Best Programming Language [hlp]

Hello
I am a telecom engineer. I like to learn a programming language. I may use it for general purposes. Which language is the best?

C programming is evergreen and used everywhere... all the other programs are more or less derivative of C language with different syntax.. C can be used numerous application, with little modification and term it as embedded C....

So learning C will open the doors for you to understand any other language better......

Hi,
To me, BASIC is the best programming language and I've used Visual Basic (6, .NET, 2005, 2008) for programming PC applications and mikroBASIC for programming PIC, AVR, dsPIC. BASIC is very easy to learn and very efficient but not every controller supports BASIC. If it is for the PC, VB is great. But C is accepted more and there are more chances to progress with C.

Hope this helps.
Tahmid.

ckshivaram said:

C programming is evergreen and used everywhere... all the other programs are more or less derivative of C language with different syntax.

Click to expand...

BASIC is a derivative of C? I don't think so. And the same goes for numerous other languages.

Keith.

keith1200rs said:

BASIC is a derivative of C? I don't think so. And the same goes for numerous other languages.

Keith.

Click to expand...

I am not specific about any programming language... In general C++, java and its variants, VC++,, are all C originated...... I dont mean every programming language in this world is C derivative. .other programming languages like basic or assembly, languages are there that are not C derivatives

There's also PASCAL that's not a C derivative.

There are plenty of languages that aren't derivatives of C!

Keith.

"Best programming language" it depend on your need and wants

Ex. If it is general purposes and running on Windows then it would be better if you can select Microsoft Visual studio (6/2003/2005/2008/2010/etc) for Windows

Hello
Which distribution of C is the best? C++? Visual C? etc?
Also, Can it be used under different operating systems like windows and ubuntu?
Also which book is the best for learning C?

elec350 said:

Hello
Which distribution of C is the best? C++? Visual C? etc?
Also, Can it be used under different operating systems like windows and ubuntu?
Also which book is the best for learning C?

Click to expand...

There is no such thing as good or bad distribution. All the Distribution/Compiler should comply to certain C-Standard.
You can choose any Distribution according to your platform/OS

If you are from *nix background then GCC will be best for you.
If you are from Windows Background then use VC.

even if you feel like using GCC on Windows it is available too Get Dev-Cpp and it will give you IDE compiler resource editor everything.

Hi,
Visual Studio, that includes Visual Basic, Visual C++ and Visual C# are all made for the Windows platform. Reason: Made by Microsoft. There are other compilers that can run cross-platform.

Hope this helps.
Tahmid.

Hi
Basic language has many advantages such as being general and compatible with other softwares such as OFFICE(if you want work with VBA)

@Keith

FreeBASIC (Open Source) is a Basic compiler that has many C features; in fact there is a project to generate C code from the Basic code.

I don't believe that there can be an answer to the question "what is the best programming language?".
Firstly, there are some languages that are 'better' at doing some jobs than others, but for other applications, another language will be better.
Secondly, there are big differences between some of the implementations of each language - some might be easy for writing but poor for diagnosing errors, some might integrate well with Operating Systems or devices and others will not.
Thirdly, some will leave documentation and an audit trail which other people will be able to understand easily, and others will not.

But, I think there is a more interesting question; what languages will the better computer programmer use?
Well, I'm not clever enough to answer that question myself, but I do know that a good programmer will be fluent in several languages, and at different levels.
These will be languages which allow you to produce a quick printed report of data that already exists in files on a large mainframe computer, to adjust the user interface on a web site's access to a database, to extend the ability of an application on an office PC, to program a combination of microprocessor and DSP to analyse some inputs and to make a simple controller device respond to simple input/output changes. These will require knowing what the most appropriate language is. It might be an OS's report writer or a chip's machine code; and everything in between (such as C or Basic).
The best programmer knows what all levels of languages can do and knows which level of language will be most appropriate for each task. That's more important than deciding which language within any level 'is best'.

As for my opinion, and having used many lanuages at many levels, I've never felt truly happy with any of them, though I have had a lot more confidence, sucess and productivity in Assembly Languages (despite these restricting me to specific processors). If you're working in telecoms, then I guess your clients will have preferred languages and standards to be adopted, so you might not have much choice. However, it will still be useful to you to understand how languages at other levels work and what their code looks like at machine code level.

I hope this helps.

I am a telecom engineer

Click to expand...

If telecom, then the only thing that comes to my mind is Erlang. Created specifically for telecom by Ericsson. Ideal for high performance, scalable applications, much better than C or C++ in this regard.

Another language I would recommend is Scala. It is a new language, designed around year 2005. Some obvious advantages of Scala over many other languages:
1. easy to learn and extremely well designed, and consistent
2. expressive and concise (code is usually 3-20x shorter than in C++),
3. runs on any popular OS,
4. has great support for parallelism, including support for running code on GPU
5. tons of mature libraries, seamless integration with Java,
6. IDE support - working code completion, refactoring, debugging
7. multiparadigm language: supports object-oriented, functional and generic programming, and all this support was designed from ground up, not "added later".
8. very helpful community

The only disadvantage of Scala compared to C or C++ is that its support for embedded programming is limited to Java- or .NET-enabled platforms (like SmartCards or Blueray players). Also, Scala compiler is quite slow, however this problem is somehow mitigated by good module encapsulation (no header dependency hell like in C++).