Want to learn to program

wolfman

nej wrote:

Probably right about improving grades. Remember Java is a managed language, so things like pointers and memory allocation are redundant. It's those things that are harder but make better programmers.

Java is pretty easy, really, as all that is done for you.

Hmmm, arguably a better programmer. Depends whether you need to know that sort of thing. Garbage collection in managed languages such as Java and C# is put there to make things easier for you.

I wouldn't necessarily say Java is easy either. It's easy to pickup but you can always take it further, whether this be more low level like reading bits from an ID32Tag, or overall architecture, business logic, data access, unit testing etc...

The whole idea is to take away a lot of the tricky or annoying tasks. That's why C++ was developed and Java too, otherwise we'd still be coding in machine code.

GoldenEye

A good start would be Visual Basic in Excel. I taught myself Visual Basic 6 but C/C++ are supposed to be good programs. I've also learned MATLAB and FORTRAN which are quite difficult.

Incidentally, if you are at University there are usually courses available to begin learning (from as little as £5 or sometimes even free).

wolfman

The easiest platform to pickup at the moment is probably the .Net framework. Microsoft have put together a very good, powerful yet easy to use package.

https://www.asp.net has plenty of tutorials, and videos.

Ruby on Rails is another decent alternative.

A_Clock

Is Visual C++ different to C++ in anyway? Or is it just a name Im just going to throw myself in at the deep end, and go from there lol Just finshed downloading them express editions.

DrBenway

C++ is a programming language.

Visual C++ is a Microsoft program for writing C++. It includes all the tools for writing, debuging, linking, compiling C++ programs etc...

Microsoft do provide a free "Express" version of Visual C++ for download on MSDN.