help new to programming

[dirwin]

Hello everybody i just registered here today
i was just wondering what would be an easy languge to learn in my spare time i.e. after school i already know html yea i know its not really coding but its still handy to know
i dont have money for a compliler so i dont think i can learn c++ or vb or anything like that im just looking for a code that i can program small games like tetris or pac man somthing small to get me started anyone know of any languages that dont need a store bought complier.? or one that i can get a freeware complier of the net to use
thanks
dirwin

[Mazer]

C++ has free compilers available on the internet. But it may be tough to learn on your own enough to make a game, especially if your programming experience consists of HTML.

Turing is pretty simple to use. Except that it's not free (yet...).
Try Python, maybe? Graphics are possible with Python, though I've never used them yet.
I'm sure wtd will probably come and recommend Ruby, but I'm not absolutely positive that you can do graphics with it.

EDIT: When you start learning, don't even think about starting to make a game until you're confident that what you've learned will be enough to make a game (except for graphics/input/sound). You don't want to rush the beginning stuff, even if it seems a bit boring.

[Martin]

You can definately use C++, as there are a number of free compilers and IDE's for it.

I wouldn't recommend starting with it though, as it has a fairly steep learning curve. Many people here would recommend starting with a language such as ruby. If you look through the general programming section, you can find snippits of code from a bunch of different languages. Choose one that you think looks interesting.

[wtd]

dirwin wrote:

Hello everybody i just registered here today
i was just wondering what would be an easy languge to learn in my spare time i.e. after school i already know html yea i know its not really coding but its still handy to know
i dont have money for a compliler so i dont think i can learn c++ or vb or anything like that im just looking for a code that i can program small games like tetris or pac man somthing small to get me started anyone know of any languages that dont need a store bought complier.? or one that i can get a freeware complier of the net to use
thanks
dirwin

You can certainly get free C++ compilers. The language has been independently standardized, so it can't be controlled by any single company. GCC is popular, and if you're using Windows, you can get MinGW which gives you a native C++ compiler.

That said... I do not by any means suggest C++ as the first language you learn. It's not necessarily a bad language, but it can test a person's attention span pretty quickly. In addition, while there are people who are good C++ programmers, a lot of people aren't, and though well-intentioned, they can steer you wrong when asking for advice.

I do recommend languages like Ruby, Python, or Haskell. Perhaps more important than any other aspects of these languages, they have interctive interpreters, which allow you to very quickly experiment with code.

Let's consider something like... oh... you ant to figure out what kind of value getting the sine of 90 degrees will return. Well, first, a bit of math... 90 degrees is Pi divided by 4 radians. Now, let's see programs to help us figure this out.

For C++, first we have to create a source file:

code:

#include <cmath> #include <iostream> int main() {    const double PI = 3.14159265358979;    double result = std::sin(PI / 4);    std::cout << result << std::endl;    return 0; }

Now, we have to compile it:

code:

prompt> g++ my_source.cpp -o my_program.exe

And then we have to run it:

code:

prompt> my_program

Now, compare that to any of the following.

Ruby... in irb:

code:

prompt> irb irb(main):001:0> Math::sin(Math::PI / 4) => 0.707106781186547 irb(main):002:0> exit prompt>

Python:

code:

prompt> python Python 2.4.1a0 (#2, Mar  1 2005, 15:45:39) [GCC 3.3.5 (Debian 1:3.3.5-8ubuntu2)] on linux2 Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information. >>> import math >>> math.sin(math.pi / 4) 0.70710678118654746 >>> prompt>

Haskell... in ghci (Glasgow Haskell Compiler Interactive):

code:

prompt> ghci    ___         ___ _   / _ \ /\  /\/ __(_)  / /_\// /_/ / /  | |      GHC Interactive, version 6.2.2, for Haskell 98. / /_\\/ __  / /___| |      http://www.haskell.org/ghc/ \____/\/ /_/\____/|_|      Type :? for help. Loading package base ... linking ... done. Prelude> sin (pi / 4) 0.7071067811865475 Prelude> :q Leaving GHCi. prompt>

[Martin]

Well, this topic sure generated a lot of response :p

[wtd]

Coutsos wrote:

I'm sure wtd will probably come and recommend Ruby, but I'm not absolutely positive that you can do graphics with it.

Graphics are possible with just about anything. Whether there's some kind of "standard" graphics library is another matter. Yes, though, Ruby has numerous libraries for doing graphics work, and several libraries for doing GUI work.

Coutsos wrote:

EDIT: When you start learning, don't even think about starting to make a game until you're confident that what you've learned will be enough to make a game (except for graphics/input/sound). You don't want to rush the beginning stuff, even if it seems a bit boring.

Absolutely. There's an enormous amount of stuff you can learn just using a text-based environment.

Adding graphics at an early stage simply does one thing: It makes the environment more complicated. The more complicated the environment is, the more places there are for your programs to fail, and you're going to be hard put at it to deal with the bugs that creep up just writing stuff for the command-line.

Oh, and I don't mean to sound negative. You can conquer these things, but weird stuff is going to happen, and you should limit the ways things can break early on. Students learning to be mechanics don't get a Porsche engine to disassemble and put back together the first day. They usually get a lawnmower, and the goal is to make it work at all, not to make it the fastest, prettiest thing around.

Take the same approach to programming. Your code doesn't have to be fast or pretty to start with, but make sure it's correct.

Ok, now I'll stop typing and let others ramble on.

[McKenzie]

If you know and enjoy HTML you may want to consider Javascript or Flash actionscript. This way you are expanding what you currently know and may feel more comfortable. They both have syntax that follows a lot of the old C standard that so many languages do.

I would suggest trying Python first (I have no knowledge of Ruby so I could be wrong) then if you find yourself getting too frustrated after about a month or so then take a look at the above scripting languages.

[dirwin]

thanks for the input im going to go try that ruby code looks like less programming to try to master

thanks

[wtd]

dirwin wrote:

thanks for the input im going to go try that ruby code looks like less programming to try to master

thanks

Feel free to ask questions in General Programming.

[koopaling]

Wow! I am supprised that nobody mentioned Turing yet!

Turing has a very simple (and small) list of commands (a couple hundred) It also has a help system for using commands. I find that very usefull. Turing has a whole pile of example programs for users to examine and learn from (though lots of them dont work ) AND It is considered to be one of the most basic programming languages (to my knowledge) except for q-basic and Basic. All and all, I recomend that you learn Turing first and get the whole idea behind programming. Then you can move on to more complicated languages like C++. Remember, the more powerful a programming language is. The more likely it is to be complicated to use.

[cool dude]

koopaling wrote:

Wow! I am supprised that nobody mentioned Turing yet!

Turing has a very simple (and small) list of commands (a couple hundred) It also has a help system for using commands. I find that very usefull. Turing has a whole pile of example programs for users to examine and learn from (though lots of them dont work ) AND It is considered to be one of the most basic programming languages (to my knowledge) except for q-basic and Basic. All and all, I recomend that you learn Turing first and get the whole idea behind programming. Then you can move on to more complicated languages like C++. Remember, the more powerful a programming language is. The more likely it is to be complicated to use.

if you read through all the posts you would notice that mazer mentioned it and said it was pretty simple but its not free. and if you read dirwin post you would notice that he doesn't want to go to the store and buy anything so he can't use turing.

Edit: Wow this is a really old post!!!

[wtd]

Holy necro-posting, Batman!

[Piro24]

Turing is a free download from the internet...Thats how I got mine...

But it's asked that you are in a computer science class which uses turing...So yeah...

[wtd]

Piro24 wrote:

Turing is a free download from the internet.

No, it's not.

[Andy]

it will be once we get our asses together and write a platformable turing compiler!