Hi everyone....
i m a electrical engg. student but along with that i like creative computing and i m very much interested to try in software/application development(do coding) but i m total newbie in that.i tried to google to find best language which suits me BEST but after googleing for 1 week(!!!) now i m totally confused, and i need expert guidance,that "which language i should opt for?" which is hving good future prospect aswell!!!which i should select? c/c++, php,java, python, vb, MAYA, drupal, or any other u know which is BEST(most versatile).now u all are my only guiding stars ....thanks in advance!!!!
bye hv a nice day......

Depends on what you wish to DO with the language, i.e. what sort of applications or programs are you interested in writing??

I mean, generally you would not write stand-alone apps or utilities in PHP, nor does one usually write web-apps in C or C++.

If you want a stable, cross-platform language to write applications with, my suggestion would be Java or C or C++, but it's really UP TO YOU to decide what's best for you

I think you just need to do some more research, and put more thought into what you want to do with your programming. But, you will probably get lots of feedback here to your question, so check back in a bit!!

Best of success, whatever you decide.
Sasha

yes sir u r absolutely right,and frm ur suggestion i would prefer to do cross platform programming and suppose if i would like to support/contribute any Open Source project such as winamp,VLC, then which language i should chose?

It's "you", not "u"----"u" is for turns----You wouldn't make a "you-turn", would you?.........

Seriously:

1. Sasha is correct about first deciding what you want to do.

2. Regardless--I would start with plain old C---it teaches you things that you will need to know in any language, and there is always a task that it is best for.

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Please, no texting shorthand here


If you are going to do application programming, you'll need C or C++ sooner or later.

first of all thank you THANK YOU very much for this much instant response.
and second !! i am really sorry for SHORT HAND i generally follow the protocol but as i was tooooo confused so i forgot.
now as i am coming to quite conclusion towards "C",may i ask about tutorial for beginner? because i have searched quite a bit and havent found any good stuff and main prbm is i mean PROBLEM ()is that the books available for beginners are for VISUAL STUDIOS !! which i hate,as i hate M$oft .so if u have any link or any suggestion of author?it would be gr8!!! and thanks again.....

I strongly recommend gcc (GNU C Compiler) instead of Visual C++. But it is only works on UNIX. I think I heard that there is a windows port of the GNU dev tools called "MinGW", but I have no experience with it. Or better yet try Linux!

And of course the best reference for C is "The C Programming Language", which is the main C reference book written by the creators of C. There are a few copies online (both HTML and PDF) for free download, if you do not want to buy it.

can i use eclipse?

I guess, but I think you really learn more by using the command-line compiler and a plain text editor (preferably one with syntax highliting).

You can use Eclipse if you want. Personally I'd start with a basic editor eg default on Linux is vim (derived from the vi editor on Unix). You may not always be able to have Eclipse on every machine.

Books:
Good tutorial with example code explained line-by-line (A Book on C; auth Kelley & Pohl)http://www.amazon.com/Book-Programmi...4373992&sr=1-2

The C Language auth Kernighan & Ritchie http://www.amazon.com/Programming-La...4373967&sr=1-1

http://www.linuxtopia.org/online_books/

For working on Linux you'll need to understand the bash cmd lang
http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz (inc chapter on C on Linux)
http://tldp.org/LDP/Bash-Beginners-G...tml/index.html
http://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/

I agree with that, it's a great place to start learning any language that GCC can compile. Start with your first little programs, write them in the text editor, and compile them on the commandline.

IMHO, getting some gigantic, complex, over-beautified, button-covered IDE to start learning how to program, is not the way to do it.

I don't do a whole lot with C, but I really do enjoy KWrite as a syntax highlighting code editor. It's memory hungry, but is a really nice editor.

O.K. then i will definitely use compiler..!! as i m having dual boot i'l use gcc & notepad+ in M$ and on ubuntu i'l use vim as you said..thank u very much GrapefruiTgirl,pixellany, MTK358 and chris(specially) for showing PRACTICAL approach.have a nice day/night(as v r global