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Thread ID: 37731	2003-09-16 10:23:00	computer programming	jayal (1291)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
175737	2003-09-16 10:23:00	did a search for the above and noted one request by a 13 year old (in oct 2000) but no replies - is this a secret subject? or too complicated for mr. average? - just curious!	jayal (1291)
175738	2003-09-16 10:37:00	In what language were you wanting to program? Visual Basic, C+, C++, Delphi, Perl, Fortran, Cobol, Assembly, Qbasic, GWBasic, Pascal, dBase, ... The list goes on (over 200). Some are ancient history, some are still in use after 40 years, some are quite recent When you say you searched, I assume its on this forum. Try Google, there are several million "hits". I used to speak several programming languages, many of which are no longer widely used.	godfather (25)
175739	2003-09-16 11:12:00	thanks for replying - yeah searched this forum - what about "python?" - like i said, am only curious and probably (surely) way out of my depth, but hey that's how i learned to swim - just wondered how one would use such a programme and maybe write something like a backgammon game? or a key click catcher? or anything?	jayal (1291)
175740	2003-09-16 12:06:00	As Godfather says...... There are heaps of programming languages out there. You might like to try "Visual Basic tutorial" in a search engine like google. I started with COBOL, FORTRAN and Assembler. Moved on to Basic then GWBasic. Basic and GWBasic are interpreted languages. You write the code and run the program and each instruction is interpreted and then run. It assumes that you have installed Basic or GWBasic on your computer. COBOL, FORTRAN Visual Basic, C, C++ are compiled. You write the source code then compile and will finish up with an ?.exe and various other library files. The point here is that you can program what you want and the program should run on 90% of personal computers. My GWBasic program will probably run on a Commodore 64. My COBOL program would be better suited to a mainframe. My C++ program will probably run on most i386 or above. Like the difference between English, French and German.... Syntax is the problem. One full stop can mean the difference between a program getting through the compiler or not. We haven't even discussed logic errors in the program yet like an endless loop for example. Try programming. Why not?	Elephant (599)
175741	2003-09-16 22:06:00	hiya, i'm a bit of a programmer myself Now let me say... start at the bottom... i.e. i started at C when I was ten and was WAY out of my league (i.e. its the language they use professionally) so I went back to QBASIC. This is on the windows cd under old/msdos or something. It is very good to start with, although all dos based. I remember programming some fun games on it too... To start off now I would recommend using Visual Basic. It is windows based and fairly simple to get applications up and running. You can usually get books on it, and these usually include a CD with Visual Basic Evaluation Software which should be enough for what your doing... NOTE: Don't spend too much time on Visual Basic, as although it teaches you how to start programming, it can give you some very bad programming habits (which i'm still trying to get rid of after my QBasic effort)... Now i'm onto C++ and starting work on a tile based engine for the Game Boy Advanced. C++ is a bit of a step from Visual Basic, but its well worth the effort for the extra speed and other capabilities... This is some of the code for printing a sprite on the screen, and something which you may be capable of someday... ham_Init(); //BACKGROUND MODE ham_SetBgMode(4); //COPY PALLETE TO MEM ham_LoadObjPal((void*)&sprite_Palette,256); //GIVE SPRITE SETTINGS sprite[0] = ham_CreateObj((void*)&sprite_Bitmap,0,2,OBJ_MODE_NORMAL,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,11 0,50); //PRINT AND REFRESH IMAGE... ham_CopyObjToOAM(); - David	DangerousDave (697)
175742	2003-09-16 22:22:00	Sorry forgot to add... I saw some Visual Basic books at the Warehouse for $15, they should be good enough to start with. Otherwise the 'dummies' series is very good. Just make sure what ever book you get has a version of Visual Basic (Version 5 at least, 6 is the newest) If you have Microsoft Office you can also use that! There is Visual Basic Application (VBA) which is a cut down version of it for macros... don't expect any help for it though other than www.msdn.com which is the microsoft developers network and the search is useless... So in say Microsoft Word (i'm using 2000) goto 'Tools', 'Macro', 'Visual Basic Editor'. It'll pop up a new window... Once in there, click on the word document icon page thing on the left middle box... this'll bring up a new window... this is where the programming fun begins :) type in the window: sub main() Dim message message = msgbox("w00t it works",vbExclamation,"w00ties") End Sub then hit F5 and watch your work come to life! To really understand this you need to get a book or find something on the net... just done a quick search www.vbtutor.net Have fun!!! - David	DangerousDave (697)
175743	2003-09-16 22:41:00	I've only ever really done forced programming in the languages of Pascal and Jade. Pascal seemed a bit of a waste of time at the time I was doing it, but when it came around to doing Jade I was sure glad that I had learnt a fair bit of Pascal first. I'd be inclined to have a look at C++. I've got a friend doing it at the moment and he's finding it really good and he hasn't done any programming before.	-=JM=- (16)
175744	2003-09-17 00:23:00	Hey Jayal, Python is an alright language to learn, It's a good starting language, simple syntaxing and is a very powerful language, some programs I've found on Linux are built with Python. I couldn't tell you what the best language is or which one you should go with, myself, I like ASM & C/C++. C++ is a 3rd Generation Language, 4th Generation is the likes of Delphi, VB. The higher the generation, the easier it is to program in that language. Well it's debatable but we won't go there. If you want to learn Python then the best place is http://www.python.org it's a good language to start with in my opinion. What language to move onto next, whether you decide to move on is up to you as once you've learnt programming, all other languages are easy to pick up.	Kame (312)
175745	2003-09-17 01:48:00	> If you have Microsoft Office you can also use that! > There is Visual Basic Application (VBA) which is a > cut down version of it for macros... don't expect any > help for it though other than www.msdn.com which is > the microsoft developers network and the search is > useless... > Sorta dont agree with this, although MSDN can be pretty shite :-) The VB Help in Office apps isnt too bad and there are a few books on VBA, but you probably wont find a descent catch-all one as theres some app specific keywords for Word, Excel, PowerPoint , Outlook and Access. I've started to learn VB because of the benefits of being able to create stand alone apps plus using the same language to do some cool things in Office products.	parry (27)
175746	2003-09-17 02:39:00	Just remember don't give up, no matter what language you start with. Programming isn't easy, but once you learn a decent language you can do nearly any program you want! I reckon that is the hardest thing about programming, is getting the energy to learn the language, it can be quite boring, but after that it is all worth it! - David	DangerousDave (697)
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