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I've been thinking of making a desktop program but I have no experience in that. I've been programming in PHP, ASP and JavaScript before. Java seems to be nice since you can run it on all OS. But what I really want is result, I do not really care what language makes me a good programmer (I'll take that later in college :P). I've tried both C# and Python before but it was only console applications.
So, what programming language do you recommend to me?
If you want Windows results, C#. If you want cross-platform results, Python.
You could also just pick randomly. Or you could try them all. Or look at the 16 trillion previous questions on this exact same topic.
UPDATE:
To find those questions, I mentioned, try some Google fun:
"what language" OR "which language" learn site:stackoverflow.com
My personal bias would be towards learning functional programming (Scala or even lisp would be nice). But, honestly, any language could improve your skills pretty dramatically at this point. Just take a look at a few of the mainstream ones, and pick the one that suits your interest the best.
For some ideas (not in any particular order):
C - Learning the low-level details of memory allocation can be useful background. If you use Linux, there's tons of sample code in Gnome apps to show you how to write reasonably elegant code in the language.
C++ - C on steroids... there's lots of complexity here if you want to learn it, but it can also be a great language to have in your arsenal.
C#/Java - Nice, high-level, reasonably portable languages. I prefer the C# language over Java, but there are advantages and disadvantages to each (Java portability is better). In the end its just a matter of preference, and external factors (legacy codebases may swing you one way or the other).
Scala - Java on Steroids - Really nice language, but the learning curve can be a bit steep, IMO.
Python/Ruby/Lisp/etc - Nice scripting languages, most of which are easy to learn, and all of which will lead to new ways of thinking about problems.
Honestly, in the end, the most important rule is just to have fun. Look through the basic "hello world" tutorials and just pick the one that looks the most pleasant. Learning never hurts.
I've found that making desktop applications in C# / VB.NET (I'd strongly recommend the former) can be much easier than other languages, particularly with a good IDE such as Visual Studio (or the free Express editions) or Sharp Develop. It will be much easier to get it going on Windows, of course (I don't know much about Mono + WinForms), but I think the easier transition is worth the tradeoff.
Many people have been suggesting low level languages such as C, C++, but frankly I'm not certain that it would be a worthwhile investment of your time. The first programming language I learned was C, from the K&R book, but if I were to teach my son how to program today I would introduce him to python or ruby.
Both python and ruby are very expressive, sophisticated languages that are easy to learn and have an intuitive, english like syntax. By all means do learn about structured programming, and older compiled languages, but initially you'll reap more benefit from learning OO concepts in a high level language.
Java and C# are excellent languages, however they are very tightly coupled with their frameworks, and you may run the risk of getting bogged down learning a framework instead of programming fundamentals.
If you were comfortable in PHP you will feel right at home with Perl, better yet, pampered. You could even turn around and use Perl on the web with your former languages via CGI.
If GUIs is what you're after, C# is your best bet for Windows and Java for other platforms.
If you want result and GUI and you don't care if it's windows only, you probably want C#.
If you want to run on different platforms, you might check out any language on the JVM since they all have access to a pretty powerful GUI toolkit. (Jython, Groovy, Java, ...)
Don't bother with the desktop just yet. Hit the command line.
Get the K&R book and really learn C. You don't know how much you've missed out on if your background is 100% high-level (PHP, Python, Ruby, JS) web dev.
Learn the fundamentals, then raise the bar by going into C# or Objective C.
You can go easy or go hard, go fast or go slow.
Many people say C#, it's nice and can also be used on Linux through mono. On the other hand you can go with C/C++ and maybe Java. You'll have fun with C/C++, learn something and be a better programmer; but it will take time. Java is simpler but "needy". If you want the easiest way to develop a desktop application, you can go with VB or Delphi. Delphi has some advantages over VB which I'm not going to go into here.
My advice would be, if you have time, are willing, and just want to experience GUI, go from low to high, slow to fast, hard to easy. Try assembler, know C/C++, use Java, crack open C# and browse thought VB and Delphi.
In the end maybe you will not create a powerful application, but you will be prepared for college, be experienced and generally "know stuff".
For someone with HTML and Javascript skills Adobe AIR could be the way to go.
It allows you to create a desktop application using HTML/DHTML or if you are familiar with Flex you can also use Flex.
See http://www.adobe.com/products/air/
Go through K&R C. Learn C and you should have a great foundation for learning other languages.
i would say that Java would give a good introduction to desktop apps. I havent had any experience with some of the other languages mentioned here.
You can do some simple stuff in Java with very little headache, as compared to some other languages that require hundreds of lines of code.
Just depends if you have been exposed to OO programming in your web experience
Consider VB.NET (not "classic" vb!) as an easy-to-start-with high-level language that can help you get your foot in the door; then get up to speed with C# as well. The two are interchangable--VB.NET and C# are really just different dialects of .NET.
There's three things VB.NET has going for it over C# for beginner programmers:
VB.NET tends to be a more descriptive (some would say chatty) language
Where C# uses symbols VB.NET will use (slightly) more descriptive words. After a while VB.NET will probably be chatty to the point it annoys you, but by then you should be quite comfortable with .NET and switching to C# will be fairly trivial
Slightly more relaxed syntax
C# will gripe if you leave off parenthesis on method calls, and gripe if you add them to Property accessors--VB isn't quite as picky. It won't let you go haywire with bad syntax (like HTML) but it won't gripe and complain over every little detail
Better pre-compilation parsing
If you work with Visual Studio in both languages you'll notice it will show most compiler errors and warnings for VB.NET right away. C# will wait until you try to compile to tell you that there's errors in your code. The difference isn't huge (C# will warn you for most errors after a delay) but it can be a concentration buster to think you've just pulled off a method and found out it's 10 errors away from compiling (4 of which are because you left the () off a method call).
Once you learn the main features of .NET it's easy to learn the C# equivalency and transition if you want to; and at some point you might decide that VB.NET is a bit too chatty and opt for C# (pretty much what I did).
The only catch to VB.NET is that you should get in the habit of always adding two lines to the top of your code files; they'll help you out immensely in terms of not letting you do stupid things :)
Option Strict On
Option Explicit On
Here's a real short example of the "words vs. symbols"... you'll see there's not much difference other than some brackets in C# and some extra words describing what's happening in VB.NET
Option Strict On
Option Explicit On
Imports System
Imports System.Windows.Forms
<Serializable> _
Public Class MyClass
Inherits SomeBaseClass
Implements SomeInterface
Public Shared Sub DoSomething()
For each item as Object in SomeCollection
Debug.Writeline(item.ToString)
Next
End Sub
Public Sub SomeInterfaceMethod() Implements SomeInterface.SomeInterfaceMethod
MessageBox.Show("Grrblah!")
End Sub
End Class
using System;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Diagnostics;
[Serializable]
public class MyClass : SomeBaseClass, SomeInterface
{
public static void DoSomething()
{
foreach(Object item in SomeCollection)
{
Debug.WriteLine(item.ToString());
}
}
public void SomeInterfaceMethod()
{
MessageBox.Show(#"Grrblah!");
}
}
Try not to fall in the 'must-be-cross-platform' trap. If you're just beginning, that shouldn't be what's on your mind. I can't speak for everyone, but I myself, and I have seen this happen to others, got caught in this early on and didn't get anywhere because I was always trying to find things that were cross platform, and just because they are cross platform doesn't mean they are the best suited for your situation, especially early on.
When you become proficient at a language, you will know how to port and make things cross platform. Don't choose something solely because it is advertised as being cross platform, despite the fact that most languages today are, don't feel the need to ignore other languages that, while not necessarily platform specific, seem to be better on certain platforms, such as C# for Windows and Objective-C for Mac, which are both great languages in my opinion.
If you want to learn something that benefits you in web development as well as in desktop development, I would go with Ruby. You can look into Ruby on Rails for web development. Ruby is also pretty cross platform and you can develop desktop applications with it. There are also various bindings, so for example you can write Mac apps with it and even have access to .Net with Iron Ruby, if need be.
Python is also a possibility.
Related
I am working on a new language, targeted for web development, embeding into applications, distributed applications, high-reliability software (but this is for distant future).
Also, it's target to reduce development expenses in long term - more time to write safer code and less support later. And finally, it enforces many things that real teams have to enforce - like one crossplatform IDE, one codestyle, one web framework.
In short, the key syntax/language features are:
Open source, non-restrictive licensing. Surely crossplatform.
Tastes like C++ but simpler, Pythonic syntax with strict & static type checking. Easier to learn, no multiple inheritance and other things which nobody know anyway :-)
LLVM bytecode/compilation backend gives near-C speed.
Is has both garbage collection & explicit object destruction.
Real OS threads, native support of multicore computers. Multithreading is part of language, not a library.
Types have the same width on any platform. int(32), long(64) e.t.c
Built in post and preconditions, asserts, tiny unit tests. You write a method - you can write all these things in 1 place, so you have related things in one place. If you worry that your class sourcecode will be bloated with this - it's IDEs work to hide what you don't need now.
Java-like exception handling (i.e. you have to handle all exceptions)
I guess I'll leave web & cluster features for now...
What you think? Are there any existing similar languages which I missed?
To summarize: You language has no real selling points. It just does what a dozen other languages already did, with syntax and semantics just slightly off, depending on where the programmer comes from. This may be a good thing, as it makes the language easier to adapt, but you also have to convince people to trouble to switch. All this stuff has to be built and debugged and documented again, tools have to be programmed, people have to learn it and convince their pointy-haired bosses to use it, etc. "So it's language X with a few features from Y and nicer syntax? But it won't make my application's code 15% shorter and cleaner, it won't free me from boilerplate X, etc - and it won't work with my IDE." The last one is important. Tools matter. If there are no good tools for a language, few people will shy away, rightfully so.
And finally, it enforces many things that real teams have to enforce - like one crossplatform IDE, one codestyle, one web framework.
Sounds like a downside! How does the language "enforce one X"? How do you convince programmers this coding style is the one true style? Why shouldn't somebody go and replace the dog slow, hardly maintained, severly limited IDE you "enforce" with something better? How could one web framework possibly fit all applications? Programmers rarely like to be forced into X, and they are sometimes right.
Also, you language will have to talk to others. So you have ready-made standard solutions for multithreading and web development in mind? Maybe you should start with a FFI instead. Python can use extensions written in C or C++, use dynamic libraries through ctypes, and with Cython it's amazingly simple to wrap any given C library with a Python interface. Do you have any idea how many important libraries are written in C? Unless your language can use these, people can hardly get (real-world) stuff done with it. Just think of GUI. Most mayor GUI toolkits are C or C++. And Java has hundreds of libraries (the other JVM languages profit much from Java interop) for many many purposes.
Finally, on performance: LLVM can give you native code generation, which is a huge plus (performance-wise, but also because the result is standalone), but the LLVM optimizers are limited, too. Don't expect it to beat C. Especially not hand-tuned C compiled via icc on Intel CPUs ;)
"Are there any existing similar
languages which I missed?"
D? Compared to your features:
The compiler has a dual license - GPL and Artistic
See example code here.
LDC targets LLVM. Support for D version 2 is under development.
Built-in garbage collection or explicit memory management.
core.thread
Types
Unit tests / Pre and Post Contracts
try/catch/finally exception handling plus scope guarantees
Responding to a few of your points individually (I've omitted what I consider either unimportant or good):
targeted for web development
Most people use php. Not because it's the best language available, that's for sure.
embeding into applications
Lua.
distributed applications, high-reliability software (but this is for distant future).
Have you carefully studied Erlang, both its design and its reference implementation?
it enforces many things that real teams have to enforce - like one crossplatform IDE, one codestyle, one web framework.
If your language becomes successful, people will make other IDEs, other code styles, other web frameworks.
Multithreading is part of language, not a library.
Really good languages for multithreading forbid side effects inside threads. Yes, in practice that pretty much means Erlang only.
Types have the same width on any platform. int(32), long(64) e.t.c
Sigh... There's only one reasonable width for integers outside of machine-level languages like C: infinite.
Designing your own language will undoubtedly teach you someting. But designing a good language is like designing a good cryptosystem: lots of amateurs try, but it takes an expert to do it well.
I suggest you read some of Norman Ramsey's answers here on programming language design, starting with this thread.
Given your interest in distributed applications, knowing Erlang is a must. As for sequential programming, the minimum is one imperative language and one functional language (ideally both Lisp/Scheme and Haskell, but F# is a good start). I also recommend knowing at least one high-level language that doesn't have objects, just so you understand that not having objects can often make the programmer's life easier (because objects are complex).
As for what could drive other people to learn your language... Good tools/libraries/frameworks can't hurt (FORTRAN, php), and a big company setting the example can't hurt (Java, C#). Good design doesn't seem to be much of a factor (a ha-ha-only-serious joke has it that what makes a language successful is using {braces} to delimit blocks: C, C++, Java, C#, php)...
What you've given us is a list of features, with no coherent philosophy, or explanation as to how they will work together. None of the features are unique. At best, you're offering incremental improvements over what's already there. I'd expect there's already languages kicking around with what you've said, it's just that they're still fairly obscure, because they didn't make it.
Languages have inertia. People have to learn new languages, and sometimes new tools. They need incentive to do so, and 20% improvement in a few features doesn't cut it.
What you need, at a minimum, is a killer app and a form of elevator pitch. (The "elevator pitch" is what you tell the higher-ups about your project when you're in the elevator with them, in current US business parlance.) You need to have your language be obviously worth learning for some purpose, and you need to be able to tell people why it's worth learning before they think "just another language by somebody who wanted to write a language" and go away.
You need to form a language community. That community needs to have some localization at first: people who work in X big company, people who want to do Y, whatever. Decide on what that community is likely to be, and come up with one big reason to switch and some reasons to believe that your language can deliver what it promises.
No.
Every buzzword you have included in your feature list is an enormous amount of work to be spec'd, implemented, documented, and tested.
How many people will be actively developing the language? I guess the web is full of failed programming language projects. (Same is true for non-mainstream OSes)
Have a look at what .Net/Visual Studio or Java/Eclipse have accomplished. That's 1000s of years of specification, development, tests, documentation, feedback, bug fixes, service packs.
During my last job I heard about somebody who wrote his own programming framework, because it was "better". The resulting program code (both in the framework and in the applications) is certainly unmaintainable once the original programmer quits, or is "hit by a bus", as the saying goes.
As the list sounds like Java++ or Mono++, you'd probably be more successful in engaging in an existing project, even if it won't have your name tag on it.
Perhaps you missed one key term. Performance.
In any case, unless this new language has some really out-of-this-world features(ex: 100% increase in performance over other web development languages), I think it will be yet another fish in the pond.
Currently I'm responsible for maintaining a framework developed/owned by my company. It's a nightmare. Unless there is a mainstream community, working on this full time, it's really an elephant. I do not appreciate my company's decision to develop its own framework(because it's supposed to be "faster") day 'n night.
The language tastes good in my opinion, I don't want use java for a simple website but I would like to have types and things like that. ASP .NET is a problem because of licensing and I can't afford those licenses for a single website... Also features looks good
Remember a lot of operator overloading: I think is the biggest thing that PHP is actually missing. It allows classes to behave much more like basic types :)
When you have something to test I'll love to help you with it! Thanks
Well, if you have to reinvent the wheel, you can go for it :)
I am not going to give you any examples of languages or language features, but I will give you one advice instead:
Supporting framework is what is the most important thing. People will tend to love it or hate it, depending on how easy is to write good code that get job done. Therefore, please do usability test before releasing it. I mean ask several people how they will do certain task and create API accordingly. Then test beta API on other coders and listen carefully to their comments.
Regards and good luck :)
There's always space for another programming language. Apart from getting the design right, I think the biggest problem is coming across as just another wannabe language. So you may want to look at your marketing, you need a big sponsor who can integrate your language into their products, or you need to generate a buzz around it, easiest way is astroturfing. Good luck.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_programming_languages
NB the names G and G++ aren't taken. Oh and watch out for the patent trolls.
Edit
Oops G / G++ are taken... still there are plenty more letters left.
This sounds more like a "systems" language rather than a "web development language". The major languages in this category (other than C++/C) are D and Go.
My advice to you would be to not start from scratch but examine the possibility of creating tools or libraries for those languages, and seeing just how far you can push them.
I'm a Python programmer who knows a bit of Ruby and PHP as well. I don't really know enough about Java to do anything meaningful, and I certainly don't know C, C++, or other low-level languages. I've heard all the "Who cares about speed because hardware is cheap, but coders are expensive" arguments, and I'm not trying to raise a debate here. I want to understand 2 things about the community of lower level programming languages (whether it's C or even assembly):
What is the main reason you choose to still use it (job requirements, speed, desktop vs web, etc)?
Is it still worth me taking the time to learn C++ (monetarily speaking) or others this late in the game, or will I benefit?
Also, consider the benefits / disadvantages of dynamic vs static typing, when choosing your reasons. I primarily program for the web, but don't take that fully into consideration because it's partly due to the fact that the web is all I know.
Unashamed Fortran programmer here. Speed speed speed. Oh, and all the scientists I work with are reasonably fluent in Fortran. But then I work in computational electromagnetics on large clusters and supercomputers and wouldn't recognise a web application if it leapt up and bit me on the nose.
I wouldn't regard Fortran as low-level or less-expressive, I think it's a DSL for linear-algebra and more general number-crunching. So why did I take the bait and respond to this question ?
Dynamic vs static typing ? Static please, everything tied down at compile time so the compiler can work its socks off optimising.
For a web programmer, C/C++ will offer you virtually no advantage. It is less expressive than Perl, Ruby, Python, etc. and requires more code and attention to detail of memory management. Unfortunately, choosing a language for its "features" is often second to choosing for its platform. C++ isn't as clean and elegant as C#, most of that comes from its C compatibility. Sadly, even though there are better languages for certain things, most aren't compiled and most aren't widely supported.
If you plan to develop a commercial product that the customer will download or receive on CD, then C/C++ offers you protection of your Intellectual Property (hard to reverse engineer), and a small runtime footprint, as well as ability to target older platforms like Windows XP.
It is not too late in the game to learn C/C++. C/C++ will be around as long as all the higher level languages are around, because those languages are implemented in C/C++. It is not as if we will all move to Python one day and C/C++ will be retired. High level, non-compiled languages are not self-hoisting, so they cannot exist without C++.
It is the tool to use if you are going to implement higher level things like languages, APIs, toolkits, drivers, IDEs, etc. But C++ is not the tool to use if you want the fastest way to develop an internal GUI app or a Web app.
Just learn the tool for the job. If the job changes, or you wish to change the job, then you may want to push yourself to learn C++ to see the other side of the Computer Science world, the side between the CPU and what you currently write your web apps in.
I'd think the big three reasons here are going to be Performance, Legacy System Support, and Embedded Development.
So mega subjective it renders any answer next to useless.
For the numerical calculations I do writing straight C++ is just faster than using e.g. straight Python. Sure, I can interface my C++ libraries to higher-level languages (and I do), but since most of my work is done on the low-level numerical side, I wouldn't gain too much.
Also consider that a lot of libraries especially in scientific computation are in FORTRAN, C or C++ and linking against them from C++ is much faster (especially if you just want to get done with it) that creating wrappers and interfaces all yourself.
If you would gain anything from learning a low-level language depends a lot on your problem domain.
There are several good reasons for lower-level languages.
First, there's a lot of applications where performance does matter. The main application I work on is slow enough as it is (it does a whole lot of things), and would be unusable in Python.
Second, there are applications that require standalone executables that aren't all that big.
Third, there's a tremendous amount of legacy code in C and C++, and it isn't going away any time soon.
Fourth, operating systems are normally written in C or C++ or similar languages, and expose APIs in them. If you need to get chummy with the OS, for whatever reason, you're better off using the OS language.
Dynamic typing is very clearly better for getting an application up and running fast, and my Lisp background pushed me to believe that static typing is normally just premature optimization. However, lots of people believe that static typing is much better for enforcing correctness in large projects, and C and C++ are well suited for large projects.
For your second question, I have no idea what you want to do in the future, so I don't know if it would be worthwhile for you to learn C++. For professional development, I'd strongly suggest learning a variety of languages, including C or a similar language. There are other questions on SO about what languages to learn.
Why aren't Python, Ruby and PHP written in itself?
Mission critical applications need best possible performance and algorithms and doesn't need things like metaprogramming.
C++ has some great ideas and libraries, which I then found in those modern languages, sometimes better sometimes worse (compare power of templates in C++ and generics in Java).
Low level languages will make you learn something more about lower level abstractions of the computer, operating systems or networks.
Static restricts you in programming and often makes you write out the types, however it also let's you better express your intent in a way, which is automatically provable by compiler and you can get support for tools. Dynamic gives you free hands, you can do more and maybe easier, however you have to test better.
I may be misunderstanding you here but it sounds like you're under the impression that C++ is the appropriate language for every kind of project. It isn't. You wouldn't use a Liebherr truck for a cross country road trip. Every popular language in existence got that way because it works well for some situations. There was a time when C++ was used to write web applications which quickly gave way to Perl scripts because the trade-off between production and performance. So in response to your first question, mainly people still use it because in certain situations it's the best tool for the job.
As far as whether or not you should learn it, I say if you have the time and the desire go for it. Even if C++ is never the correct tool for any of the projects you take on a decent understanding of concepts that are necessary in C++ will make you a better developer in every language.
I know the topic I started is too subjective. But I just
wanted some expert guidance learning new languages. I've
been working with .NET languages (C#, VB.NET) quite a few
years (around 4). And it's been years since I stopped
experimenting with new laguages after settling down in a job.
Few weeks back I just started working on my personal
project, which I am going to spend much time in the coming
months. During the analysis I found that I just can't
accomodate the luxuries of cost effective languages,
programs and IDEs. So I planned to move to the wide spectrum
of open source languages and tools.
And when I look at the current choices, I was just
speechless. Hundreds of promising open languages and
toolsets and I found it's hard to choose. And I can't even
think of evaluating each language myself (it's a worst
nightmare). Currently I started with Mono (for the sake of
C#).
I felt this is going to be a good chance for learning new
programming languages and models. So I am open to any
language that offers me the following:
more functional
dynamic language features
better language elegance (like lambdas, Haskel like SQL syntaxes or C# LINQ)
better community support
must be open
easy interaction with the web
support for parallelism and concurrency (easy threading)
better in performance
proven web frameworks
better IDE support (I got this ease of use syndrome after using years of MS tools)
I love the Haskel and Erlang language programming approach.
But I don't have a clue about these languages' web stack and
concurrency mechanisms.
EDIT:
i would appreciate few reasons along with your choices. It will be really helpful.
I think that all these meet your requirements:
Groovy + Grails or
Python + one of these Web Frameworks or
Ruby + Rails/Camping/Merb/Sinatra or
Scala + Lift
My bet is that you'll get the groovier IDE experience with Groovy (and it's Groovy Eclipse Plugin).
Learn OOP, DesignPatterns, understanding of Algorithms... the rest is "just" language. You will find, if You learn 5th... 8th language there are some similarities, some prons and cons... what You need learn is to move business needs to some technical platform.
Weird. I can't believe noone has suggested Python yet.
These are not new languages, but I vote that if you have experioence with them, then you will be a better programmer in whatever language you choose to use:
Smalltalk (or Objective-C), otherwise you have not experienced OOP.
Lisp for functional, reflective, meta programming.
Prolog for logic programming.
All of these are quite far from your basic C-like language, both in concept and syntax.
Alan Kay invented OOP and Smalltalk, he is quoted as "C++ is not what I intended", and C++ is what most of todays OOP-languages mimics. C++-style OOP is merely syntactic sugar ontop of structs with function pointers. OOP can be so much more. Ruby is closely related, but you would miss out on interleaved method names.
Lisp has been around since 1958, and the fans keep saying that everything that gets added to any new language is just something borrowed from Lisp. Maybe not strictly true, but somewhat accurate, Lisp had garbage collection 50 years ago. Easiest way to experience it today would be to write something in Clojure.
Prolog is based on formal logic. Prolog is declarative, where you declare facts and rules and is executed by constructing queries on these relations. Kind of like puzzle games in some magazines :).
In the .NET world sounds like you're talking either F# and IronRuby. IronPython might also suit your needs.
Personally I'm going to give a vote for Python, Ruby and Mono.NET.
Of the three you were probably on the right track when you said you looked at Mono; it's C# (which you have previous experience with), there are good, free IDEs available SharpDevelop being one which makes it cheap and there's a really solid community behind it all.
You don't really say what kind of programming you want to do. Do you already know C/C++? If not, I'd really recommend learning those instead of anything new and fancy.
However, if it's new and fancy that you want and you'd like to be able to write native apps, then I'd have a look at:
D
It's similar to C++, but hopefully better in many ways. It has the advantage of out performing most other new and fancy languages and most of the features on your wish list.
I'm looking for a programming language. It should be an easy language to learn, and should have a Garbage Collector. It should be a basic language with features like basic types (integer, boolean), arrays and etc, and I should write the framework.
It is for a game editor I want to write. The editor's designer will write the code of the UI in this programming language. The framework will be a 2D graphics and audio framework, and in the future it'll be 3D too.
I thought about the new Go language, but it doesn't have much support and theres no binding to OpenGL and etc.
Any ideas?
Thanks.
The obvious two are [C](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_(programming_language)) or C++. However, [D](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D_(programming_language)) is closer to Java and C# given that it has a garbage collector in the standard, as well as an alternative standard library that is fairly closer to Java than the C++ standard library. The downside with D is that they tools are not as mature as C++ or C and the community isn't as large.
The obvious solution though it to look down the list of compiled languages on wikipedia and see which you like the look of.
Well, that's a fairly broad question and without more specific requirements it is difficult to give a focused answer, but it sounds like C (or C++) would fit the bill for you. The languages you described all owe their syntax to C. C will compile to native code. C is basic language in that there is not much to learn beyond the basic syntax and it has all the basic primitives that you require.
Now that you've added the requirement of a garbage collected language, I suppose that you could try Go, but that language is not mature and there's always a risk there.
If you don't want to manage memory all by yourself like C or C++, you can try the new Go language. It compiles to native code (albeit for Linux and MacOSX only for now) and comes with a basic framework that can be easily replaced with your own framework.
It has a very active user base, so IMO it is possible to mature quickly.
You may want to look at Lua.
Lua is a relatively tiny language which manages to be capable and universal with just a few concepts. The BNF specification for the whole language fits easily on one page. It has numbers, booleans, tables and functions, and surprisingly that's all the datatypes it needs. It can even work in an object-oriented fashion.
There's a compiler, Luac, that compiles Lua to bytecode.
Lua is already being used as a UI programming language for games. Addons for World of Warcraft and a few other games are programmed in Lua. I believe Lua is a very good fit for this kind of task.
You want OpenGL? OK... http://luagl.wikidot.com/ is an OpenGL library for Lua.
Since we don't know what you want to do, I don't know what are the chances we success. Therefor, what about a language where you have to set the probability of your statement to fail :
Meet GOTO++.
Don't say "thanks you", it's on me.
Enjoy a challenge?
Try go.
Here's a tech talk by rob pike, and here is a discussion group: http://groups.google.com/group/golang-nuts/topics
.
C++ is Great, it's not scripting lang, so you don't even need a scripting host.
Polyglot, or multiple language, solutions allow you to apply languages to problems which they are best suited for. Yet, at least in my experience, software shops tend to want to apply a "super" language to all aspects of the problem they are trying to solve. Sticking with that language come "hell or high water" even if another language is available which solves the problem simply and naturally. Why do you or do you not implement using polyglot solutions?
I almost always advocate more than 1 language in a solution space (actually, more than 2 since SQL is part of so many projects). Even if the client likes a language with explicit typing and a large pool of talent, I advocate the use of scripting languages for administrative, testing, data scrubbing, etc.
The advantages of many-language boil down to "right tool for the job."
There are legitimate disadvantages, though:
Harder to have collective code ownership (not everyone is versed in all languages)
Integration problems (diminished in managed platforms)
Increased runtime overhead from infrastructure libraries (this is often significant)
Increased tooling costs (IDEs, analysis tools, etc.)
Cognitive "bumps" when switching from one to another. This is a double-edged sword: for those well-versed, different paradigms are complementary and when a problem arises in one there is often a "but in X I would solve this with Z!" and problems are solved rapidly. However, for those who don't quite grok the paradigms, there can be a real slow-down when trying to comprehend "What is this?"
I also think it should be said that if you're going to go with many languages, in my opinion you should go for languages with significantly different approaches. I don't think you gain much in terms of problem-solving by having, say, both C# and VB on a project. I think in addition to your mainstream language, you want to have a scripting language (high productivity for smaller and one-off tasks) and a language with a seriously different cognitive style (Haskell, Prolog, Lisp, etc.).
I've been lucky to work in small projects with the possibility to suggest a suitable language for my task. For example C as a low-level language, extending Lua for the high-level/prototyping has served very well, getting up to speed quickly on a new embedded platform. I'd always prefer two languages for any bigger project, one domain-specific fit to that particular project. It adds a lot of expressiveness for quickly trying out new features.
However probably this serves you best for agile development methods, whereas for a more traditional project the first hurdle to overcome would be choosing which language to use, when scripting languages tend to immediately seem "newcomers" with less marketing push or "seriousness" in their image.
The biggest issue with polyglot solutions is that the more languages involved, the harder it is to find programmers with the proper skill set. Particularly if any of the languages are even slightly esoteric, or hail from entirely different schools of design (e.g. - functional vs procedural vs object oriented). Yes, any good programmer should be able to learn what they need, but management often wants someone who can "hit the ground running", no matter how unrealistic that is.
Other reasons include code reuse, increased complexity interfacing between the different languages, and the inevitable turf wars over which language a particular bit of code should belong in.
All of that said, realize that many systems are polyglot by design -- anything using databases will have SQL in addition to some other language. And there's often scripting involved as well, either for actual code or for the build system.
Pretty much all of my professional programming experience has been in the above category. Generally there's a core language (C or C++), SQL of varying degrees, shell scripting, and possibly some perl or python code on the periphery.
My employer's attitude has always been to use what works.
This has meant that when we found some useful Perl modules (like the one that implements "Benford's Law", Statistics::Benford), I had to learn how to use ActiveState's PDK.
When we decided to add interval maths to our project, I had to learn Ada and how to use both GNAT and ObjectAda.
When a high-speed string library was requested, I had to relearn assembler and get used to MASM32 and WinAsm.
When we wanted to have a COM DLL of libiconv (based on Delphi Inspiration's code), I got reacquainted with Delphi.
When we wanted to use Dr. Bill Poser's libuninum, I had to relearn C, and how to use Visual C++ 6's IDE.
We still prototype things in VB6 and VBScript, because they're good at it.
Maybe sometime down the line I'll end up doing stuff in Forth, or Eiffel, or D, or, heaven help me, Haskell (I don't have anything against the language per se, it's just a very different paradigm.)
One issue that I've run into is that Visual Studio doesn't allow multiple languages to be mixed in a single project, forcing you to abstract things out into separate DLLs for each language, which isn't necessarily ideal.
I suspect the main reason, however, is the perception that switching back and forth between many different languages leads to programmer inefficiency. There is some truth to this, I switch constantly between JavaScript, C#, VBScript, and VB.NET and there is a bit of lost time as I switch from one language to another, as I mix my syntax a bit.
Still, there is definitely room for more "polyglot" solutions particularly that extend beyond using JavaScript and whatever back-end programming language.
Well, all the web is polyglot now with Java/PHP/Ruby in the back and JavaScript in the front...
Other examples that come to mind -- a flexible complex system written in a low level language (C or C++) with an embedded high level language (Python, Lua, Scheme) to provide customization and scripting interface. Microsoft Office and VBA, Blender and Python.
A project which can be done in a scripting language such as Python with performance critical or OS-dependent pieces done in C.
Both JVM and CLR are getting lots of new interesting scripting languages compatible. Java + Groovy, C# + IRonPython etc.