Qbasic is always a good language to start out with. It leads into the basics of computer programming. In truth the only real difference between languages is syntax and how the language handles a few things. Where Qbasic would hold a string or text in a single variable right off the bat, in C++ you have to either assign the string upon telling the compiler you want a character variable or make an array. COncepts that are easily explained in Qbasic. Qbasic is also good because It leads to great use of Visual Basic. Which deals with object Oriented programming. And C++ includes object Oriented as well as conventional programming. But the basics are what you need first, and you can get them from both a basic and C++ langauges. C++ is easy enought to understand witht he right tutorial or book. Or even teacher as teh case maybe. But here is an example of the difference between c++ and Qbasic when it comes to printing the famous "Hello World" text to the screen.

Qbasic:
PRINT "Hello World"

C++:

#include<stdio>

cout << "Hello World" << endl;
SO yeah, syntax is the only real difference, most programming concepts are the same though. I suggest starting with qbasic. But that is up to you. You can get a free compiler for both right off the net if you want. GOod luck to you. Later days.

I started with Visual Basic .NET a year ago and just recently moved into Win32 C++. .NET is really fun and easy to learn, plus it has DirectX 9.0 which is an amazing set of APIs but here are what I think the advantages of the languages are:

Visual Basic:
Advantages: Easy to learn, doesn't take long to make a simple application, no memory leaks
Disadvantages: Slower than other languages. Can't do as much as the others (little if any memory management)

C#:
Advantages: Not quite as straightforward as VB but much simpler than C++. Memory leaks are small.
Disadvantages: Though this is changing, support is limited. Not as much memory management as C++. Faster than VB but not faster than C++.

C++:
Advantages: Speed is top notch. Anything can be accomplished. Support is massive.
Disadvantages: Complex. Memory leaks are frequent and hard to manage.

Glad you want to be a programmer! That's great! Anyways, this topic has been discussed way too many times, so I suggest you take a look at the following threads to see what we all think:

http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/thread2322.html
http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/thread328.html
http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/thread55.html
http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/thread1104.html
http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/thread140.html

I recommend you go through those threads. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask. ^_^

Hi,
Please don't consider what i'm about to say as a lecture. It's good that you should get into programming - sure. But you don't have to put yourself down saying " you see i realize i havnt accomplished much in my life ". You're 17 - don't worry. The teenage black hole will one day fill up. You have NO idea where you go in life - whether it's a good or bad place. No person knows even if they're 30 years old.

Feelings of accomplishments are good. They're good feelings. But doing things don't matter, accomplishments don't matter - whether good or bad. You matter. [Pardon my french people] see - we all came from a drop of sperm and an egg. Do you know what that looks like? It's disgusting and it's nothing - a tiny invisible slimeball. From that you have become who you are. And that tiny fact in itself makes you a miracle. That also puts you on par with every other over-developed slime-ball.

I've heard that lately Jalaluddin Rumi's Masnavi has become extremely popular over there - beyond the pond and in the US. Let me quote him:

• This World Which Is Made of Our Love for Emptiness
  
  Praise to the emptiness that blanks out existence. Existence:
  This place made from our love for that emptiness!
  
  
  
  Yet somehow comes emptiness,
  this existence goes.
  
  Praise to that happening, over and over!
  For years I pulled my own existence out of emptiness.
  
  Then one swoop, one swing of the arm,
  that work is over.
  
  Free of who I was, free of presence, free of dangerous fear, hope,
  free of mountainous wanting.
  
  The here-and-now mountain is a tiny piece of a piece of straw
  blown off into emptiness.
  These words I'm saying so much begin to lose meaning:
  Existence, emptiness, mountain, straw:
  Words and what they try to say swept
  out the window, down the slant of the roof.

The emptiness is not that facing the world - but it's face is turned towards something greater than it....like the feeling you get on a tiny boat in the ocean. Love somthing greater than you - not your own accomplishments. This is the reason why we find Samuri's or Lord of the Rings and every other quest story so appealing - the venturer has set more value on the quest than himself.

Pardon my little outburst. I thought it more important than telling somone how to learn programming.

just go for C and move to C++ then to ASM and finally all other programming languages will seem indifferent.

thats what I did, but im not sure if its the best route.

Forget Qbasic and step into the future by using java, win 32 basic languages like
realbasic(expensive) for windows, cs-basic(vb.net's lethal competitor) or other free basic languages and if you are clever enough learn sharpdevelop. Python is ok but learning the gui part tkinter can drive you insane(some people may disagree). Java is very good due to its implementation of swing. It is not easy being a programmer as i have been in this line of work for nearly ten years so you have to sit down and ask yourself if you like to stay at home on weekends and stay up late for countless nights. But you should start with assembly language first as this will give an excellent foundation. Don't jump into the deep end of the pool.

I hope this helps you

Your Sincerely

Richard West

Personally, I'd recommend starting with BASIC (some dialect of it. There's literally 100's!) because it's one of the most common language bases. (You know those TI-graphing calculators? Took me 30 minutes to learn to program them because of my strong BASIC upbringing.)

From BASIC, I'd consider Ada95. While it's not as simple as Basic, it is an excellent language to learn how to code from. If you write good code in Ada, you almost don't need comments to know what's going on. (That being said, it's a very "wordy" language.) Both BASIC and Ada are easy to learn how to use, but Ada requires more guidance than BASIC does.

Example "Hello World" program in Ada95. (If you were to compile it, it would work.)


Can you tell what's going on, even without comments?

If you really want to drive yourself crazy, learn LISP. "Urg@#%uuuh!".
Then, you can spend the rest of your life counting parentheses (inside a padded cell). Excuse the sarcasm, but I hate LISP.

Hoppy

Start with VB or C.
Best of luck.