I recommend Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs.
I suggest watching the lecture videos too.
Topic: What programming language to learn? - page 4. (Read 14451 times)
I suggest watching the lecture videos too.
What do you want to do for bitcoin? If you want to understand the client, you'd need to understand C++.
I wouldn't personaly suggest C as first, too much work unrelated to programming itself. In my opinion more high level language is somewhat easier to start with, just for geting in loops, if/else and such. No need to deal with C's strings, pointers and memory managment and so on.
Now when I'm learning Python, it seems so simple compared to C
Personaly I went Java->C(/MIPS)->Python, next I think C++, but this is all in University.
Now when I'm learning Python, it seems so simple compared to C
Personaly I went Java->C(/MIPS)->Python, next I think C++, but this is all in University.
Here's one language no one has mentioned (or maybe I missed it): JavaScript...every major web browser runs it, it has many advanced features (i.e. closures), and it has a server side implementation (nodejs.org). Google's v8 team is very talented and making JavaScript very fast (I've read that is it 10x faster than PHP right now and 3x faster than Python and likely to continue getting much faster).
+1 to javascript.
It's a language that has been underappreciated, miscategorized and misunderstood for many years.. but is finally getting the recognition it deserves. If any language is going to take off 'bitcoin style' .. it'll be javascript.
Serverside JS is an awesome development that has only just begun.
A good understanding of C/C++ is pretty fundamental for everyone (and in particular calling conventions and how various OSes approach linking). A general understanding of processor instruction sets and how you go from a high level language to machine code helps as well.
Here's one language no one has mentioned (or maybe I missed it): JavaScript...every major web browser runs it, it has many advanced features (i.e. closures), and it has a server side implementation (nodejs.org). Google's v8 team is very talented and making JavaScript very fast (I've read that is it 10x faster than PHP right now and 3x faster than Python and likely to continue getting much faster).
Here's one language no one has mentioned (or maybe I missed it): JavaScript...every major web browser runs it, it has many advanced features (i.e. closures), and it has a server side implementation (nodejs.org). Google's v8 team is very talented and making JavaScript very fast (I've read that is it 10x faster than PHP right now and 3x faster than Python and likely to continue getting much faster).
language itself is only 1% of the story
you can learn PHP in one day but then you should also learn this http://php.net/quickref.php
90% of programmer's job is "google->copy->paste", so choose the language with largest amount of available code)
right now it's Java and C#
C and C++ look terribly outdated, if you code with them why not go directly for VHDL its even more efficient)
you can learn PHP in one day but then you should also learn this http://php.net/quickref.php
90% of programmer's job is "google->copy->paste", so choose the language with largest amount of available code)
right now it's Java and C#
C and C++ look terribly outdated, if you code with them why not go directly for VHDL its even more efficient)
Python is an excellent all-around language. You can really do almost anything with it: very serious web design (Django, Plone -- extremely well-regarded frameworks/CMS), easy scripting (including a very cool runtime interpreter that can give immediate feedback), GUI design, Windows desktop executables. If you need higher performance, you can use Python bindings to fast C/C++ libraries, but still use Python to tie it all together. You can even use Python to do GPU programming (the last two are things I've done yet done with Python personally, but others do them all the time). So you can basically take advantage of a lot that C/C++ has to offer without having to learn the languages themselves.
Python also has great documentation and friendly support boards. You can find an excellent intro to computer programming that uses Python here: http://greenteapress.com/thinkpython/ This is a guide that will teach you the basics of "computer programming" as a science/art and not just another language.
Google also offers some good Python tutorials.
I only wish I had invested all the time I did learning and using PHP on Python instead. Unfortunately, when I started with PHP back in the 1990s, only really serious programming geeks new about Python, and its use had not yet been expanded to web programming to a significant extent.
Also, that (very funny) picture someone put up of different programming perceptions of other languages is totally true. The language(s) you learn will have a big impact on how you are perceived by other programmers. And even the most serious programmers usually take Python seriously, even if they don't use it themselves. This is not the case with PHP.
PS -- If you do serious web programming, you'll also need to learn about databases. Do yourself a favor and learn about basic database normalization. Some many web apps end up totally screwed up because they ignore the principles of database normalization (and yes, I know that too much normalization can cause performance issues). If you really understand object-oriented programming, normalization will make a lot of sense and will make your web app a much sounder application.
Python also has great documentation and friendly support boards. You can find an excellent intro to computer programming that uses Python here: http://greenteapress.com/thinkpython/ This is a guide that will teach you the basics of "computer programming" as a science/art and not just another language.
Google also offers some good Python tutorials.
I only wish I had invested all the time I did learning and using PHP on Python instead. Unfortunately, when I started with PHP back in the 1990s, only really serious programming geeks new about Python, and its use had not yet been expanded to web programming to a significant extent.
Also, that (very funny) picture someone put up of different programming perceptions of other languages is totally true. The language(s) you learn will have a big impact on how you are perceived by other programmers. And even the most serious programmers usually take Python seriously, even if they don't use it themselves. This is not the case with PHP.
PS -- If you do serious web programming, you'll also need to learn about databases. Do yourself a favor and learn about basic database normalization. Some many web apps end up totally screwed up because they ignore the principles of database normalization (and yes, I know that too much normalization can cause performance issues). If you really understand object-oriented programming, normalization will make a lot of sense and will make your web app a much sounder application.
- Learn C, then you're almost ready to learn PHP and others.
I highly doubt PHP is more complicated than C. PHP is a web language, and it's actually not very hard to learn.@OP,
It really depends on what you want to make and how intelligent you are. If you want to make web applications I recommend that you stick with popular open languages like PHP, JavaScript, MySQL, and of course (X)HTML.
If you want to develop desktop applications than you're best bet is to probably learn one of the C languages and/or Java. If you want to stick with easy languages try Delphi or VB instead. Or if you want a basic scripting language try PascalScript or VBscript.
What languages do I know? All the ones I listed except C languages.
It all depends what you are trying to do. Saying "I want to learn programming, which should I go with?" is rather like saying "I want to do art, which should I go with?". If your goal is to get signed by a record label, learning sculpture is not going to get you very far, even if you are a master at it.
As has been said, the actually language itself is less important than what you learn from it. There are simple concepts that are common to all programming languages, like variables, and ones like iteration, recursion and scope which similarly crop up again and again.
You say you did BASIC? So you probably recognise:
FOR n$ = 1 TO 10
PRINT n$;
NEXT
In PHP it is:
for ($n = 1; $n <= 10; $n++) echo $n . "\r\n";
In Java it is:
for (int n = 1; n <= 10; n++) System.out.println(n);
The point is that it's not the syntax (the words and the grammer) so much as the semantics (what you mean by it) that matters.
But beyond that, it also depends what you are trying to achieve at a higher level. If you are wanting to build a database driven webserver, then you'll find the PHP and SQL are useful, or ASP.NET, or any of the other web languages. Learning Fortran will not greatly help your goal of web work.
If on the other hand, you are wanting to write simple CLI scripts to speed up your work, then things like Bash and SED or Perl are useful (assuming Linux) or even VBScript on Windows.
For embedded systems, C and raw assembler will be far more useful.
So before you can get a good answer, you need to think a little more about exactly what you want to achieve. I know you mentioned scripting, but you need to decide what you want to script, and more importantly, WHY it is beneficial for it to be scripted.
As has been said, the actually language itself is less important than what you learn from it. There are simple concepts that are common to all programming languages, like variables, and ones like iteration, recursion and scope which similarly crop up again and again.
You say you did BASIC? So you probably recognise:
FOR n$ = 1 TO 10
PRINT n$;
NEXT
In PHP it is:
for ($n = 1; $n <= 10; $n++) echo $n . "\r\n";
In Java it is:
for (int n = 1; n <= 10; n++) System.out.println(n);
The point is that it's not the syntax (the words and the grammer) so much as the semantics (what you mean by it) that matters.
But beyond that, it also depends what you are trying to achieve at a higher level. If you are wanting to build a database driven webserver, then you'll find the PHP and SQL are useful, or ASP.NET, or any of the other web languages. Learning Fortran will not greatly help your goal of web work.
If on the other hand, you are wanting to write simple CLI scripts to speed up your work, then things like Bash and SED or Perl are useful (assuming Linux) or even VBScript on Windows.
For embedded systems, C and raw assembler will be far more useful.
So before you can get a good answer, you need to think a little more about exactly what you want to achieve. I know you mentioned scripting, but you need to decide what you want to script, and more importantly, WHY it is beneficial for it to be scripted.
If you care whether your language is widely in use:
Programming Community Index
But once you really learned to program, you don't need to lean specific languages any more. I never learned C++, but it's easy to understand Bitcoin with some knowledge of C and Java.
Programming Community Index
Code:
1 1 Java 19.251% +0.58% A
2 2 C 17.280% -1.20% A
3 3 C++ 9.017% -1.45% A
4 5 C# 6.221% +0.49% A
5 4 PHP 6.179% -2.39% A
6 9 Objective-C 5.181% +2.68% A
7 6 (Visual) Basic 5.106% -0.41% A
8 7 Python 3.583% -0.63% A
9 8 Perl 2.328% -0.77% A
10 10 JavaScript 2.242% -0.19% A
http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html2 2 C 17.280% -1.20% A
3 3 C++ 9.017% -1.45% A
4 5 C# 6.221% +0.49% A
5 4 PHP 6.179% -2.39% A
6 9 Objective-C 5.181% +2.68% A
7 6 (Visual) Basic 5.106% -0.41% A
8 7 Python 3.583% -0.63% A
9 8 Perl 2.328% -0.77% A
10 10 JavaScript 2.242% -0.19% A
But once you really learned to program, you don't need to lean specific languages any more. I never learned C++, but it's easy to understand Bitcoin with some knowledge of C and Java.
C++ with Qt Framework.
Puke.
C with Glib/GObject system.
Bash, Python, and C/C++. If I were you I would stay away from Java.
Why do you say this? If you're not looking to make any huge million dollar project, java is a great language to get your feet wet.
I started out with C++ and while it did take quite some time to learn how to make my own fully functional programs without having to look at references every 5 minutes, I still recommend it as a start. I recommend any and all languages. They've all got their ups and downs. However, if you do plan on becoming a full-fledged programmer in the future, I would hope that you learn C++ eventually as it is one of the most powerful languages out there and while PHP claims to be able to do anything, C++ really can.
I would learn a language supporting the object oriented concepts. Java is a great starting place, C++ is also.
After that you can learn procedural languages (e.g. C, Perl etc) in no time.
After that you can learn procedural languages (e.g. C, Perl etc) in no time.
Its been a while since I programmed (basic) <-- dont laugh.. gorilla was an awesome game!
anyways I'd like to learn to make scripts or programs that can help bitcoin, I'm just wondering if I had to learn one which would be the best. Should I learn C or should I learn php for web stuff. Kinda leaning toward php. But just wondering what others think. When i go to learn something I go balls to the wall.
What is the bitcoin client programmed in?
Bitcoin client written in C++.anyways I'd like to learn to make scripts or programs that can help bitcoin, I'm just wondering if I had to learn one which would be the best. Should I learn C or should I learn php for web stuff. Kinda leaning toward php. But just wondering what others think. When i go to learn something I go balls to the wall.
What is the bitcoin client programmed in?
Basic C knowledge is always needed, whatever main language you about to choose.
A good starting point is this site:
http://projecteuler.net/index.php?section=problems
People solve problems using various languages and techniques.
You have to find a solution to access the discussion.
According to my observations of projecteuler (sorted by popularity):
- C++ wins, but by a small margin
- Python is more and more popular, native big integers is a big advantage (not in real world just in this particular problems), some implementations can compete with C++ speed (psyco etc.)
- Java is used quite often
- Ruby represents very nice and compact source code, but lack of speed make it worthless for final fast solution sometimes (300x slower than C is quite possible), but very useful in research/testing
- Haskell is the most popular functional language atm, there are some solution on Clojure,APL/J/K,LISP
- C#, Delphi is still used
Perl is the best for text/binary parsing, and my choice for very small programs.
edit: changed pic to include Lisp
C++ with Qt Framework.
If you want to do web development, go for php
If you want something more general, go for python.
This advise is related to the experience you described.
If you want something more general, go for python.
This advise is related to the experience you described.
Bash, Python, and C/C++. If I were you I would stay away from Java.
For a really nice language that's interoperable with Java on the JVM, have a look at Scala.
Here's a blog post by Bruce Eckel about it:
http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=328540
Here's a blog post by Bruce Eckel about it:
http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=328540
You shouldn't go with your mind set to "learn a programming language". A "programming language" is only an expression of the underlying art, The art of computer programming, there even is a multi-volume book bearing that title. Programmers ought to dedicate their career to master this art. I recommend Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. TAOCP is a legend, it's very lengthy but if you have enough time you can't afford to not to read it.
Lisp is a family of programming languages which bear the essence of programming than have been lost in modern computer languages made for the computer pawns, the bottom 99 percentile which dare to call themselves a "programmer". Scheme is probably the most elegant computer language, it is used in the SICP (The book linked above). Learning the proper use of Lisp is a unique enriching experience for the artist programmer, even if you are working with other computer languages. C does exactly what it's supposed to do and does it well. Unfortunately you will probably have to learn to find your way in C++ if you plan to work on the Bitcoin reference implementation.
In advance, the reply to this is your biased point of view accusation is Of course!. Pretending human recommendations or opinions aren't biased is naive. However, people honest with themselves and their fellows will try to make their opinions biased toward what's perceived by the former as good, right or better and I'm no exception.
Regards.
Lisp is a family of programming languages which bear the essence of programming than have been lost in modern computer languages made for the computer pawns, the bottom 99 percentile which dare to call themselves a "programmer". Scheme is probably the most elegant computer language, it is used in the SICP (The book linked above). Learning the proper use of Lisp is a unique enriching experience for the artist programmer, even if you are working with other computer languages. C does exactly what it's supposed to do and does it well. Unfortunately you will probably have to learn to find your way in C++ if you plan to work on the Bitcoin reference implementation.
Quote
Programming languages should be designed not by piling feature on top of feature, but by removing the weaknesses and restrictions that make additional features appear necessary. Scheme demonstrates that a very small number of rules for forming expressions, with no restrictions on how they are composed, suffice to form a practical and efficient programming language that is flexible enough to support most of the major programming paradigms in use today.
In advance, the reply to this is your biased point of view accusation is Of course!. Pretending human recommendations or opinions aren't biased is naive. However, people honest with themselves and their fellows will try to make their opinions biased toward what's perceived by the former as good, right or better and I'm no exception.
Regards.
While there are a ton of languages out there, and I agree that a good solid programmer doesn't learn a language they learn how to program, every solid engineer gets their start in one language.
Myself, I lean towards C# and .NET, but I've messed around with PHP and Ruby. For web stuff, you might find PHP to be the most free. Its pretty powerful and quick. Some even say it can do anything, im still waiting for it to make me coffee in the morning but hey.
Find a language that you can get behind, learn the basics and then if you feel like moving on, explore a completely different language. PROLOG will blow you mind!
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