beeen a whileBest Software Programming Language
What a subject to touch on! To those who don't know a great deal about programming, there is an enormous amount of them - all with unique features and objectives (focused on different ideas) that makes the decision tough to decide which language to choose. We will only be touching on the most relevent programming languages and give you the direction you need to choose for yourself. The following languages I will be discussing are: Visual Basic, C/C++, Java, and the .NET series.
Visual Basic Overview - Visual Basic (VB) is known as a RAD (Rapid Application Development) tool and is indeed the fastest and easiest language to use. As a result, Visual Basic is the most well-known programming language and also has the most developers. Visual Basic is COM based while the other languages that I discuss are Object-Oriented based or OOP (object oriented programming). The advantages of this language is the relatively easy learning curve and development time but the major disadvantage of the language is it's limit. There is virtually no memory handling in Visual Basic which makes things very simple which you will learn the difficulties about in the next sub-section. Another downfall of this language is the requirement of the VB-Runtime DLL's being on the user's operating system. An application created by yourself may work fine but won't if a person doesn't have the required files. The final downfall of VB is the slowness of applications. C/C++ and Java simply run dozens times faster then the language, making VB fall short in creating huge applications.
C/C++ - C/C++ is one of the most powerful languages available but the learning difficulty, in turn, is a lot higher than Visual Basic. C/C++ allows you to see programming in it's full potential while Visual Basic hides away a lot of things but the development time of a standard C/C++ application could be ten times that of Visual Basic. C++ also possesses a great deal of power in that applications can run extremely fast in comparison to a Visual Basic application, though the language does require full memory management which is a pain for developers - unless you are one of those who prefers a *nix-based operating system than a Windows-based OS. The language is used to develop some of the most wide known video games and applications in which all can run standalone without required runtime dll's like Visual Basic.
Java - Ahh, my most favored language of all. This language is a lot like C/C++ - infact, it was derived from C. However, memory management is not a problem as they have a special system to do most of the work for you, while still maintaining the power C/C++ possesses. This allows for a quicker development in applications in Java but the downside is that it runs a little slower than C/C++ applications do. Another nice feature in Java is the ability to create applets which can be run on websites (web-based applications!). I have yet to discover a down-side to the language but I'll keep you posted.
.NET - .NET has many forms, VB.NET, C.NET, and Java.NET. It really isn't a programming language in itself but a varient or tool for languages which has it's own preset functions and classes. Is there really an advantage to this language? Yes, it allows developers trained in the language to make businesses money because everything is just plug-n-play. Microsoft makes a great deal of money off the language and you can read the article where I discuss the downfall of programming today. .NET, in my oppinion, really holds your hands too much. It has so many preset things all you really have to do is get instructions on what you need to build and put everything together.
Conclusion - I can really sum up my points in four sentences.- Choose Visual Basic if you've got a small learning curve or want to build quick applications.
- Choose C/C++ if you're a *nix operating system user and if you enjoy programming.
- Choose Java if you don't want to deal with all the small technical details but want the full power of programming.
- Choose .NET if you plan to be coding applications for companies and is less interested in the enjoyment of programming.
Written by Daniel Moxon