Then definitely go with Java. It's perfect for the web envirnonment. It's gotten a bad rap from it's applets that have been coded by poor programmers, but it's a good language to do other tasks such as servers/networks, client applications, graphic user interfaces that can run with the same code on macs, unix, windows, to name a few. Also, once you know the basics, you can also try out JavaServer Pages\Servlets to develop web applications.
This depends what you'd like to program for and what your target audience is. C++ and Java almost have the same learning curve to an extend - C++ is easier to pick up yet harder in the long run when your programs become more complicated. Java might be a little harder to pick up because it forces you to make ANY program object oriented even if you just want to add 2 numbers - but it's easier to maintain in the long run I think compared to programs developed in C++.
Let me know what kind of programs you'd like to write and what your target audience is - I'll help you out then.
Yeap, definitely. Java 3D is a set of classes that makes programming in 3D environment a lot easier. Similar to OpenGL, DirectX, and MFC. You don't necessarily need to know how Java3D works in every little detail, but you need to know how you're going to use it...and therefore you have to know Java to use it.
Programming 3D in Java is neat. Although I'm still speculating... I'm thinking of starting a game, and at work they're stressing that I use Flash (I work with web developers), but I have a stronger background in programming in non web languages such as C++/Pascal and assembly. I think if I do start creating a game, chances are that it will be in C++.
So, what do you do? What do you like? What do you hate? What are your hobbies? I think we all know that we have computers in common. Some of us are into programming, while others into networking, hardware, etc. But what's the other side of you like? The side when you're not around computers. (AS IF! :D ) I whipped up a questionaire:
Name: Daniel Nickname: Danny-Boy (ooh, do I hate this one), Dan, Danny Height: 5'10'' Weight: 173 Hair: Brown Eyes: Brown Location: NY Age: 22 Hobbies: Listening to music, drawing, playing the piano, going out with friends and family, movies, laughing, sleeping, martial arts, working out, anime
Relationship Status: single
Fav Music: damn, a lot of stuff...lol... U2, Greenday, Nirvana, REM, The Offspring, GoldFinger, Dave Mathews Band, Metallica, Aerosmith, Classical music, video game music, Techno/Trance/Dance, Jazz
Education: Computer Science, Business Computer Information Systems, Psychology
Work: Free lance web designer and programmer (web dev) Favorite Food: Pizza, Chinese/Spanish Food, Chicken, Steak, Tacos, and Fetuccini Alfredo
Favorite Movies: The Naked Gun (1, 2 1/2, 33 1/3), Total Recall, Predator, Terminator 2, Superman, Carlito's Way, GoodFellas, Dumb and Dumber, Liar Liar, High Fidelity, Shawshank Redemption, The Stand, and others I can't remember
Favorite TV Shows: The Family Guy, The Simpsons, X-Files, John Doe, Will and Grace, Seinfeld, Frasier, Everybody Loves Raymond, Just Shoot Me
Favorite Video Games: Secret of Mana (SNES), Zelda A …
Luckyjfl commented: Yes, I agree with a few things and it is good.+0
Jim Carrey is one of my favs. How can you not like Ace Ventura? I loved both the first and second. Those two are classics. Dumb and Dumber, oh man... I love the Turbo Lax scene! It sucks that Dumb and Dumberer will not have Carrey/Daniels in it.
I have many memories from Logo... and QBASIC too. I used to draw a lot when I was younger so I really took logo to the limit. I used to draw people, cars, super heroes, and other cool stuff. Also, if you remember QBASIC, the play command, I got carried away with that. I used to write whole compositions - all with the Play command. I can read sheet music, so I would convert all the notes with the Play command and would play it back through the PC speaker. Oh, the good times. :)
Whoa, took some time to respond. I guess Dani was right about me not looking outside of the programming section. ;)
Well, you got several options. It all depends on your budget, demands, and expectations. If you want to shell out for a good well known program that generates 3D animations/effects for Flash, I suggest you go with Electric Rain's Swift3D. One of the most popular programs in the Flash 3D market. It cost around $170. http://www.swift3d.com/
If you're low on cash, then you can go with Swish. You can do some simple (and I mean simple) 3D stuff in it. It's also very intuitive and comes with premade special effects that you can apply to images and text. I highly recommend this program if you want to do Flash but don't have the time to learn it. It's only $50. http://www.swishzone.com
Other than those two, a lot of traditional 3D programs nowadays like trueSpace, 3D Max, and Poser support plugins to export to Flash.
In my opinion, Flash's capability with 3D is somewhat limited. It's not made to handle 3D, well, not the way Director was made. (For example, you couldn't do 3D maze or world like in Quake without either making the movie size too small or having it crawl speedwise. And that's usually without texture mapping.) If you want true 3D support, that is if you're going to be making a game, like Quake, then go with Director. The …
I haven't gotten my feet wet with 3D GameStudio, but DarkBasic I've used. I'm amazed at the simplicity. With one command you can make a 3D cube. Put that in a simple For-Loop, and you got it rotating. Put that in another loop, and insert a command to play A WAV,MIDI,MOD, and you got background music. Very simple. You can even load objects from 3D Max and other popular 3D programs.
Yesterday I was looking for a good game authoring language and came across a very interesting one called 3D GameStudio. I was very impressed by some of the samples. I think I might get into it during this summer. If you're coming from a C/C++ world, then it should be a snap to pick up because it's based on C. The link is http://conitec.net/a4info.htm
I also had my eyes open at DarkBasic, but 3D GameStudio seems a little better. This one is based of course on BASIC. http://www.darkbasic.com
I haven't had a chance to use vim thoroughly yet, but I wasn't a big fan of vi. I guess you can say that I've been spoiled using those easy to use IDE in windows that I can no longer have the patience to use anything like vi or anything console oriented. =) I will give it a chance though, it sounds like a neat tool.
If you want to practice unix programming, maybe do a few unix/linux scripts, or just test out some commands, Cygwin is the answer. Cygwin is the command.com for Unix. When you run it, it opens up a window like the DOS console, and you're ready to type out your commands. Contains the most popular unix commands (and even emulates Unix global variables, which is pretty neat) like AWK, GREP, SED, and of course you can use shell scripting syntax like if, then, setting variables, etc. Pretty good.
LOL! You spelled "inscissor" wrong. =) I know it sounds and looks a lot like the word "incisor," but it's spelled "inscissor." Hehe... or you could just call me Dan... ;)
Well I mentioned QBASIC and Pascal just because they deal with good principles of programming - principles that you'll find in other languages. By themselves, they are now obsolete, other than learning/academic purposes. Their syntax has been carried out in other popular languages such as Visual Basic(QBASIC) and Delphi(Pascal).
I think you should just go directly to C++. C++ contains principles that are found in pretty much all programming languages. A lot of other languages tend to follow its syntax, so I highly recommend it.
I definitely don't recommend you start out with Perl. If you want to get a mild understanding of programming I recommend you do QBASIC. If you want a deeper understanding of overall topics of programming, definitely go with C++. C++ has a strong foundation in object orientation plus builds on a lot of what C already has. C is still considered more lower level than C++ so it's more preferably used to build low level applications such as 3D engines and kernels. This isn't saying that C++ isn't powerful, it is. Oh yes, very. I just think that C++ would be a good choice to start, because, although it might be harder to start off rather than QBASIC or Pascal, you start out with a good foundation that's found in all programming languages.
If anyone wants to develop Perl applications, a good IDE is OptiPerl. This is one of the best editors I've seen. You can make CGI scripts and test them off line (you see the output on an HTML page), contains color coding, query editor, script output screen (for console programs), regular expression tester and much more. I used this for a server I wrote in Perl and it worked great.
Thanks for the feedback. You're getting me thirsty for a nice refreshing glass of VB.Net. Been meaning to read up on the whole .Net architecture but just haven't gotten to it. I've been kind of curious how ASP.Net has changed because I used to do some development in that a while back, and now I'm sort of missing it. :'( For now I guess, I'll just stick with VB6. ;)
Can you make out calls to Perl or any other language? Let's say you're writing a handler for something, and you wanted to include something written in Perl, could you do that? I really need to try out VS.net. =)
Dirty habit? Hehe... yes, possibly. I used to read a lot when I was little and also watched a lot of TV. I guess I sat too close to the TV and read in dim lighting. I don't mind too much wearing glasses/contacts though.
Thanks for the feedback on Bloodshed. I've never really done any serious development in C++ except for academic programs. Most of the serious work that I've done has been related to web dev(ASP, ColdFusion, Java, SQL, etc.) For a while I was into creating simple applications with Visual C++ and MFC, but didn't really find much use for it in my career. Even Bloodshed, I've only used a few times. I was a big on Borland's Turbo C++ 3.0 for DOS though.
This is a great IDE for C++ (Windows). Great for academic programs. It comes with a C++ compiler and a slew of popular c++ libraries already for use. Very simple and intuitive to use if you don't want to use Visual C++, Turbo C++, or DJGPP. Check out the screenshot.
This is a great tool to use when creating DBs in MySQL. Better than the one it comes with. If you're about to embark on an app using MySQL, I recommend it.
Haha. Yeah, I chaged it JUST FOR YOU DANI. :) Another reason why I did it was because it's sometimes a pain in the neck developing web apps with frames. I was planning on making all the sites dynamic, but recently I've been thinking of renewing the whole site in Flash. Create a mini content manage maybe. Still got lots of planning to do.
I think you should just keep it the way it its. The forums should be the home page...I hate to be a pig, but maybe change the color "yellow" to a different one... more of a mascular color (since most computer people are guys) =) Here's my friend's forums:
There's still years to come 'till I become a Linux user. I just can't find anything useable for the work I do. I agree that it might be a better OS than Windows, but I go more for useability.
I usually install Red Hat on one of my computers to do small projects from time to time. Afterwards I uninstall it because I have so much hardware it can't detect any of it. I've tried TurboLinux, RedHat, and Debian - my favorite is RedHat. I think it has one of the best installations (not really, but compared to the others) out there and it's easy to configure. Also I like it's popularity.
Yeap. Perl originally was for shell scripting, taking the best features of the unix commands and adding its own enhancements to the language (from bash, tcsh, kshell, etc). Now they have perl mods to handle web requests, database connectivity, etc., due to the increase popularity of web apps.
I still think Perl is the best language for text manipulation.
