Programming

I want to learn to program, what a good starter program? For Some reason i cant download Microsoft Visual Basic so that out.

Depends on what kinds of programs you want to create. HTML, although not technically a "programming" language, is very easy to learn and will give you practice in line by line editing and structure. And you can do it all in Notepad or any text editor - no compiler required. For web based stuff you can maybe move from HTML to javascript (pretty easy) or PHP (much harder than HTML) which offer more programming options but tie in easily with HTML.

Once you get good at these it will be easier to jump up to VB. Of the common languages out there, I've heard Python is one of the easiest codes to write and VB a bit more difficult. Java is somewhere in the middle and I found C pretty tough (haven't messed with C++). Whatever you choose stick with it until you learn it well, then move on to something else. Unfortunately I never followed my own advice and dabbled in a few of them just enough to be dangerous

There are tons of tutorials and learning resources on the net and probably as many published books. Good luck!

Microsoft's stuff isn't exatcly free.But there are some good free builders and IDEs for C/C++ out there.C++ is basicly C but with some added stuff for object oriented programming IIRC.You could probably start off with these directly if you find a good tutorial. Java is good for applets meant to be imbeded in webpages but not really efficient for executables.

And you can basicly write anything in notepad and just use a command line compiler/linker, but it's nicer and easier with an IDE.

HTML is just basics for page layout and stuff.To create a proper site you need to use it together with CSS , a client side scripting language which is typicaly javascript(it's not programming, just a list of instructions for your browser to follow) , a server side scripting language which is what PHP is (still not programming , just a list of instructions for the webserver to execute) and a database, like SQL.

C , C++ , Java , Javascript and PHP have very similar syntax though, so it will be way easier for you to learn the rest if you know one.Then if you really like it, you can move on to some harder stuff , like assembly

I use visual basic, it's about the easiest to learn IMO, though you can't make as complex programs as you can with C and it's variations .

-Adam

start with visual basic
then try C

Ive taught myself pawn (A variant of C++), since I run a grand theft auto multiplayer server, its slowly seeped into my head while ive been mucking around with it. I dont know all of it, but I know enough to get a server going. I don't know much of other languages. I know the super basic of HTML, but thatd about it

PHP is very syntax lenient... Thats why I like it. Everything doesn't need to be perfect.

C++ is a practical language though for client side applications, same with php and any other webdev languages for server side/browser.

DayOfShadows

from memory, older versions of microsoft office., upto 2003, has "Visual Basic for Applications". The code is just like Visual basic, though you can not make a program out of it. It will only run within the office app.

Open say, Excel (if you have the older version) and press "F11", should load up VBA.

It still has all the gui stuff, like adding buttons, ect, and the code is the same. Can remember how much VB code will work, but should get you started.

DayOfShadows


just mucking around with excel 2007, that has it as well.

Click on the windows logo, click excel options, then in popular, click the Show developer tab.

Then On the main window, click developer, then click visual basic.

My recommendation would be to start with a language like Python. It's not a clean language, but it's very easy to understand.

Once you get the hang of programming in general, move on to C# or Java. These languages are some of the cleanest available and will teach you about "proper" programming.

If you want to get started right away and you want to do web development, learn PHP. It's a messy, but productive language.

I used a freeware C++ editor/compiler for my two comp-sci courses. It was called devC++:

http://www.bloodshed.net/devcpp.html