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Allen Vailliencourt
United States
Greer
South Carolina
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Ok, I posted a thread about C# a while back. Was enjoying learning it until my laptop died and left me without a decent system @ home to learn and program on. So until then I'm just reading stuff online and investigating other languages.
I'm bound and determined to pick up a language to learn for fun, and who knows what else. What will I do? Not sure. I'd like to make a stand-alone version of something like Lost Cities just for fun (I know there are a few Java versions out there, but are there any C# ones?) or some other apps I've been thinking about.
What's your advice on some of the other languages and IDE's out there? Here's what I've been reading and has peaked my interest but obviously I can't learn them all due to time constraints.
1. JavaFX - looks very cool. Beta right now, use Netbeans or Eclipse for IDE. I've done some Java work but that was about 8 years ago...
2. Python - good language, can do windows apps and web-based apps. Some decent IDE's out there too.
3. Flash and Actionscript - lots of potential
4. ??? BGG suggestions?
What do you all think? Anything to stay away from?
~V
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Kunnagh Scott
England
Bristol
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Forth!
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Mark Hamzy
United States
Round Rock
Texas
Ace race, baby!
I, for one, welcome your mouse pointer.
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If people are going to be nominating obscure languages, then you should pick one that will mess with your mind. If you want a reasonable language to learn, try Python.
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Zuperfliegen
United States
Round Rock
Texas
Ride the Snake
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You should learn whatever language someone is most willing to pay you to do.
Go to dice.com and search "Java" and then search "Python" and see how many hits you get for each.
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Marco
United States
La Mesa
California
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Valien wrote: I'd like to make a stand-alone version of something like Lost Cities just for fun (I know there are a few Java versions out there, but are there any C# ones?) I actually tried the same thing about 2 years ago. However, I could not get C#'s forms to cooperate with my desire to have the cards semi-transparent while dragging. The gameplay mechanics are easy enough to do in C# but UI programming is somewhat limited.
There's a place for most programming languages so it ultimately depends on what you want to program or what type of job you are looking for. Personally I use python if I want to do some quick&dirty prototyping and C++ for everything else. I know my company is looking for people with thorough ActionScript knowledge and there are not too many out there. Most Flash users focus on graphics rather than software design.
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Allen Vailliencourt
United States
Greer
South Carolina
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MWChapel wrote: You should learn whatever language someone is most willing to pay you to do.
Go to dice.com and search "Java" and then search "Python" and see how many hits you get for each.
Well, I'm not doing it to look for a job. I'm in the IT Staffing/Recruiting arena and well, the potential is a good bit more than IT, BUT I miss the technical and am looking to learn for the fun of it. Who know? Maybe I'll become a 'guru' and find a job..hehe..
You're right though on the Java vs Python for real world jobs. I can't find enough Java guys for my clients but Python? No company around here uses it...sad but true.
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George Kinney
United States
Bellefontaine
Ohio
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Valien wrote: 2. Python - good language, can do windows apps and web-based apps. Some decent IDE's out there too.
IDEs are over-rated, Python + Idle + pyGame and you should be done in a couple of weeks, assuming you aren't familiar with any of it.
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フィル
Australia
Newtown
NSW
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There's also a pygame extension for handling hexmaps and tiles:
http://www.imitationpickles.org/pgu/wiki/index
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Scott Alden
United States
Dallas
Texas
Aldie's Full of Love!
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I've been wanting to learn Erlang for a while.
I also would love to spend some time with Python and the framework Django.
http://www.djangoproject.com/
I gave up on Ruby on Rails.
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Andy Leighton
England
Peterborough
Unspecified
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I would say Ruby with a GUI library is a nice language. You don't have to mess with Rails or any other web based stuff - nor do you have to use Rails if writing Ruby stuff for the web.
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Andy Leighton
England
Peterborough
Unspecified
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Valien wrote: MWChapel wrote: You should learn whatever language someone is most willing to pay you to do.
Go to dice.com and search "Java" and then search "Python" and see how many hits you get for each. Well, I'm not doing it to look for a job. I'm in the IT Staffing/Recruiting arena and well, the potential is a good bit more than IT, BUT I miss the technical and am looking to learn for the fun of it. Who know? Maybe I'll become a 'guru' and find a job..hehe.. You're right though on the Java vs Python for real world jobs. I can't find enough Java guys for my clients but Python? No company around here uses it...sad but true.
Even for people who do write software for a living Chapel's advice is not optimal. The Pragmatic Programmers used to recommend learning a new language every year or two. Not necessarily a saleable language or one that would be of use in your daily work but one which will widen your horizons, help you think and solve problems differently and better. So if you know C# it isn't really worth learning Java (or vice-versa). Learning Ruby or Lisp or Haskell or OCaml or Mozart/OZ are going to bring more rewards.
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Allen Vailliencourt
United States
Greer
South Carolina
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Great info. I dabbled in Python many years ago. Thought it was a great language. Just not a ton of exposure (mainstream) for it. Might start playing around with it again...
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Zuperfliegen
United States
Round Rock
Texas
Ride the Snake
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andyl wrote: Valien wrote: MWChapel wrote: You should learn whatever language someone is most willing to pay you to do.
Go to dice.com and search "Java" and then search "Python" and see how many hits you get for each. Well, I'm not doing it to look for a job. I'm in the IT Staffing/Recruiting arena and well, the potential is a good bit more than IT, BUT I miss the technical and am looking to learn for the fun of it. Who know? Maybe I'll become a 'guru' and find a job..hehe.. You're right though on the Java vs Python for real world jobs. I can't find enough Java guys for my clients but Python? No company around here uses it...sad but true. Even for people who do write software for a living Chapel's advice is not optimal. The Pragmatic Programmers used to recommend learning a new language every year or two. Not necessarily a saleable language or one that would be of use in your daily work but one which will widen your horizons, help you think and solve problems differently and better. So if you know C# it isn't really worth learning Java (or vice-versa). Learning Ruby or Lisp or Haskell or OCaml or Mozart/OZ are going to bring more rewards.
I think that used to be fairly true. But in today's market the complexity level has outweighed the diversification. The whole jack of all trades master of none is killing the market. Sure everyone can "dabble" in this or that, but when it comes down to writing a full fledged enterprise level application, being able to write "hello world" in five languages does me no good. But being able to know the nuances and subtleties of one solid language, is key.
When I interview, and ask the question, tell me about your Java skills. If I hear, I dabbled in it, it hits the bottom of a bone pile.
You want to learn Ruby, then learn Ruby. Is it the most marketable language in today market, not really.
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Andy Leighton
England
Peterborough
Unspecified
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MWChapel wrote: andyl wrote: Valien wrote: MWChapel wrote: You should learn whatever language someone is most willing to pay you to do.
Go to dice.com and search "Java" and then search "Python" and see how many hits you get for each. Well, I'm not doing it to look for a job. I'm in the IT Staffing/Recruiting arena and well, the potential is a good bit more than IT, BUT I miss the technical and am looking to learn for the fun of it. Who know? Maybe I'll become a 'guru' and find a job..hehe.. You're right though on the Java vs Python for real world jobs. I can't find enough Java guys for my clients but Python? No company around here uses it...sad but true. Even for people who do write software for a living Chapel's advice is not optimal. The Pragmatic Programmers used to recommend learning a new language every year or two. Not necessarily a saleable language or one that would be of use in your daily work but one which will widen your horizons, help you think and solve problems differently and better. So if you know C# it isn't really worth learning Java (or vice-versa). Learning Ruby or Lisp or Haskell or OCaml or Mozart/OZ are going to bring more rewards. I think that used to be fairly true. But in today's market the complexity level has outweighed the diversification. The whole jack of all trades master of none is killing the market. Sure everyone can "dabble" in this or that, but when it comes down to writing a full fledged enterprise level application, being able to write "hello world" in five languages does me no good. But being able to know the nuances and subtleties of one solid language, is key. When I interview, and ask the question, tell me about your Java skills. If I hear, I dabbled in it, it hits the bottom of a bone pile. You want to learn Ruby, then learn Ruby. Is it the most marketable language in today market, not really.
You are completely misreading what I am saying. I am not saying do not learn one language particularly well (although knowledge of a specific technology is vastly over-rated by recruiters) just that learning different languages in addition to your core language will help the way that you work when using your core language. For example if you learn Haskell you will have a much firmer grip of functional programming.
Furthermore I am specifically not talking about learning a language in order to be marketable. I am talking about learning a language for fun and intellectual stimulation. The fact it helps the way you think about programming in general is a pretty large side-benefit.
BTW as someone who has worked in the field for mumblety years (and been involved in technical interviews - we didn't let HR interview) I can tell you that most of the worst programmers I've seen have been those who have considered themselves an X*-developer and not just a developer.
* Replace X with whatever language you want to.
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Zuperfliegen
United States
Round Rock
Texas
Ride the Snake
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andyl wrote:
BTW as someone who has worked in the field for mumblety years (and been involved in technical interviews - we didn't let HR interview) I can tell you that most of the worst programmers I've seen have been those who have considered themselves an X*-developer and not just a developer.
* Replace X with whatever language you want to.
And as someone who has also worked for the same industry for mumblety years, I have seen quite the opposite.
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Dan Becker
United States
Austin
Texas
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For IDEs, I have found Eclipse has worked well for me through several job changes. Many of the Apache projects come with an Eclipse plugin so you can run your MacGuffin server from inside Eclipse.
Of course with Maven, Subversion, and most compilers, few IDEs works as well as a good editor and a command line window.
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