Programming for those who desire to (?)

In the Microsoft sphere, C# and the .Net framework are what you'd want to be learning at this point in time. C# follows OOP principles, is similar to Java in manu ways, though arguably more useful if cross-platform development is not a concern, powerful, and relatively simple.

C++ is a massively powerful but massively complex language. It is not a good place to start. Competency with C++ can take months. Proficiency generally takes years.

Something like the, um, Express Edition of Visual Studio, which is free to download, a couple of books and a great deal of time. H2SO4 is right about C# and C++. Maybe Visual Basic would be a gentler learning curve. Or you could just be man about it, roll your sleeves up and do some x86 Assembler while you're at it!

AvatarOfTheShip said:

Something like the, um, Express Edition of Visual Studio, which is free to download, a couple of books and a great deal of time. H2SO4 is right about C# and C++. Maybe Visual Basic would be a gentler learning curve. Or you could just be man about it, roll your sleeves up and do some x86 Assembler while you're at it!

A Real Programmer's keyboard

chuckr said:

Is that for the: C#, Dot Net selection ?

When the machine first boots up, you type in the sequence of ones and zeros corresponding to the BIOS, and if you've done your job right that takes you to sector 0 of the HDD, where you've previously typed in the 512B worth of ones and zeros which constitute your MBR and the partition table. Then, because you've designated one of the partitions as "Active" by cunningly typing a "1" instead of a "0" in a very specific place, your code takes you to the boot sector of the partition with the OS on it. The OS took a while to type in, using ones and zeros, but it was a labour of love

Some would probably point out that the hobby described above is in fact what happens when there's a lack of opportunity for "love".

chuckr said:

BTW,
The Microsoft MASM, when you can find it, will download and install just fine.

It won't run though, because it requires Visual Studio # 5, which of course is not available.

All joking aside, I'm pretty sure that the older versions of MASM, at least, have no dependencies on VS. In the past decade MASM has been liberally sprinkled throughout DDKs and SDKs, and AFAIK every version of VS has included an updated MASM.

EDIT: the site wants to auto-expand "A-F-A-I-K" but it insists on capitalising the first 'A' irrespective of relative position in the sentence. That sort of bug would never have happened to a programmer who confines themselves to ones and zeros.

VisualBasic is a very good language to begin with.

You could start with Java and try some basic object oriented programming. You should find that it's a good place to start, as there is an abundance of Java tutorials online.

I use JAVA SE 6 Eclipse to write and test my Java coding. It's quite easy and free. Can be found at: Eclipse.org home under downloads.

C++ is very very complex, but if you can be competant with that, you're laughing. It's what the games industries use, so it is pretty awesome to know!

There are only 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand Binary, and those who don't

BigBrother said:

that's only 2, AOtS...

and there was a mishap in the original message/question.... i meant C. not C++.

(C++ was, however, the original programming language i was attempting about a year or two ago but since have changed to trying to learn just plain C.)

the tutorial i am using is a free one that i grabbed somewhere... forgot where (iirc, it was a turkish uni's student's folder which was- for some reason- in english) Teach Yourself C in 21 Days -- Table of Contents

The choice of book can frequently make or break one's attempt to learn something. This book is acknowledged as one of the very best beginner's C manuals ever written:

[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Primer-Plus-5th-Stephen-Prata/dp/0672326965]Amazon.com: C Primer Plus (5th Edition) (0752063326961): Stephen Prata: Books[/ame]