Should I learn java or C++ first?

[BlinkHawk]

(12-19-2011, 09:22 PM)Runo Wrote:

(12-19-2011, 06:10 AM)Zee530 Wrote: "22 languages"? are you human?

Once you get the general programming logic it's not so hard to learn more languages, it gets rather easy. Still, 22 is kinda impressive to me...

Well not really if you have studied a CS career and worked for 2 years atleast. In fact all those languages can be grouped into lil groups, learning one of those groups opens you the doors to the others.

Groups:

Assembly: MIPS R3000, x86 686 with MMX.

Imperative:
C-like: C, C++, C#, Java (last 3 being OOP)
beginner: Dijkstra's GCL, Visual Basic 6.
script: Python, Ruby.
web-client: javascript, html
web-server: PHP, JSP (shouldn't count jsp, xD)
tools: Matlab, R and Maxscript.

Functional: Haskell, Erlang

Logical: Prolog

Database: SQL (Oracle's, MySQL, Postgres).

in the reality you just need to learn 5 basic languages (where Assembly, Functional and Logical are not even necessary), the rest just come as you have to work with them within work, university assigments, etc.

[a-dat]

As someone who just recently taught themselves JAVA with no prior programming knowledge, I'm a little surprised by some people saying it's a bad first language. I don't know what it's like learning other languages, but I found JAVA rather painless and intuitive. You can start actually coding pretty fast, too, as it only took two or three weeks to get a firm enough grasp on the language as well as the Android API to be able to start developing my own Android game.

My personal theory is this: think about what you want to do, figure out what language you need to know to do it, and then learn it. If you want to do something that requires C++, just try to learn C++. Learning some other language as an intermediary or as a stepping stone may make the difficulty curve seem a little gentler, but if that intermediary language is too far simplified from what you're goal is, learning it is also going to divert time and energy towards something that doesn't fully translate to what you want to do. So unless there's an easier language that perfectly leads into your target language (which there could be, I don't know), I feel like it's better to just bite the bullet and learn the hard stuff. You're gonna have to do it eventually, right?

[luupe]

hmm....

[Zee530]

I guess what i'm trying to do right now is web designing and software development, so python and c++ respectively is okay right?

[HawaiianPunch]

(12-22-2011, 12:20 AM)Zee530 Wrote: I guess what i'm trying to do right now is web designing and software development, so python and c++ respectively is okay right?

C++ is good for software, but python isn't the best (yeah attack me) web designing language. Javascript is much more common. Learn HTML too.

[delroth]

(12-22-2011, 05:54 AM)HawaiianPunch Wrote:

(12-22-2011, 12:20 AM)Zee530 Wrote: I guess what i'm trying to do right now is web designing and software development, so python and c++ respectively is okay right?

C++ is good for software, but python isn't the best (yeah attack me) web designing language. Javascript is much more common. Learn HTML too.

Python is a very good and common web *server* language, much more used than Javascript for that purpose. Javascript is mostly used for client side stuff, not the same use. Both are useful for web programming.

[BlinkHawk]

(12-22-2011, 05:54 AM)HawaiianPunch Wrote:

(12-22-2011, 12:20 AM)Zee530 Wrote: I guess what i'm trying to do right now is web designing and software development, so python and c++ respectively is okay right?

C++ is good for software, but python isn't the best (yeah attack me) web designing language. Javascript is much more common. Learn HTML too.

Javascript and HTML are client side languages, if you need to do programming from the server side like doing operations over the database or something related. PHP, JSP, Jango (Python) or Ruby are all good choices for that.

It will all depend on your needs. If you need speed then PHP or JSP is the way, if you need flexability then go Python or Ruby.

[delroth]

Both Python and Ruby are faster than PHP for that role. Also, Django, not "Jango".

[Zee530]

I think i may be getting into both but at the moment the client side languages is what i'm going to be doing more of

[Ashton8100]

Of course Java. Everyone says going from C++ to Java is very easy. If I were you I would go with the harder one first. Like learning to drive manual before automatic.