What programming language do you prefer?

[atomicbomb]

You can also become a Dev with pure WML/Lua.

Cool, I wonder who is the developer with pure WML


Conclusion :
WML to make UMCs(IIRC someone said that some UMCs also use lua)
Any High level(perl,python,lua, etc) for beginner program
Any low level(C++, etc) for mre complicated program.
HTML/PHP/Java for web

am i right?

[Frogger5]

Of course, there is also Basic, which is fairly easy from what I've seen/heard. But isn't used much nowadays? Nah don't use basic.

[ShikadiQueen]

Hi guys, I'm interested in programming but I don't know the best programming language, and I need your reference.

so, what programming language do you prefer?

FLAMEWAR TIME!



Am I late?

[ajf]

Any High level(perl,python,lua, etc) for beginner program
Any low level(C++, etc) for mre complicated program.
HTML/PHP/Java for web

I wouldn't suggest perl for beginners. lua I do not know.

HTML/PHP/Javascript for web. Java for just about everything, in particular quite good for learning, because there are many tutorials available online, it is less messy than c++ but still quite similar and just a very standard modern object-oriented programming language.

And don't forget Matlab for scientific dataanalysis

Cheers,
ajf

[atomicbomb]

Ah.. I forgot one important specification, FREE! There's some languages which requires money, and I also hate something that hard to debug (WML, C, CPP)... People said that it takes lot of hours to debug..

heh.. i think i should write an Interpreter for WML(maybe few years later) so it's easy to debug it.

[Sapient]

Perl and C++ are not good programming languages for beginners.
HTML is more of a webpage design language than a programming language.
Flash games are written in a language known as ActionScript.
Debugging is hard in any programming language.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programming_language

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educationa ... experience

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measuring_ ... popularity

[Reepurr]

I agree with Sapient's post in general.

Here's a big "order of difficulty" list of coding for you.
Basic coding:
HTML
WML

Getting harder:
Java(?)
ActionScript
Lua

ARGH:
C
C+
C++
Perl(?)

Personally, I'm just moving into "Getting harder" - Lua - and that's pretty tricky, but understandable.

[bigkahuna]

Here's a big "order of difficulty" list of coding for you

That's a pretty decent list of difficulty.

I also hate something that hard to debug (WML, C, CPP)... People said that it takes lot of hours to debug.

Debugging is hard in any programming language.

Amen. I tried C++, and I could never find where in the world I messed up... In WML, I find it drastically easier (the stderr.txt file gives you a list of all your errors generally).

[Sapient]

Here's a quote by Brian Kernighan (one of the creators of Unix): "The most effective debugging tool is still careful thought, coupled with judiciously placed print statements."

He said that in 1979 but there is still some truth to it.

[MCP]

That's funny, I find WML difficult to debug compared with C++ or C.

Python is an interpreted language which makes it 'easier' to learn, in my opinion.

Learn python by programming games (will update with more links if I get them):
http://inventwithpython.com/ (read the book online for free)
http://rene.f0o.com/mywiki/LectureOne (decent)

Learn python by using it for math or engineering applications (The gui is in a web browser such as Firefox):
http://www.sagemath.org
http://www.sagemath.org/help-video.html

I find either of these appeal to people with different types of applications in mind.

Reasons for python:
1. Well documented.
2. Lots of people use it.
3. Motivation: Since you're into games, there are many introductions for learning to program by implementing games.
4. It's getting faster. It is generally at least 10 times slower than C/C++ or java equivalent, if not more. I've gotten even over 100 times slower in simple test apps. However with newer things in the works such as converting python to bytecode, I noted in these same test it was only 2 to 3 times slower than the C equivalent.

[ajf]

Reasons against Python:
- Whitespaces matter

Cheers,
ajf

[Crendgrim]

ajf:
I don't think that's a reason against it. How often did I see people who didn't know what was wrong with their code, because they didn't indent correctly. The code lines were somewhere spread but not there where they should have been. (No, this wasn't one guy but many, many persons whom I helped)
Regarding that, I really like Python's way to force people to indent as they should do. I also used to program in Python (but that's a few years ago; with Python 2.4 or 2.5 IIRC) but stopped, because I didn't really got into the syntax. But at least it helped me developing a rather clear programming style

So I personally prefer Java and C/C++ for "real" programs and - of course - PHP / XHTML / CSS / JavaScript for web programming.


Crend

[MCP]

Reasons against Python:
- Whitespaces matter

Cheers,
ajf

Which archaic text editor are you using? Every text editor I use will auto-indent Python, much less C, java, etc.

Both of these editors auto-indent, format, and highlight for read-ability.
Simple on windows (for instance): Notepad++
More complicated development environment: Eclipse for large projects in C/C++ and java.


Notepad++ example:
Use sage from sagemath.org above linked. The GUI is in the web browser. So if using Firefox, get the plug-in 'It's all text' and link it to notepad++. Notepad++ auto-indents and highlights python, copies it back into the web browser GUI when the programming has saved something.

I always use whitespace and indentation no matter what programming language I use, eg C, Java, matlab, bash script, and WML, because it makes code more readable. Everyone who works on my project is REQUIRED to do the same (NASA/AMES) because it's important for other people to be able to read code. To hate on python because of whitespaces is [censored], especially since one should rarely have to think about it because of modern text editors. To not like python for other reasons is fine. People can choose to speak to the machines in whatever language they want.

[Crushmaster]

I'm really taking a liking to English.

Yes, I know, I'm sorry.
God bless,
Crushmaster.

[saiko-chriskun]

I posted a similar question awhile back, and since then have decided to focus on Lua, Haskell, and more recently, Assembly and C.

Haskell is the king of functional programming, really, which imo is really good practice. It'll make you a better programmer even if you don't plan on using it that often. You can also branch out into web development in it with snap.

Lua is, well, lua; works with all existing C libraries and is the most popular game scripting language. I've been doing my game design with love so far.

I've started on Assembly and C more recently to try and get into kernel development in the future, and get a real sense for what the compiler is really doing under the hood. I'd only recommend these two (esp. Assembly) if you really enjoy programming in of itself and want to learn more.

My two cents