and and I'll mark them for you? If you learn Java, it's a very small step to learn C#. And from there it's an even smaller step to learn C/C++. Personally my favourite language is ARM Assembler. Nothing like predicated instructions to get me hard.

It is to anyone who knows nothing about computers.

There's loads I'd love to learn, but I have a slight learning difficulty and I'm still working on simple thigns like HTML and CSS, let along moving onto programming.
Still, in future I do intend to look further in to it

*cough*
(Admittedly, I just use WCHAR arrays for everything string related, but still...)

I just prefer it as it gives you a much greater idea of what the hardware is actually doing over any other non-assembly language.
(See also: Why I quite like x86 assembly)

On the subject of Ruby, this book http://www.pragprog.com/titles/fr_ltp is by all accounts a good introduction to programming if you have absolutely no past experience. A few sample chapters online too.

I'm a freelance programmer fluent in several languages and I'd have gone for a dynamic scripting language such as Ruby as a starter for 10. Ignoring all the Rails hype, the underlying Ruby language is fantastic for getting a lot done in relatively few lines of code, and it will teach you sound object-oriented concepts applicable to many other languages.

I think I have to learn C-something again soon.

Right now the only programming I do (under sufferance) is in LSL, a scripting language. "They" are putting some "Mono" thing into the system so it will be all "proper" languages then.

Are you me?

I also got a C for a-level computer science. The teacher decided that my awesome Pascal (Turbo? Ooh, fancy!) written company payroll system wasn't 'appropriate' as a project. Even though he'd been saying how ace it was all year.

Bizarre, I too got a C and also used frigging pascal. In my defense though, the lecturer for the course dissapeared after the first year, and for half of the second year we got a sub who just said 'keep, errr, doing your pascal', which basically meant all we did was piss about on the internet all lesson, every lesson. Eventually a full-time person was hired but he didn't actually have a clue about the course, and it was too late to actually teach us anything. Complete shambles, I say.

I got an F, mainly because we (as in, the whole class) did the wrong coursework, and all got a 'U'. The genius teacher ever taught us LIFO and FIFO backward. He left that year when the PC replaced the Acorns.

We were joking at work yesterday about how useless most computer courses are. Lots of 'This is how the bus works' and 'This is FIFO, LILO, LIFO, FILO...'. Over and over and over and over again.

I have never needed to know the difference between a MAN and a WAN.

LILO is FIFO, surely?