Best programming language to learn?

java = mobile development
c++ = pc and games
visual basic = beginner

Yeah, C++ is so much better than VB.net for an amateur who wants to make games.

C/C++ would be my suggestion. In particular, C++ if you've got some familiarity with the OOP concepts from Python. They're the most used/widespread languages, which have had a lot of influence on many others (a lot of javascript looks identical to C!).

Thanks for
a) Being pretty much the only person who replied to actually read my post
b) Actually explaining your answer.

Probably a stupid question, pros and cons of C vs C++?

yes it is but of course i have no idea what I'm talking about with 6 years programming experience lol

java = mobile development
c++ = pc and games
visual basic = beginner

Haha! That's ok!

My disclaimer is that I strictly only know C to a certain competency, and 'know of' C++; So I'm going to answer essentially "The pros and cons of C, and hence to some extent its related languages", and hope that it's still helpful.

Pros of C:

It is a powerful compiled language, with a lot of cross-platform capability. Literally compiling the same source code on a different machine will probably get it to run. By 'powerful', I mean it does.. just about anything. The OS UNIX was/is basically entirely C, and most software today uses C or some variation (C++, C#, Objective C), the last is what iPad and iPhone software is written in. I found it pretty straightforward to learn, and lots of resources if anything became a problem. As i said in my previous post, it has had a lot of influence on other languages - particularly syntax, so learning another language will be easier from this base knowledge. The compiled thing means the program you write will run stand-alone (in contrast to say, Java, which needs a runtime environment, or python, which needs an interpreter), and as a consequence, are faster. Lots of useful libraries around, too.


Cons of C:

It might do 'almost everything', but that isn't near a guarantee that it's a good idea! Some things are better suited to other languages with a different focus; C is a procedural language. In contrast, C++ is object oriented; the difference being in how they can handle your data. "Objects" allow the programmer to deal with the relationships between their data much more 'humanly' than other languages. I have no idea what you'd like to do with it, but I shall say everything I have ever done runs inside a console window. The package I use (Xcode) doesn't really allow much help for GUI programs; maybe other development environments will make this easier, but I don't know! In general though, there aren't too many cons, unless you have something specific in mind. Such as, if you were going to write smallish programs to run on a website for various tasks, you'd never use one of these languages! you'd use javascript, PERL, PHP, or something along those lines (i.e., designed for the task). The upshot again is that javascript in particular has essentially identical syntax to C for certain things.


This is all I can really think of off the top of my head right now.. If you have any more questions though, I'm happy to answer as best I can!

I'm fairly okay with python, and while I will continue with it, I wanted to pick something new up as a new challenge as my uni workload is quite low this term...was thinking C++, but does anyone have any recommendations for anything that would be more useful?

Thanks.

yes it is but of course i have no idea what I'm talking about with 6 years programming experience lol

Sorry for someone with 6 years experience you're clueless, VB is a horrible language for learning anything and teaches crappy conventions.

did me fine

'fine' Java or even C# would still be better, VB should die it's a piece of crap

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There's nothing wrong with modern vb.

Op I would go with c# to start with then learn c++ for 3d game development.
C++ has a steep learning curve for a beginner. Just getting anything graphical together is a fair bit of work.

C# will be useful for general purpose programming and will reduce the learning curve for c++