Easy Programming Language

[Prince21]

What is the easiest programming language to learn?

What is the quickest?

[Rob2687]

Turing is a very easy to learn language. Any noob could probably learn in a day, plus its excellent for teaching someone the basic conditional statements and looping structures and stuff.

[n3wt]

is that learn C# because it will be good for the futre.

Thats questionable, I wouldn't learn it first as it is sort of a flash in the pan technology right now, learn the basics first, which can be applied to C# or anything else.

I'd start with C, its very low level, and will teach you good programming practice, then move on to C++ which is the dominant tech right now.

After those two C# and Java will be a breeze. (though you may feel limited by Java :p)

[dotRoot]

C# can't be the way of the future unless its cross-platform. Granted people are porting .NET to other platforms, but I'm sure MS is ****ed about that and I doubt people using other OS' than Windows probably wouldn't want to go to the trouble of running .NET applications.

My vote goes to C++

[comctrl6]

I just wanted to mention a couple of things I came across when I was reading most of the posts here:

1. If you really want to learn how to write computer programs and you are serious about it, most of the modern programming languages are suitable for you.

2. My suggestion is to start by Java. Java looks like C++, so you will learn the syntax at the same time. Also Java was an OO (Object Oriented) programming languages from the get go, so as the result of that, it does not look confusing or hard to read. Besides, if you know Java you already know C# ;).

3. You have to remember that almost all of the operating systems and programs (96%) were written in C++, so if you're planning to do ANY serious work, you need to know C++.

4. You can get a compiler for most of the programming languages mentioned here. Here is a list of some of the websites you can get the compilers from:

A. Java - You will need the J2SE 5.0 JDK (Java 2 Standard Edition Development Kit)</a>. The Standard Edition should be suitable for most of the tasks. The JDK package comes with the Runtime Environment, if you don't already have it installed. Once you have installed the JDK you should add the location of the java.exe and javac.exe to your PATH environment variable. To do this, open a command prompt and type:

set path=path;C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.5.0\bin

Of course you need to enter the path where you installed the JDK instead of the default path that I typed here.

Now to compile and run Java files, just open up a command prompt window and type:

javac <the name of the file>.java
java <the name of the file>

The file extension (.class) should not be included in the second command.

B. VB.NET, C#.NET, J#.NET or JScript.NET - For all of these languages, you will need the Microsoft .NET Framework. It is about 23 megabytes and it can be downloaded from the Windows Update website if you haven't installed it already. Alternatively it can be downloaded from the MSDN website. You will need the v1.1 Service Pack 1. Version 2.0 is in beta testing period and v1.0 does not include J#.net. If want to run J#.NET programs you will also need to download the J# .NET Redistributable package (J#.NET is the version 1.1 implementation of the Java programming language on the .NET platform. The v1.1 of Java is considered deprecated by Sun). Once you have downloaded and installed the .NET Framework, just like the JDK, you will need to add the location of the .NET compilers to you PATH environment variable. Open a command prompt window and type:

set path=path;C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.X.XXXX

Again you need to add the correct path instead of the default path I typed here.

Now to compile any of these .NET languages you open a command prompt window and type:

For VB.NET:

vbc <the name of the file>.vb

For C#.NET:

csc <the name of the file>.cs

For J#.NET:

vjc <the name of the file>.java

For JScript.NET:

jsc <the name of the file>.js

C. Python - You will need to get the runtime environment and the compiler from the Python's Website. I personally haven't installed this language, but you should be able to install Python by following the installation instructions on it's main website.

D. Scheme - You can download the DrScheme programming environment from here. There are different versions for Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, FreeBSD and Solaris. DrScheme is mostly an educational tool used in many high schools and Universities.

E. C/C++ - You can download many free command line compilers. One of them is the Microsoft C++ compiler which is used in the full version of Visual Studio. They are free and can be downloaded from here. You could also download the GNU C++ compilers. There is a nice setup tool that can help you setup these compilers. You can download it from here. The GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) also has compilers for Java (produced native Java code), Ada, ObjectiveC, FORTRAN and the D languages.

I personally suggest learning Java first, so you understand how OOP (Object Oriented Programming) works. Then you could move to VB.NET since VB.NET, compared to VB6, is a complete OO language, you will comfortable with it. After VB.NET you could move to C++ or ObjectiveC. Remember that the best learning tool is to practice. Another good learning tool could be the samples codes provided on many websites on the net. I hope this little write up answers some questions.

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

C# can't be the way of the future unless its cross-platform. Granted people are porting .NET to other platforms, but I'm sure MS is ****ed about that and I doubt people using other OS' than Windows probably wouldn't want to go to the trouble of running .NET applications.

My vote goes to C++

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Microsoft aren't being closed minded with the CLR like they are with their other products, the more people programming on the CLR means more programmers using ms stuff, and dont forget they released rotor, a open source CLR before the mono team did.

But, i think C++ is the best aswell, it gives you the oo fundamentals which apply to every oo language

Edited December 5, 2004 by The_Decryptor

[Lionheartilly]

i just want to say hats off to comctrl6 for typing that up one way or another. Commendable.

[n3wt]

"Why are we learning C?"

This question came up in my programming class today, and my teacher replied with this website.

[CLICK HERE]

Which tracks the popularity of a programming language, nice trends to note, are C going up (for reasons unknown) and Java sinking like a rock (thank god), php also seems to be going up like a rocket. (yay)

And hey, Python is at least relevant. (w00t)

[Ultra Frosty]

Pascal is fun to program in. It is just as powerful as C.

The Free Pascal Project has support for almost every platform, and the Help and Documentation can't be beat.

[n3wt]

Pascal is fun to program in. It is just as powerful as C.

Pardon.

[-ben]

No one has said GameMaker.nl

[revvo]

Among Easiest Languages to understand/learn IMO:

Bash Scripting.

Although this may not be actual "programming" (not OO, no compilers), you do find fundamentals such as writing functions, if, loop, switch statements and more although the actions performed are mostly linux commands (grep, sed, etc.), it's still a fairly easy language to write scripts in.

Java

Although people have very controversial opinions on Java such as "It's great cause of portability" or "It blows cause of the VM", ignore these for a second and look at the language itself and how it's used. Learning Java makes it easy to learn other languages such as c++. It has the fundamentals that you'll see in almost every other languages and the only thing that you'll "waste" your time on is learning the differences between one language and another because of many similarities.

Other languages are great to start with like perl or python but please god, do one thing, use a clear syntax!

No matter how good your code is, if you write in spaghetti form without comments, then you're not a programmer.

[Malisk]

VB is probably quite easy to learn, but I recommend against getting stuck with it since I find large VB apps being both hard to maintain (can't really put the finger on why, if it's pure syntax problems I'm having with it, or what) and because both C#, C++ and Java are more similar to each other than VB is to any of those, so if you learn one of those three, you're likely to have a much easier time with another ==> big advantage if you're thinking about getting a job as a programmer.

We studied Java a lot at university and I grew quite fond of it since it's more clean than C++ (and C# didn't really exist back then except maybe as early alpha/beta). A problem with C++ for newbies are that you can mix C with C++ and get away with it, which can be really confusing in the end if you're picking up a few things here and a few things there. It also shows in many cases that C++ is built "on top of" C, like an extension, with all the cludges and confusion that implies (references and pointers, copy constructors, operator overloading using regular methods, etc...)

Being platform independent so you can run your Windows apps on Mac and Linux is of course a nice bonus, but I'm really recommending it for its ease of use. Java holds your hand real good when learning to program and you can't mess things up too bad with bad pointers and illegal operations etc with poor error descriptions -- you always get pretty stack traces, while maintaining less language complexity than e.g. C#.

And don't confuse Java with Javascript and HTML pages, it's two entirely different things.

I think I'd recommend starting out with Java to get a very nice introduction to OO concepts in a very clean language without a lot of confusing stuff like pointers and also with less language features to possibly get confused about. After Java, you can move on to C++, then C# and somewhere along the way maybe look at VB and throw up. :laugh:

[Malisk]

How about since you are still a 'virgin', why not learn The Mother of all Languages - Assembly

Randal Hyde's Website - The Art of Assembly Language

Assembly may not be the fastest or easiest language to learn, but It does create the smalest and fastest programs.

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Heh, one should notice that the cost in development time for the little added speed and toughness to maintain assembly code is generally too poor in the corporate field to be worth it though. I guess if you develop compilers or work in a niche area it could be useful though. However it *is* a great way to learn how computers work. :) It's cool to directly develop for the MMX instruction set and compare to how it performs vs SSE2 instructions, and see how ridculously few registers and generally annoying the x86 processor is compared to e.g. a good old MIPS. :)

[dimkasta]

Well my experience is mostly with Java and its related technologies but I have recently done some research in .NET and other MS techs.

It seems that .NET technology has more readily available and easy to use tools that any other modern (that is new) language. You just have to "PAY" for it (or do you?).

A quick refference guide (from my point of view)

Assembly -> Tough to learn, low level language, fast. Mainly used for device progs.

C,C++ -> Relatively easy to learn. Fast progs, needs good knowledge of hardware and low level programming aspects such as garbage collection, memory handling and such.

JAVA -> Fast to learn, actully it is a modern version of C++ mainly created for networked apps and server - web applications.

C# -> MS's answer to JAVA. It's actually JAVA with many improvements in syntax.

VB.NET - > It is the Object oriented version of VB. The usage is rather awkward if are used to C like syntax. Not a real Object oriented language (not build from scratch as such).

Now the question is what framework you want and can use.

.NET, C# VB.NET and the such are firmly attached to Windows.

The other languages can be used in almost all OSs.

I am a web programmer and I have mainly worked with JAVA. It has a vast library of tools and ready to use open source solutions.

However, I will turn to C# and .NET . It has much more ready functionality out o f the box as a platform and is realy easy to program using V Studio.NET.

It handles out of the box matters that Java users have to deal with every time. I will mostly work with ASP.NET as a technology and I am overwhelmed by the functionality I can use out of the box.

that....

[azcodemonkey]

VB.NET - > It is the Object oriented version of VB. The usage is rather awkward if are used to C like syntax. Not a real Object oriented language (not build from scratch as such).

Not a real OO language? Yes, it is. Yes, it does have some features that aren't OO, such as modules, but it doesn't preclude a developer from adhering to OO practices.

[rkv]

LOGO

FD 40

RT 90

FD 20

FD=foward

RT=right

learnt it in like 5th or 4 th grade

[THE BAT]

Visual Basic :)

[easternBrain]

I'll vote for html, then pascal cos I did that way.

PPL may differ on opinions based on their requirements, and learning skills :ninja:

Java is not a bad languages to begin with, I think the way everything is arranged in it makes it easier for a beginner.... just like html.

but as of today I must agree that my programming skills are on an all time low :blush: , coz im into double majors :sleep: -Law :rofl: and management :pinch: for two years, havent even coded a website in html, I use editors like frontpage for that as well. I guess i'll take up some reading this summer hols. :rolleyes:

[NeoXY]

Visual Basic  :)

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yep...pretty much...

[MrCobra]

Delphi is good, easy to learn and is a compiled language. Try it.

[Kestrel]

"Why are we learning C?"

This question came up in my programming class today, and my teacher replied with this website.

[CLICK HERE]

Which tracks the popularity of a programming language, nice trends to note, are C going up (for reasons unknown) and Java sinking like a rock (thank god), php also seems to be going up like a rocket. (yay)

And hey, Python is at least relevant. (w00t)

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Java is hardly "sinking like a rock". The fact is that if you plan on doing anything beyond desktop apps (i.e. working with large code bases in the business or Enterprise spaces) then you WILL be using Java. 97% of the Fortune 1000 have significant Java-based infrastructures.

You're a student so you don't know any better... the biggest thing you've worked on is probably at most a few dozen classes and a few thousand LOCs. Work with a real code base, multiple branched streams in a team with dependencies on other teams and a deadline 1/3 the length of the time you really need and see what you have to say then. Language snobbery will accomplish one thing: putting you out of work. I've been coding for 22 years, I have a CS degree and I make my living as a professional developer. The bulk of my work today is written in Java whereas just a few years ago it was roughly 80% C/C++, 20% Java.

Learn the big-three (and preferably in this order): C, Java, C++ - anything else you learn along the way is gravy but learning those three is key to staying employed.

[Kestrel]

I wish people would quit saying that, Java's bright future has yet to materialize.  Its missing too many features that a professional programmer simply cannot be without, and because of this is not suitable for the devlopment of anything beyone a small application.  It has its niche, but it is by no means the future.

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That is SO much BS.

97% of all Fortuen 1000 companies have a HEAVY investment in Java-based servers. That's 97% of the BIGGEST companies... that's not a niche.

I've coded professionally in a number of languages and the amount of Java I've done over the years has only gone UP because it's the platform of choice for enterprise-scale applications.

Quite frankly... you don't know what you're talking about.

[Hankyone]

QBasic is my fav! :D

type that

---

screen 1

sleep 30

do

for i% = 300 to 900

sound i%, 10

next i%

loop until chr$=" "

---

save it as 1.bas on root

add "qbasic /run 1.bas"

on autoexec.bat

then turn on the comp and you will have 30sec to run away! :D

(in school its funnay! :p)

[Power Surge]

Python was my first language. I found it easy to learn, and humorous at times. Python is also already preloaded onto Apple computers running OS X.

[-ben]

What is the easiest (To learn, and write) of all? I am too lazy to go through and search every launguage to find the easiest.