Where to next?

[gemini2011]

What language do you think I sould learn after Visual Basic? Please post and/or enter in Poll

[Jason]

C/C++/java/javascript all lead into each other. And if you know C there are small adds for C++ and java though not the same as javascript they are pretty compatible as far as knowing the OO for them. I would say either Java or C++ since they are both good languages. I prefer C++ over Java myself.


Jason

[liorean]

If you do it for getting a programming job in the future, I'd suggest either C/C++ or Java. If you are more interested in web design or web applications, have a look at JavaScript (See my documentation thread for resources on that). If you want to learn a language for private use, I'd suggest that you have a look at one of a number of other languages, though:
- Eiffel
  An ECMA standardised functional programming language that is pretty powerful and useful. There are a fair number of resources on it on the internet.
- Python
  A programming language that combines a good functional approach with a strong object orientation. It's a good overall language, but for functional programming I'd suggest you use Scheme instead, and for object oriented programming Ruby.
- Ruby
  Aside from Smalltalk and Self, this is one of the purely and completely object oriented languages. It's lend in concepts from Smalltalk, Java and PERL and it's loose syntax (providing both C-like syntax and PERL-like syntax) makes it easy to learn and find your style of programming in.
- Scheme
  A modern LISP that is far easier than Common LISP to learn, and has a fair number of implementations and extensive online documentation, this language is the typical example of how to construct a language. It's functional as a base, but has strong abilities to use object orientation, procedural programming, imperative programming and logical programming.

Scheme being my favorite language, I have a few links for you if you want to try it out: DrScheme, a good implementation for learning the language: <http://www.drscheme.org/>
Teach Yourself Scheme in Fixnum Days: <http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/dorai/t-y-scheme/t-y-scheme.html>
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs: <http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html>
The Scheme Programming Language, 2nd Edition: <http://www.scheme.com/tspl2d/>
How to design programs: <http://www.htdp.org/>
Revised5 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme: <http://www.schemers.org/Documents/Standards/R5RS/HTML/r5rs.html>
An Introduction to Scheme and its Implementation: <ftp://ftp.cs.utexas.edu/pub/garbage/cs345/schintro-v14/schintro_toc.html>
An Introduction to Lambda Calculus and Scheme: <http://www.jetcafe.org/~jim/lambda.html>