Berto

iksnt perl heavily cgi, and cgi is slower :/ although i think pyton is cgi i dont know someone kill me.

Infinite Recursion

Perl has to be archaic, because I learned Perl in college but not Python..., learned it on my own -after- Perl

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iignotus

Perl's not *archaic*, but it was basically finalized with not enough features, and now has gone through numerous rewrites or additions that make it overall sloppy and obfuscated.

To get closer to the main subject, the thing about C++ is that there is literally almost nothing you can't do in C++. Many other languages fall short of C++'s overall number and quality of functions. However, it is a very general language, and other languages can outperform it in certain applications.

C++ is NOT the best language to start programming with; you don't really "move on" from C++ to another language. There is no commonly used language that is as useful AND as difficult to master as C++. Once you learn it, you're able to do anything.

The best language to start with is an interpreted one. An interpreted language will give you immediate feedback and are usually higher-level, so they go easy on you. I personally just tried learning python. Not that I was unable, but after learning the Object-Oriented style of C++, I found the strictly functional syntax of Python to be far too terse. I'm sure if you started with it, though, its idioms would become second nature to you.

If you're truly just beginning to program, learn Perl, Python, or PHP first... then DON'T be afraid to move onto a lower-level, compiled language (C++, Delphi, C) once you get the hang of program writing. Overall, if you know either C or C++, you'll have not only the ability to write any program, but you will be considerably more desired by companies hiring programmers to work on non-legacy code.

If you get C++, the .NET platform, Java, and PHP all under your belt, you should have no problem solving any task properly.

brkstf

i love perl, for some things. here's one of them:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use LWP:imple;
getstore ($source, $destination);

voila! you snatched a web page in three lines.

also, it's capacity for ugly code is truly astonishing. hence the saying: "well-written perl is indistinguishable from line noise."

for people thinking about getting into a web language, perl is great because it is extremely good at parsing and tweaking text files. the RegExps you can make are very powerful and quick (yet impossible to understand after you've gotten them to work).

i did quite a bit of studying on php, but i was always frustrated by its lack of an equivalent to perl's "print qq" command. i HATE escaping inner and outer quotes.

tempest

look up addslashes(), also PHP has perl RegExp....

$google_source = readfile("http://www.google.com");

In PHP i snatched a website in 1 line.

PHP is the #1 used web-programming language for a reason, it's online documentation at www.php.net has perl beat. In PHP you have to make an attempt to make ugly code... it's syntax is simple and efficent.

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brkstf

one other thing:

no one ever made a php interpreter for MacOS.
That's probably the main reason I never got into it. Maybe now that I'm getting an OS X box, i might re-enter the php world. i have a python interpreter for MacOS, but i'll be damned if I can get it to do anything. even the sample code won't run.

thanks for the heads-up on addslashes().

massive-war

c++ isn't that hard. Start out with it, trust me, you'll save yourself months of wasted time on other languages that can't keep up to par with c++. There's just no comparison.

2 quick things:

1) the main reason to NOT start iwth c++ is because it has a lot more features than most other languages, and it's somewhat harder to implement. Starting smaller, and then coming to c++ is to build good programming skills on building programs, not the syntax itself--which in my opinion is a waste of time

2)I have so many friends that started off with basic, then tried to move up to c++. Now matter what, when you start programming you're going to have to think, no matter what language you choose. After they had a hard time doing stuff with basic, then realized that c++ was harder, they just dropped it right there. So, knowing proramming will be "hard" to begin with, why not start out strong and realize that you don't have to move up, and this is the language for YOU.

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bl00dninja

the bottom line is that the fundamental principles of programming are pretty much all the same...how you accomplish that is where the language difference come in. i started learning html, then javascript, then Java, and right before i was going to learn GUI programming in Java, i dropped it in favor of C++ and have been very happy with my decision. there are a lot of scary things in C++ (pointers, and references, and multiple-inheritence, oh my!), but you can avoid them until you NEED them. it's more important to understand how to do something or how something works than memorizing a bunch of damn syntax and pre-existing libraries you can look up in a book whenever you want. if you don't know HOW to do something, you'll never figure out how to use the appropriate reference materials to accomplish the task in the first place. ahhhh screw it...C++ pwnz a11 !!!!! :-)

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shadowhunter

In my own opinion I do not think that the question should be how hard is C++? but maybe you should be asking how much effort are you willing to put into learning C++.

Although I never worked with php or C# I do have several different programming things going on right now. As in my personal info I am a uni student with very basic knowledge of C++. I did some Visual Basic in college and am still using it along with C++ and Assembly Language programming on my uni course.

I needed to do a few programs for my uni modules and needed some advice so ended up joining this forum which I have found very helpful as (seen in my posts) I have been able to get my uni work done thanks to the numerous members in the forum.

If you are willing to put the work in then I am sure if you need some help you can most likely find it here. All the best,
shadowhunter.

massive-war

I tought myself C++

that means no teacher, and it was my first programming language

so i had vitrually no help, no guidelilnes, just my books and articles,

and I turned out just fine

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