Programming question

[BlackCat]

I'm thinking Python would be best for me. Would you agree on Python or maybe a different language? Not from a security standpoint for now.

Honestly, I really hate Python. First of all, it isn't a programming language - it's a shell script with advanced features. Yeah, that is good, but then there are the indentation thing - that is reason enough to send nukes against it. I you want to learn programming, choose something else

[Kuciwalker]

Personally, I think Java is a pretty good language to start out with, because it forces you to learn and understand data types and object-oriented programming.

It's often easier to learn basic proficiency in something more free-form like Python without having gotten a really solid internal model of what's going on under the hood.

[KrazyHorse]

Everybody should learn C first, then C++

And no ***** **** like STL allowed. :angry

[Kuciwalker]

Everybody should learn C first

No.

then C++

Lord, no.

[Kuciwalker]

C is a great second language once you've got some solid abstract CS ideas internalized. C++ is a... well, it's a good language to learn for jobs.

[BlackCat]

Everybody should learn C first, then C++

You are old and outdated - no reason to learn C/C# before C++

[KrazyHorse]

C is a great second language once you've got some solid abstract CS ideas internalized. C++ is a... well, it's a good language to learn for jobs.

I learned C first, and the scars barely show.

[Kuciwalker]

I don't believe you. I bet your code isn't any better than JM's. All you physicists are the same.

[BlackCat]

I learned C first, and the scars barely show.

C doesn't give scars - only VB and C# does

[Asher]

I agree it's best to start with an OO language.

I think C# is a better language to start with than Java, because it's a bit more intuitive and less verbose and less pointlessly pedantic. But Java is still good.

Learning C first can lead to many, many bad practices. Most of the hideous code I compulsively refactor is 10+ year old written by oldtimers who undoubtedly grew up on C and later moved to C++.

[Kuciwalker]

C# has the benefit of learning from Java's mistakes, and is an overall better language. My recommendation is partially just bias (as a Java developer) and partially because I think Java's documentation is far better than anything else out there.

[BlackCat]

Just curious, but how do you get C# work outside windows ?

[Asher]

After using C# for a few years, going back to Java was incredibly painful. It's the simple stuff from C# I missed -- string equality comparisons are just "==" (operator overloading in general is essential for me), switch statements could use strings, you didn't need to redundantly declare generics (ArrayList<double> blah = new ArrayList<double>() in Java; ArrayList<double> blah= new ArrayList() in C#; or var blah = new ArrayList<double>() if you really wanted, automating boxing and unboxing of primitive types is awesome too, etc).

Java was created by a pedantic nerd, and it shows. C# was created by an industry veteran who wanted a practical, powerful language.

And yes, I'm aware Java 7 is adding many of the C# features I love. Just like Java 5/6 kept taking C# features and adding it. If you think Java is painful now, you should've been coding against Java 2 1.2/1.3/1.4 . AND yes, I'm still pissed it's technically "Java 2 6.0".

[Asher]

Just curious, but how do you get C# work outside windows ?

On one of our projects, we used an embedded Mono runtime to run C# code on Mac and Linux.

We've since abandoned that for reasons unrelated to the language. We write the Windows frontend in C# (WPF), Mac frontend in Objective C (Cocoa/Quartz Extreme), and Linux frontend in C++ (GTK). Then we put most of our core engine code in a cross-platform C++ codebase.

gcc4 is the bane of my existence at the moment. What a stupid compiler. At least once a day I check in perfectly fine C++ to SVN, only to get spammed by our Cruise Control build systems about compile failures on Mac and Linux.

[Kuciwalker]

Erm, Java has had autoboxing since 1.5.

Also, your generics are being nuked as html tags.