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Closed 10 years ago.
Are there available somewhere numbers of how much time is needed to learn programming languages?
I do understand that this does, very much, depend on the person/learning-method. But I'm more interested in seeing some dynamics among languages, which I guess would be less 'personalised' - i.e. I would like to see division between HARD & EASY languages
Well generally speaking, a language is only as hard as the libraries it has. Take the Windows API for C. It's hard and at many times inefficient for making programs to do simple things. That's where .NET framework comes in. You can still use C++ with the .NET framework. The language isn't any easier, but the libraries you are using are easier to work with.
Learning Java takes quite a while, especially for a beginner. However after my first 5 minutes in java I understood the Swing library and could make a simple program. If I wanted to do the same with the Windows API it would take me a good month.
In the end, mastering and understanding the innards of languages is time consuming, but is directly proportional to the effort spent.
C++ can be learned in 21 Days (as the book goes) but it takes years to fully understand it.
Related
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Closed 9 years ago.
I've been watching the development of Node.js and frameworks like Express for a while. I finally found some time to play around and am enjoying it.
Does anyone know why Node's current version is only 0.10.0? I know it doesn't really matter but it makes it seem like an extremely new and unstable project when in fact it seems that it's being used quite a bit and even by some big players.
Well, it is new, it's only been around since 2009.
That may seem old to you whippersnappers but I primarily program in a language from the '70s and sometimes on machines that have been around since the '60s.
But seriously, it probably has more to do with the numbering scheme than any actual immaturity. As you can see here, there have actually been quite a few releases.
If you wait a little while, the release plan calls for a 0.12 (code cleanup mostly) to be followed by 1.0 which, based on comments, will be the "final" product (though there will still be more versions since predictions aren't perfect). Many projects start with a (crappy) 1.0 and improve that. The philosophy for node.js seems to have been to approach 1.0 as the fully-polished end product.
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Closed 10 years ago.
I have dealt and used JavaScript and am quite comfortable with it. However I was wondering if I should learn another one. Is there another language out there that used more widely or has more use in the business industry? And could you also recommend a good book for it?
Should you learn a new programming language?
Yes, you surely should.
Which one then?
I don't know. Why don't you pick one related to your expertise? Or something wildly different from what you know.
Which book is the best one?
Go to the library or a book shop. Flip some books through. Most likely, one of those books is good enough. But nothing beats learning to look up API reference on the net.
EDIT: Question from the comments:
What's the most popular and widely used?
You can use the TIOBE Community Index to look up popular programming languages. However, you shouldn't use that as a deciding factor as things may differ locally to you. I've never done C professionally (which is apparently the most "popular" language according to TIOBE), so it all depends on what you want to do.
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Closed 11 years ago.
I apologize if this is off topic. Please close if it is.
I want to get in to a bit of Linux application development. What programming language are the majority of GUI apps made in?
It usually largely depends on the DE (desktop environment) you are focusing on; each usually has one GUI toolkit that it's using the most.
For instance, GNOME mostly uses GTK+; and since GTK+ is written in C, many Linux GTK+ GUI apps use that, but there are also bindings to other languages, like Python, which I've also seen used often. And there are bindings for other languages too.
On the other hand you have KDE, which is mostly based on Qt; and, since Qt is written in C++, most apps using Qt are also written in C++.
However, honestly the choice of language doesn't matter much; it's more the toolkit that matters. I'd pick the one your DE uses, and then choose one of the languages it supports.
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Closed 11 years ago.
Apart from C, C++, Delphi, VB, can you put an example of a relatively "modern" COMPILED* programming language* supporting things like OO, collections, GUI libraries?
Please do not mention experimental or academic only languages, I'm looking for something used in the real world, for PCs 80x86, and I don't mind about the OS.
Thanks!
*UPDATED: Compiled to native code.
*DISCLAIMER:
For language understand language implementation.
For compiled to native code understand not interpreted.
Haskell.
Source: http://www.realworldhaskell.org/
Cython. Compiles to native code, is used in high performance computing, both academic and commercial, and is used to implement LXML. GUI libraries include all those available for Python.
Also, Objective-C. That's now one of the most popular programming languages.
Wikipedia has a lot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_programming_languages
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Closed 9 years ago.
We are creating an open-source group with a large emphasis on introducing designers to programming. I have a library of material that I believe is important but I want the opinion of Stack. What do you guys believe is a good path for the casual programmer to start out on?
Since this is an open group and we do not really know who is going to show up we want to cover the bases. Although we are prepared for the worst we expect that any one attending will have graduated high-school and will have an understanding of the necessary algebra.(cringe)
I am looking for the best links to any online materials that people have found useful for teaching introduction to programming and logic.
We hope to amass enough material to compile a simple wiki that can serve as the basses for our lesson plan.
http://www.imaginaryphysics.org/opensource.html
Thank you for any help and opinions you can offer.
Here is a few :
http://apache.org/
http://sourcemaking.com/
http://www.infoq.com/
Stack Overflow of course!
Are we talking about Open Source... do you have a platform in mind? I mean, if you are looking for free, try a LAMP approach... I guess. I agree with everyone in the comments that this is pretty open-ended, and I would have left this as a comment as it really isn't an answer, but it is getting kinda long with the link. Below is the w3c tutorial.
PHP Tutorial
Most school however start with C++, to put it overly simple (please don't flame me for that, I'm trying to simplify): it is kinda the base of most programming languages.
C++ Tutorial
It should be noted, though, that training programmers doesn't only take knowing a language. It takes reordering the way you think. That is why getting a computer science degree takes 4 years and you need to study advanced mathematics, logic, science, etc. Being a programmer is a life long learning process, true, but it does take a base knowledge to get started. If you are trying to help the youth, more power to you! But, you should probably know what you are getting into :)