What is an easy programming language to learn?

Discussion in 'IT and Computer-Related Degrees' started by Randell1234, Jun 26, 2009.

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  1. james_lankford

    james_lankford New Member

    try to find a course in database management
    all things being equal, choose one that focuses on one of these databases, in this order
    Oracle
    MySQL
    MS Access

    also find a course that teaches advanced Excel; it MUST include VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) macro programming

    there is a TON of stuff you can do with VBA; it is applicable to Excel, MS Access and MS Word
    you can connect to any of the above databases and extract data with VBA;

    it is an EXCELLENT first programming language to learn for someone with no programming experience; its easy to learn, but can do awesome things combined with Excel and Access

    there is practically no application anyone would pay you to write if you have only one year of C or C# or Java instruction; you just wouldn't have the skill to write anything useful; anything you could write they couldn't buy from MS or anyone else for 1/3 the salary they would have to pay you

    but with 6-9 months of good, solid VBA, Excel, database instruction, you could write some really useful, customizable stuff
     
  2. Griffin

    Griffin Crazy About Psychology

    Depends on what you are programming, IMO. If you want to work in web development, you need a good (or at least passable) base in MySQL first.

    If you are making websites, you need to tread water HTML/CSS before getting into the deep end of MySQL and PHP. So start there first.

    I also think it's worth reading John Nunemaker's recent piece "I have no talent." It really spoke to me :) The people who have ten years of experience once started out totally lost, so just remember that. You are no worse off than anyone else was as a beginner! :D Heck I'm looking at Ruby on Rails (another language) as a complete newbie to that language.
     
  3. sentinel

    sentinel New Member

    Drive through psychiatry perhaps? :eek:
     
  4. kevlab1251

    kevlab1251 New Member

    Cobol / Pascal where the primary languages that were taught when I went to college.

    I learned Basic and Fortan(a little) on a PDP 11/34 (Dec/Digital Mainframe) we had VT52, and VT101 terminal monitors as well as printer terminals(cant rememebr model #s) What a waste of paper that was....now I am dating myself. I Rememeber when we upraded to 10 Meg hard drives. Big Removable platter drives. That was around 78, I was in 7th grade.

    ooh the good old days....:)
     
  5. Zahran

    Zahran New Member

    Since this is your first programming experience, a simple high-level language is probably the best - choose Python for ease of use, ease of debugging, and simplicity. Unfortunately, most employers will use more "traditional" languages like Java, C#, C/C++, VB, COBOL or FORTRAN; for web-development you'll tend to see languages like PHP, Perl and Ruby for the server-side and Javascript for the front-end. Ruby is probably the easiest on the server-side.
     
  6. notchent

    notchent New Member

  7. Jkate

    Jkate New Member

    PHP has become the most popular Web programming language not only because it is free. PHP is a full-fledged programming language (unlike HTML for example, which is more of a presentation means) and many complex applications can be written it it.
     
  8. Jkate

    Jkate New Member

    Another benefit of applications written in PHP is that they are fast and if written properly, they could be pretty secure. There are also tons of ready PHP scripts and functions, which you can customize to your liking and use in your PHP applications.
     
  9. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    I had a friend who talked a lot about REBOL about twelve years ago, but I haven't heard much about it since then. I went to look, and evidently they're now releasing v.3, and for the first time the language will be released as open source. Especially the latter makes me want to take a fresh look at it. How suitable is it for writing quick DB-backed web apps?
     
  10. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Steve, I now have about three days' exposure to REBOL. With that lofty expertise, :smile: I suggest you take a look at section 2:3 in the link above. It appears (to me, at least) that REBOL shines at all kinds of web-apps, including DB work.

    I was impressed by the amount of reference material available for REBOL.

    Someday, I'm going to make a list of the most "fun" programming languages. That usually means (to me) easy ones that can do whiz-bangety things with small amounts of code. REBOL will be VERY high on that list! (At 70, I'm not too old to have enjoyed the "REBOL for kids" demo. :smile: )

    Johann
     
  11. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    This is highly unusual! For once, it seems I may have been right about an IT topic. :smile:

    Looks like REBOL is good for DB purposes. From its own site:

    "REBOL's blend of capability, compact size, ease of use, cross-platform functionality, and variety of interpreter platforms enable it to gracefully replace many common tools such as Java, Python, Visual Basic, C, C++, PHP, Perl, Ruby, Javascript, toolkits such as wxWidgets, graphic/multimedia platforms such as Flash, DBMSs such as Access, MySQL, and SQLite, a variety of system utilities, and more, all with one simple paradigm." (Emphasis mine, saith the Johann :smile: )

    Quite a statement -- then again, quite a programming language!

    Johann
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 4, 2013
  12. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Fascinating. I'll have to give it another look, then!
     

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