Thread: first prog. language

Originally posted by lightatdawn

Personally I went the Basic->Pascal->C++ way and rather enjoyed it. It nice having those joyous discoveries of each new language as they get progressivly better.

Nothing->Basic:
Oh look: I can print my name on the screen! Plus, I can even ask you to enter your name!

Basic->Pascal:
Oh, look: I can format my code and the evil automatic syntax checker is GONE! Plus, as this isnt a scripting language, my code runs faster than Bill Gates would after a lobotomy.

Pascal->C++:
Oh look: Power, OO, versatility. Plus, there is no such command as "uses".

very nicely done l@d.

I had done logo and gwbasic before but i never really studied them since they were just extra/added classes in school and there marks/grades were not included in the exam results. so i barely managed to pass the exams.

So I can say that my first real programing lang was c++ and from that experience, i can say people can continue on with that.
Theres absolutely no need to directly rush into OOPS concepts. You can start with simple programs and then go forward to the real thing.

It seems that some of you guys have answered the question: where did you start programming... my next question would be: what would you suggest for a complete newbie to start with? I know it's a bit too late for me to "start", but I'm still interested for what would be the "best" way.

Would C be an OK way to go, or is there a better language to teach one the concepts of programming?

QuickBasic -> C++

But the most i did in QB was make a cash register program

I was 15 when i started programming and ill be 16 in june.

>what would you suggest for a complete newbie to start with?
In my brutal opinion, start with C or something else difficult. That way it's easier to cull the idly curious from those who really want to learn programming. C for a beginner is a great challenge. If you don't like challenges then programming is not for you.

-Prelude

What is with you people?
Whether or not HTML is a programming language, it absolutely helps to learn real programming.
Especially when you get into more advanced HTML.
As for my vote, I'd go for VB, it teaches concepts, and the way you need to think to succeed in programming.

Qbasic is evil. I learned basic and C on my own...starting with basic made me a sloppy coder...I should have started with C.

Personally, the best introduction to programming is with an HP graphing calculator. It's stackiliscious.

More realistically, there are two schools of thought on what a good language to learn is.

On one hand, you have the programs. Abstract Data types, OO programming, platform independence. Java would be the best example of a programming language like this, and I would reccomend learning Java, and then learning how to implement Data Structures in Java. Basically, there are some nice theoretical bits involved with using Java, and it probably is more practical real world experience, but you basically resign your ability to have any idea of what is really going on in the program's memory, and I do consider this a pitfall...

On the other hand, there are the computers. Memory, processor arithmetic, and bit fields. Assembly would be an extreme, but Really, C is the right language for this. C is nice in that, well, you can become a C guru in two months. It gives you everything you need to write a program, which is surprisingly little. For every action you perform in C, it is easy to figure out, roughly, what the computer memory is doing. The only problem with such up front honesty is that it means that you can't implement any of the goodies in Java untill you actually understand how memory works. Once you get to some bigger programs (like say, windows programs), using C may start to become troublesome (It's not so bad really, I use C in windows, but windows programming in Java REALLY easy). But for the kind of apps that you'll be programming (console apps I assume), it shouldn't be much of a hinderance.

Personally, if you can write a program in C, then you could probably write that program for any Turing machine, and that's why I think C is the language to learn academically. Not to mention, what with Linux and Unix, C is something of a lingua franca for programmers.