What Language To Learn?, the general idea

[rkarman]

Hello,


I want to talk a lil bit about the choice you are facing and the questions you need to ask yourself. I take it you want to learn programming if you are reading this post and that you don't know where to start or what language to learn.

In my experience it is wrong to listen to people who will just tell you to go learn this or that language. It's all quite simple, basically you need to think about it the same way as if you would go buy a new car. You analyze what you want of an car, you analize what each brand offers, then you look at the specific models you choose as suitable and let your feeling decide.

So this means you need to go think about what you need from a programming language or why you even want to go learn programming. Usually i ask peopel a few questions when the express that they want to go learn a language and ask me what a good choice would be. Usually i start of asking what "type" of program the person dreams of making some day. Then usually they never know what that question means so i go give a few sample "types" of programs.

some "types" of programs:
games, office applications, utilities and tools, business applications, web sites/weblications, graphics and or sound editing, multi media, etc

the reason i ask this is because i have a simple rule to programming and that is "look at where you want to be, then look at where you are. now think of what is the biggest obstacle in your way and go at it head on". in my experience nothing is ever too big or difficult to handle if you just follow this method, but it requires you to have a goal. if you go learn programming the goal should be making a program of some type i guess, then you can see which language would be best suitable to take the first obstacles.

for instance if you want to go make a game the next question would be if it is text based, 2D graphic based or 3D graphic based game. each of these types of games would lead you in a different direction. so lets say it's a 2D game, then the question would be if it is supposed to be able to play it online on a webpage or if you want it as normal program with a setup. if you want it online then a language like flash or java would be ideal but if you wanted it to be a setup type game a language like darkbasic could be a much better choice.

so what did i look at in the example? well usually a few things are needed to be looked at:

- the amount of data the application needs to handle
- how heavy is the program on I/O like graphics or sound
- does it need to work on a website
- do you want it to work on all operating systems or just on one (like windows for instance)
- does the program need to communicate with other people on the net (like an chat client)
- how many people need to program on it together
- is it for hobby or commercial
- are there any odd things? like for instance: has to work on a phone, has to add features to another already existing program, etc.

when you have it all figured out for yourself you can at least ask someone to help you to choose for you instead of for themselves


well, i'll go give a few languages here and the main direction they are used for. note that i did not give all languages that are there, and these might not be the best or only choice around! it's just an indication on how to chooce and where to start.


Games 2D / 3D:
- DarkBasic
- DotNet + DirectX

Games 2D in websites:
- Flash
- Java

Office:
- DotNet
- Visual Basic
- Delphi

Utilities & Tools:
- Delphi
- Visual Basic
- DotNet / Java

business applications:
- DotNet
- Java

web sites:
- Asp(.NET)
- PHP
- Perl
- Javascript

graphics/sound:
- Delphi
- C
- C++

multi media:
- Delphi

advanced tools:
- C
- Assembler

[killkimo]

hi


thank uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

[app]

Now why you didn't ask me this, in the beginning, is beyond me. It could have saved me a lot of time, wasted energy, and most of all...tears of frustration.

I am glad you made this post though...it will definitely help other beginners that don't know where to start.