Hey guys, I am a major begginer to programming. The only language I know is HTML. But, I would love to learn. My first question is: What should I learn? Would you guys suggest Visual Basic, or C/C++? I recently bought a book about C++, but it was much to advanced for me. Are there any either Visual Basic, or C++ tutorials, resources, or anything for total begginers? Thanks guys, -Mike aka Maiku

I too am a beginner. Over the last two weeks or so I kept visiting the book store and its bewildering choice of programming books. Finally tired of the indecision I bought "Sam''s Teach Yourself Beginning Programming in 24 Hours" by Greg Perry. I don''t know how it rates but I''m glad I bought it. The author wrote the book as an introduction/explanation about what programming is: its history, current state, and future? The importance of properly designing a program (with flowcharting and/or Pseudocode) before sitting down to code it; the pros and cons of various languages; what they were created to do and how they got their weird names. It isn''t until the eighth hour that you''ll learn some QBasic programming. (QBasic used to be installed with DOS. Now you have to find it in the ''olddos'' directory on your Win9x CD).

I can''t tell you any more as I haven''t read any further. I do like the way I am kind of being eased into the subject. I have a sense that I''m laying a good foundation upon which to build proper programming skills. After this I might mail order (as it''s hard to find in stores) the highly rated book "QBasic by Example" by the same author. Or maybe I''ll move onto Visual Basic or C++.

To sum up I''d say just buy the book or one like it and it''ll answer a lot of questions you have. Then you''ll have a clearer idea of what to do next.

Good luck!

jelb

I learned to program in GWBASIC, then QUICKBASIC, then Pascal, then C, then C++, then x86 Asm, then Visual BASIC, then java. I have to tell you if i had to do it all over again, I would learn java first. I hate Pascal; it is just too verbose for me. BASIC is nice for quick programs (especially since it is interpreted and so has no compile time), but i think its a nightmare for bigger projects because object oriented features were tacked on to the language as an afterthought. C++ is still my favorite language, because it has nice features that are unmatched by any other languages, like template classes. Unfortunately, its often unwieldy and cryptic for a beginner, especially with the compiler warnings and errors, all of the separate files in a project.

Java offers a number of benefits. First, its a relatively safe language. You can''t crash the computer like you can with errant pointers in C. The built in garbage collector makes memory management much easier. Second, since its virtually identical in most syntax to C++, you will be able to leverage your java knowledge to move to C++ later on. Third, its free! You can get the personal version of jbuilder from the borland website for free. Fourth, it has a rich and expansive feature set, especially compared to QBASIC. Fifth, making windows and graphics is much easier in java than in C++, where programming the windows API can be a nightmare. There are also lots of free online tutorials available, including those at java.sun.com.

The only real draw back to java is that its interpreted, which makes in slow for high end games (you won''t be writting these to begin with anyways -- its plenty fast for something like tetris), and it does not run on all computers unless they have the JRE installed.

Visual Basic is not a language, it is a software from Microsoft.


Learn C/C++, that is all you need to make games.

this is just my opinion some might not agree with that

I started about 9 months ago with programming.

I first began with the tutorials that Nehe wrote. I''ve learned the basics of C++ from his site. Then I get a book from the library about C and read that.

A couple of years ago I started with Visual Basic. That whent pretty good. But when I then had a look at C++ I found it far to difficult. So I stopped programming.

Until now, I''m 15 years old and I understand C pretty good. I''m no intend to learn C++.

C++ is a nice language and the most tutorials are written for C++.

I began learning with C++ and must say that I'm quite proficient in the language only after one year.

The book I read was C++ from the Ground Up by Herb Schildt. It's one of the better ones out there. It serves as a good reference later on.

Edited by - Darkor on November 3, 2001 9:53:28 AM