Ye Olde Blah

Hi.. you may remember me from a year or two ago.. well i'm a little older now and i'm just about to give programming a shot.. any opinions on what language people think is best for begginers.. i know there is alot of different opinions i just would like to see what everyone feels. If there's one paticularly good programming language you want to vote for and it is'nt on the list.. pm me and i'll make it so lol.

Pascal is the easiest, but that would be because it's the most limited.

I suggest Java if your motivation requires you to see results quickly, and C if you're able to sustain yourself on knowing you're achieving something without seeing anything on screen.

I haven't played with Pascal for years, but I think Delphi is based on Pascal and I've seen some pretty impressive stuff done with it. Getting the fundamentals of programming nailed down is much more important than the language. Once you know how the basics work you can use any language with ease.

I see plenty of people get hung up on the language side of things, like it's some kind of badge of honour. I tend to ignore those people ;) So yeah, that was a complete cop-out of an answer :P I say C# or Java first, because you get results (relatively) quickly. Getting something on screen when you're starting out is the most important thing. Nobody starts perfect, so just have fun and go from there.

wow quick responses... it sounds liek java's a good place to start.. just wondering what exactly would i need to begin programming i'm going to check for online tutorials and the such.. but do i need to download much??? can anyone give me a list of the basics i need to download and maybe places to download them from to get me started??? thanks x

For Java i recommend Eclipse (http://www.eclipse.org). For C# of course use Visual Studio. In particular Visual Studio 2005 is probably the best piece of software i have used.
The most important Java resource is http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/api/ (http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/api/), which contains all the classes and interfaces in Java.

You can get Visual C# Express (http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/visualcsharp/) for free from Microsoft, and there are a tonne of examples with it. I'm not too sure about Java resources, but I'm sure all the Java nuts here can help you out with that ;)

thanks yet again.. i think i have visual C express... although i'm not sure if it's the right thing.. should their be something saying MSE that i use?? thanks x

MSE doesn't ring any bells. If you use the installer it'll be in your start menu under "Visual C# Express Edition" or something. The programs should be in a folder called "program files/Microsoft Visual Studio 8" on your hard drive.

At least they are on my machine. I do have a habit of renaming folders to be awkward though =/

thanks for the help everyone.. i found out i had two versions of visual.. something which confused me at first.. but i found my c# office express edition thing and have taken 3 online lessons.... i'm getting to grips with it quite well now, although this does make me realise how impossibly hard a fan game must be to create... got alot of respect for people who have made alot of progress on projects lol... anyone know the limits of C#? is there a point where it just can't handle.. if that makes any sense?

Arena Wars (http://arenawars.krawall.de/eng/index.html) was written in C#, and it looks pretty neat so I wouldn't worry about reaching the limits of C# any time soon ;)

i know this will sound like kid's play to everyone here.. but i've worked out how to make a calculator now.. in the end i used C# and i seem to be gettin to grips with it quiet fast :) not an AMAZING step i know.. but it's surely gotta help somewhere along the line... hasn't it???  ::) won't be too long before you see me making the next fan game  :P

Congratulations :)

Can't wait to see your progress :)

Nice one! I think the first program I ever wrote just asked for your name and then said "Hello, {name}". I don't think I wrote anything as complicated as a calculator either. You're doing really well :)

thank you Elvenfyre and Ty :) .. i did the hello name bit as well just before :) .. i didn't realise it would be as rewarding as it is to see a relativly simple program (when looked on from the outside) come together and actualy work.. it's not as neat and tidy as the windows calculator but it has all the basic functions :) i realise it's not very 'shining' lol but i had to start somewhere.. and this forum is the only forum i really visit (apart from sfc) so i had to tell someone of my great achievement :P  ::)
thanks for the encouragment people.

Actually, has any of you worked with RUBY yet? I heard some really good things about it..

I've heard lots of good things about RUBY, but haven't tried it yet. There's a couple of other good ones I want to check out too, such as Python and D.

I've been using Python, and it is a very flexible language. Also, with SWIG you can easily connect codes from other languages together. What you could do, for example, is make the individual engines in C++ and then link them together using SWIG ;)

never heard of ruby or pyton, just getting into my creative side and learning how to use flash atm  :P

I've heard that there's a Python.NET language, i don't remember the name exactly.

If you're into C#, i recommend looking into the LINQ project Microsoft is adopting in .NET 3.x (basically adds SQL-type queries for arrays and collections using lambda expressions).

Job: I think it's called "IronPython", but I'm not 100% sure.