quote:Original post by Neverwinter
unless you’re a mad nut who has learned many different programming languages.

For values where 'mad nut' == 'competent programmer', that is.

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IMAO, anyone who knows fewer than three truly different programming languages - plus at least a smattering of assembly language, preferably a lot more - has no right to call themselves a programmer at all, no matter how good they are at coding their language of choice. Without exposure to different viewpoints, you will never have the flexibility to push you code as far as it can go.

(OTOH, from personal experience I have concluded that most of the tools in Visual Studio (VB, FoxPro, J++) don't count as part of those three. )

When I say 'different', I don't just mean "C, C++ and Java"; to really get a well-rounded knowledge of your craft, you shold look at things like LISP, APL, Smalltalk, tcl, Python, or Forth - lanuguages which take radically different approaches to the entire concept of programming from the more conventional ones. You'd be amazed at how much better a C++ programmer a little knowledge of, say, Self, or Miranda, will make you, really. Try reading How to Design Programs (available in online in entirety), for a really eye-opening experience in a slightly uncommon language (Scheme).

As for assembly, well, you'll never really understand what the computer is doing if you don't know at least enough to follow a simple assembly listing. If only so you can debug your code, assembly really does remain important. It's also not as hard as it is said to be; there is a great book, Assembly Language Step by Step (not online, sadly, but it does use the open-source Netwide Assembler for it's examples), which I think every PC programmer should at least read through. Even if you never write any assembly code, knowning how things work underneath the hood makes a tremendous difference.
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To answer the first question, Visual C++ does not count as a separate language from standard C++, no matter how much M$ would like people to believe otherwise; it is a decent, if not very efficient, compiler and solidly designed IDE with a lot of added features, but it's still C++.

Trouble rather the tiger in his lair than the Scholar among his books


[edited by - Schol-R-LEA on November 4, 2002 5:42:03 PM]

quote:"LISP, APL, Smalltalk, tcl, Python, or Forth"

What, no Prolog or Clips?
(BTW, since when was Python really that different to C/C++ etc.?)

quote:Original post by OrangyTang
What, no Prolog or Clips?
(BTW, since when was Python really that different to C/C++ etc.?)

Well, sure; I mean, If I try to list all the possibilities, we'd be here all day By the time we get to things like Intercal or POP-12, we've probably reached the point of diminishing returns...

As for Python, well, yes and no. It's actually quite different in many ways, but similar enough that it doesn't seem wholly alien to most C programmers. It's also very easy to learn,as it happens.

Oh, another one I will mention be name is SQL; while the standard version isn't a full language by itself, knowing how to use it to query a database from (for example) a C++ program can be a very useful (and possibly lucrative) skill. Also, the Relational Programming paradigm (which is related, distantly, to both the Logic Programming and the Constraint Programming paradigms) has some interesting properties that aren't found elsewhere.
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Trouble rather the tiger in his lair than the Scholar among his books

[edited by - Schol-R-LEA on November 4, 2002 5:53:38 PM]

I agree with Schol-R-LEA. Definetly knowing other languages and technologies is the way to go. I say technologies, because some don''t really count as programming lanuages per se, but are bloody useful nonetheless ( did I hear someone say "xml"?)

and until vc++ compiler is fully ansi compliant I guess you could class it as another language, just a very similar one. just kidding, but seriously in terms of programming jobs (not strictly in the game industry) when you see a job looking for a "C++ programmer/developer/whatever" chances are they''re looking for some one who''s worked on unix and when you see "visual c++ programmer" they''re usually looking for MFC