Which language?

[Emilo]

Im going to learn my self some programming. So Im curios what languages you programmers think are the best.
Important to me is first how easy the language are to learn, secondly the possibility to make fast and powerfull programs. And third which are common in opensource community.

[delta407]

"Which language is best?" is a bad question. I am a developer by day (sysadmin by night ) and I find it best to have a wide arsenal of tools at my disposal. Some tasks need the speed and power of C, some tasks work fine in Perl, and some tasks are better suited to a shell script. And yes, there are actually instances where Java can be useful. Gasp! (No, the desktop isn't one of them.)

That aside, as any good programmer will tell you, there is no one best language. Each language has its strengths and weaknesses, thus, the answer depends on what you want to do.
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[delta407]

Oh, if you want a starting place, I would recommend Perl. You can do pretty much anything you can in C with Perl, and Perl has influences from a huge variety of languages (and has influenced a huge variety of languages). And, it has its fair share of nuances.
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[AnimalMachine]

I can't remember where, but I think I recently seen something saying that a survey of projects in a RedHat distribution showed that ~60% of them were written in C. And C is surely very common - from the Linux kernel to the GTK+ GUI toolkit. It arguably offers the best performance potential without the pain of coding in assembly. But it's not easy [for most people] to learn.

If you want easy to learn, try BASH scripting, or maybe Python or Perl.

If you want to go all out and figure out what people mean when they say Object Oriented, I'd recomend Java (my current language-of-choice outside of my C++ duties at my place of employment), or C++. While Java can be slower, there are also a gigantic amount of benefits to using it.

But like delta407 said, no one language is perfect for every task; it's all about context. If you're looking to learn, I would personally suggest something simple (like BASH scripting) to see if you like programming at all. If you already know that you do, try to pick a language that helps you build good programming habbits: like Python or [if you want a substantially harder target] Java.

But this is all my opinion. I'm sure it's different from most here!

[Codec & Electron]

[delta407]

[dasalvagg]

i would suggest perl then java, in that order. perl is quick and easy to get a hold of and java offers features that no other languages has(i love serialization). furthermore java will show you what object oriented programming is all about. it is an amazing language that doesn't get enough credit(yes speed does suck).


little bonus java can be used cross platform and on websites, so if you write a program and want to share it with a friend on another os...not a problem.


i know i'm java biased....just my opinion.

[jtanner]

I would also suggest starting with C. As delta said, it's small and clean which makes it easier to learn. At the same time it exposes you to some of the lower-level concepts (such as pointers) which if you learn up front makes many other languages much easier.

Start with the K&R book on a *nix system. DON'T start in MSDEV--it's overwhelming for a new programmer.

Jim

[abhishek]

[abhishek]

[delta407]

[abhishek]

[delta407]

[abhishek]

Cool. Maybe ill port some of my mfc apps over.

[Codec & Electron]

[trythil]

I'm surprised nobody here mentioned some of the more esoteric, but very enlightening, languages: LISP and PROLOG are two that come to mind. Neither has the market share of C, C++, or Java, but both are very important if you're planning to learn stuff in CS.

That, and PROLOG's programming style is nothing like anything you've seen before, so it's a good learning experience.

But just to start...I'd learn C++ and Java. C++ is NOT as bloated nor as slow nor as insecure nor as... [insert myth here] as people say it is. There's a good article about this in the latest CUJ, and I've got benchmarks to back it up. Besides, you learn C++, you'll know most of C. (The reverse is also true, although templates and template metaprogramming are a whole new world )

[Codec & Electron]

Considering that most programs are written by humans whose capacities are limited, it should not come as a surprise that programs usually contain errors, no matter what language you used. However there are languages which are very close to the von-Neuman-machine semantics and therefore use pointers, sequential and imperative semantics, and there are languages which are close to the problem domain and therefore use abstract entities (eg. objects) or relations (eg. functions (in mathematical sense)).

In terms of the former ("low level") languages you have to think about memory allocation and deallocation, pointer dereferencing and other unimportant things (as far as concerned to the problem you try to solve). In terms of the latter ("high level") languages you focus instead on algorithms and program organization. The complicated details are handled automatically for you.

Don't be tempted to rule out high level languages just because you think it may be too easy with them and you want to be a *real* programmer. Things get complicated anyway ...

[praxim]

I'd actually recommend starting with C, despite what others may say. I certainly wish I had done so all those years back... A properly done C manual/book/tutorial will give you a good introduction to the basic concepts of programming at a fairly low level. After that, using any other language is easy.

[delta407]

[klieber]

I'm not a "real" programmer, but I do work with them extensively and have quite a bit of experience in the corporate world. So, I can offer the following insights: (for what that's worth. )

• Most importantly, regardless of what language you choose, focus on learning good programming style. That means writing tight, clean, fast code -- not just something that "works". This, more than anything else, will serve you well when it comes time to convince someone that they should hire you to write code for the multi-million dollar project they're responsible for. I don't care if you know C, C++, Java, C#, Python, Ruby and whatever else -- if you don't know how to write good, efficient code, you wont do as well in the corporate world. OTOH, if you can prove your coding style is clean and crisp, you'll often get hired by a company even if you don't know the particular language they're looking for. It's easy to train someone on a new language if the person already has a solid grasp of the fundamentals. To put it another way, if you're applying for a job, and can write a sample app in 50 lines when it takes everyone else 500 lines, you're going to get the job.
  
• Python, Perl and other open source languages are great to start with, but almost all major companies out there use C, C++ and Java. Period. Knowing one or more of those will be important if you want to break into the corporate world. (maybe you don't -- who knows.)
  
• C# -- this is mainly my opinion, but MS hasn't had good luck with gaining traction for their latest baby yet. It's very similar to Java, so most companies don't see the value or need to shift all their existing Java code over to C#. However, historically, Microsoft has thrown money at a problem (prime example: Dell.com used to be based on another language -- Cold Fusion, I believe. Bill & Co. sent a team of programmers down to Austin and rewrote dell.com using ASP, free of charge) so maybe this will change.
  

My $.02.

--kurt
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The problem with political jokes is that they get elected

[Codec & Electron]

[abhishek]

[trythil]

[pjp]

[klieber]

Folks -- let's not let this turn into a language war or I'll have to lock the topic.

--kurt
_________________
The problem with political jokes is that they get elected