New to PC Coding

[Ryltar]

Hi I am new to PC coding ( I know PHP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript ) and was wondering where to start. My ultimate goal is for GUI PC programs. I have heard that C++ is fast and powerful, while Java is pretty good but lacking some power. What are you opinions and also what are some good resources for me to learn from...

Thanks,
ryltar

[KeZZeR]

Well if you know PHP then you're not new to programming because PHP is a server side scripting language and follows many many principles which are similar to programming languages.

C++ and Java are both powerful languages with nice libraries. Personally I use Java but only because of what i'm using it for. C++ is a damn good language, it's also difficult. For GUI's i'd imagine you'd have to use the Win32 API as a front-end for your C++ application to draw the GUI.

[shmoove]

If your goal is making GUI PC programs that won't need to do any real heavy lifting (like long and complicated calculations) or access very low level stuff (like device drivers) then you'll probably want to consider one of the RAD languages like VB, Delphi, etc. They were built for that purpose.

shmoove

[cfc]

Most languages can create GUIs these days, including PHP

Pros:
- C++ is extremely powerful, flexible, and fast (compared to Java). Odds are you're running more than a couple of programs coded in C++ right now.
- Java is entirely OOP, almost as powerful as C++, and much less complicated. It is also cross-platform. The swing API makes UIs much easier to code by hand than the regular Win32 API in C++. I can't remember too much about MFC, but from limited memory I don't think it matches up to Swing unless you're using the VC++ IDE in which case you don't have to code them by hand anyway .

Cons:
- C++ is complicated and is a lower-level language than Java. It's entirely possible for someone that's new to programming to learn C++, but expect it to take longer. Also expect C++ code to be larger than Java code.
- Java is slower than C++ by a factor that increases as you go down JRE/JVM versions. Definitely no good if you want to code CPU-intensive applications like computer games. Also, the multiple JRE versions cause some to call Java "version proprietary" because unlike C++ Java is still in development and you can't count on users to have the latest JRE/JVM installed unless you bundle it with your software a la LimeWire.

If you want a "lighter" language that can do GUIs fairly easily but still has a good deal of power and is cross-platform, look into Python; esp. if you're like me and wouldn't touch Visual Basic with a 10ft. pole.

[Ryltar]

Cool. I will check into those then. Thanks for your sugestions.