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OT: Getting started into programming/other...
Agent Davis:
Thanks for all the replies guys... you just gave me about 5 different answers.. hehe.
Howard, as for CIS, it differs at different schools.
Howard_Casto:
Yeah computer information systems and computer information science are two different animals... our university lumps them all together actually. What strikes me as odd is that their teaching java as an intro course? I've heard of pascal being taught (another useless language that you'll never need.) but java should never, ever be taught as your first class. (Sure argue all you want, but I'll put money on this one.) I'm not saying that it's not do-able, but java is a very intimidating language to learn as a first language. It could scare away alot of perspecitve majors, because in some effects, java is just plain wierd. (Although the wierdness has a reason to it.)
And as for lilwolf saying that java is good for cross-platform stuff, he's right, but the fact of the matter is no-one wants cross platform stuff. As I orignally said, I have no clue why no one wants java, but they don't. Remember, m$ is all that matters. ;)
RacerX:
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Dave Dribin:
--- Quote ---I've heard of pascal being taught (another useless language that you'll never need.) but java should never, ever be taught as your first class. (Sure argue all you want, but I'll put money on this one.)
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Pay up, 'cause my Alma Mater teaches Java in their CS Intro class:
http://www.cs.uiuc.edu/education/courses/cs125.html
Yeah, Pascal hasn't been taught since I went to school there. My Intro to CS was in Scheme and C. Talk about weird languages, Scheme was pretty weird.
--- Quote ---And as for lilwolf saying that java is good for cross-platform stuff, he's right, but the fact of the matter is no-one wants cross platform stuff. As I orignally said, I have no clue why no one wants java, but they don't. Remember, m$ is all that matters. ;)
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Dude, I don't kow what they're teaching you, but this is just pure FUD. Talk to any Fortune 500 company and I guarantee they're using Java on some mission critical component of their business. Enterprise Java *is* used in the Real World. Cross-platform isn't a huge deal, but it does have its benefits. Microsoft may have a monopoly on the end-user desktop market, but Unix is still very alive and kicking in the enterprise server market. With Java, you can develop on Windows and deploy on Unix. Or you can develop on Unix and deploy on Windows. :) Since Linux has come around, Unix has been gaining momentum in the server market.
-Dave
Lilwolf:
As for cross platform, its not used for most applications...
but for embedded systems, its getting huge. Mainly because hardware changes faster then most software... and if you have everything in java, and the next cool little device comes out and you can use it. Or when a cheaper solution comes out.
And It's growing faster then any other language. And being used everywhere. For enterprise solutions... MS still doesn't have one. They talk about it, but people don't use it.
But all in all... like all languages.. its good for some things. Usable for most...
As for a learning language. It's great for learning, especially windows style programming. Some of the command line stuff it's not really designed for. (and the hello wold program is only 4 lines of code
public class Fred {
public main (String[] args) {
System.out.println("Hello world");
}
but it's a stupid example since most code these days doesn't have much to do with console input/output. But when you have a decent IDE you just have to get good at ignoring all the genated code and only looking at what you changed.
As for the best learning language? If you want to do it professionally, you should pay your dues. Take pascal/Fortran or C. A non-object oriented language. Then move on to an object oriented language (like C++, SmallTalk, VBasic, ect... lots of great languages... all do the same things with different syntax)...
btw, my favorite language is still Obj-C. An object oriented layor on top of C added in all GCC versions. I used it in NextStep/OpenStep for years. You could do so much it was cool. TONS of things were well thought out and done well.
As for the Dont spend money on an IDE! Yeah, don't. There are some GREAT FREE ONES!
For java stuff, just get jbuilder (borlands) or Forte (sun's). Both great!
For most other languages, look at the linux stuff. Many of their IDE's have been compiled for windows and are free.
Any others?