I've been programming for a year and a half, I basicaly started doing it when I started my high school studies . I've programmed a few things before in C and VB, but those I never got any further than making a few loops and output statements .
Until now I've studied these languages (most programming languages knowledge is realy basic)

• C++
• Java
• PHP (and HTML, but that's not realy a programming language, now is it - ow, and a tad of SQL too)
• Matlab
• VHDL (hardware description language)

Things I'd like to learn:

• Cobol (seems to be that IBM is begging for people who know this language)
• Python
• more Java, I love it (and a lot of firms require you to have some Java knowledge)

Yes, you are right. A lot of (rich) customers have a lot of applications, written some tens of years ago, purely cobol on proprietary systems. And now, these customers want to switch to Unix. But they want to
re-use the same cobol applications.
And there are not so many cobol specialists nowadays. Today, young people just coming from school learned C programming, but not cobol programming.
So, situation is clear.
If a company needs to start a new application, they write it in C language, and they easily find new developpers.
If a company needs to mantain an old cobol application, they have to find cobol specialists somewhere. IBM may provide them, but they have to find them.

I've been in the mix for about 15 years or so...

I started with QBasic on my old DOS-5 machine... we were a little bit late getting into the whole computer fad...


Now, I'd say I'm probably about 7 or 8 years into C++ - which I still prefer... win32/64 and kde development at the moment...


other langs include VB 3.0 / 4.0 / 6.0 ... VB/C++/C# .NET ... JAVA

scripting: HTML, JS, VBSCRIPT, PHP


definately not old enough to be a part of the ALGOL crew... lol...

i've been programming for about 1 month....i didnt even create my own scripts...i downloaded them and rebuilded,fixed,debugged and other things....never created one from scratch

I must be getting up on... 8 years maybe? I didn't really do any programming until high school, and even that was just QBasic haha. I knew HTML and a bit of scripting stuff before that but I didn't really get into programming until university so about 5 years ago. That was when I learned java and since then it's been java, C, C++, php, VB6, VB .Net, etc. I think the most unusual language I've taken a turn with would have to be Prolog simply because it is a declarative language which was quite different from what I was used to. Interesting stuff though.

I don't know to be honest. I had 2 yrs of Object Pascal (Kylix/Delphi), bash scripting, PHP in school.

For just an idea, I learned some Flash actionScript And while I never paid much attention to php in school, I saw myself wanting to learn it for my site. Currently I am heavily into Lua for WoW addons, though I am not sure if Lua is an actual programming language. I do see resemblances to php and C++, in which I've dabbled for a while. I did study some Java, but due to a poor course (Jeigh knows about this) I gave up on it. I think he said even he, while already knowing Java, couldn't understand it lol.

One thing I have major issues with in lua, the ; to finish a sentence, for some obscure reason it's not needed, while it can be used but often makes code error in wow

Does anyone wanna recommend a language?

(For me) Basically, there are two flavors of Programming languages - one accounting to the classic C/C++ types and the other resembling BASIC. I began with the latter (which includes the likes of VB/VB .NET/ASP/ASP .NET) back in schooling days. Even though, I have learnt a great deal of the former category namely, C/C++, Java/Javascript, C# & PHP, I prefer BASIC style coding. Its much closer to english and is kind of easy going on the eyes too. At first, I disliked C++ which came in as an optional subject in senior secondary. However my stand didn't last long, especially on realizing the immensely greater power that it provided (compared to GW-Basic which is what I really knew at that point of time). I was also trying my hands on VB6 back then. Even though I didn't have access to the Internet, I managed to get quite comfortable in it, thanks to the MSDN documentation.

Object Oriented Programming brought about by C++ just seemed like another one of those hocus-focus features of programming languages. It wasn't until I got into NIIT and realized the true motives of the methodology. Ever since, I have been awed by the benefits it provides. I would have switched my focus to C/C++ type languages but then I came across the (then) recently released VB .NET 2005 Express Edition IDE. It was such a major advancement to VB that I fell in love with it. With the addition of full Object Oriented support, VB could finally go head to head with other languages.

I remember m^e telling me to go for C# because it was said to be more powerful than VB .NET but I never really went for it. That was until the language was included in our curriculum. Learning it wasn't that hard considering the prior experience with both C++ and VB .NET. There were certain differences in building GUI applications (like the need to manually instantiate the forms in C#), lack of the immensely helpful My object, etc. But it was still pretty easy.

Then JAVA was due in our second semester. It was another one of those things that I didn't want to learn (infact it still is), but had to learn. I like certain aspects of JAVA but still .NET is my prefered platform.

I learned PHP from w3c.org and ever since have become quite good at it. I haven't been a big fan of SQL but again NIIT forced us to learn it. It came really handy when I started using MySQL database for my website. I have been improving in Javascript ever since m^e introduced me to AJAX. As of now, Internet Programming has become my main focus. Even most of my Desktop applications are either Internet based or Internet enabled.

Coming back to the two categories of programming languages, here are somethings I like/dislike about them:-

C/C++

+ {s and }s for marking code blocks. Its much better than the Begin and End we have in VB.
+ The ; has almost become synonymous with this type of languages. Initially annoying as it was, I now find the language incomplete if we had to use VB style CrLfs for seperating lines.
- Double Equal Tos for comparing, even though I don't get confused with = and == anymore.

VB/VB .NET

+ Closer to English. (Having to use the Is and IsNot operator for objects, OrElse, AndAlso operators are all much more realizable)
+ MOD operator in place of %. Again, one of those things much closer to real life.



You should try VB .NET, even if for the sake of the greater lot who are masters in it.

This post has been edited by turbopowerdmaxsteel: Jan 20 2008, 06:09 PM

That is great, rebuilding scripts is a good way of learning how to program. I use to do that in high school when I make web pages, I create some things and other parts were modified scripts. Is a good way because you learn how things are programmed and then you can learn those techniques and create your own. Nowadays I program almost everything I use; I only download some complex and very good scripts (like scriptacolous.js).

Yeah I started a bit like that, just modifying some mIRC scripts, or more examining them to see which piece does what.

It helps to gain a better understand of what more specific things do, especially if you can't manage to build things yourself from scratch, or know how to use certain functions and/or features etc.

i've been learning different programming language for 2 years now, since my current degree i took in college is BS in Information Technology. I've been learning C/C++ programming during my freshman year, Java Programming & Web Programming on the 1st semester of my sophomore year and now currenlty taking up assembly language with interfacing...