[DarkBasilisk]

JAVA IS THE BEGINNING JAVA IS THE END.

That is all.

[Nuke]

JAVA IS THE BEGINNING JAVA IS THE END.

That is all.

**** java

there i said it

[peterv]

JAVA IS THE BEGINNING JAVA IS THE END.

That is all.

**** java

there i said it

My proposal for Nuke still stands   

[Flipside]

Nothing wrong with Java, perfectly good language to start from, it pretty much forces Object Orientation, which is a plus, and can serve as a launch pad for learning straight-compiled languages like C++. And let's face it, a lot of the rumours about Java are exactly that, rumours.

[Grizzly]

Java is bassicly your step up to just about anything. I don't know about C++ (haven't done that one yet, might be that I never will) but PHP was a breeze after I tackled Java.

[BloodEagle]

I worry that he will think his current trollish, antisocial behavior is acceptable long-term. Maybe I'm wrong, though. :|

 



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[Titan]

Minecraft is in Java.

I'm lucky, since my high school actually has a Game Design class, we're starting with Blender and Unity/or/Alice next week. Thank God, means I can get out of actionscript.

[karajorma]

C++ is the way to go, and being a high-level programming language can do things Java cannot.

Falls about laughing at the idea that C++ is a higher level language than Java.


Try actually learning what the languages are before you start pointlessly having a go at Java. Both languages have advantages and disadvantages.

[Flipside]

Agreed, I've heard C++ described as 'nothing more than machine-code with go-slower stripes', so it's all up to personal definition

The impressions I have recieved are that Java has particular strengths in ease of use, multi-platform support and connectivity, whereas C++ excels in low-level manipulation, optimisation and deployability. Even the speed argument is heavily debated, there is a version of Quake written in Java3D that actually runs faster than the original C program.

Might move this to the programming section...

[Polpolion]

You know, I honestly can't say that I think having zack's brother jump into an IRC channel full of people that think he has srs problems is a good idea. Keep in mind that the only person that knows the kid here is zack, and that if any of us think up a way to help, it should probably go through her and not random people on the intarbutt.

Agreed, I've heard C++ described as 'nothing more than machine-code with go-slower stripes', so it's all up to personal definition

The impressions I have recieved are that Java has particular strengths in ease of use, multi-platform support and connectivity, whereas C++ excels in low-level manipulation, optimisation and deployability. Even the speed argument is heavily debated, there is a version of Quake written in Java3D that actually runs faster than the original C program.

I've actually been told that the overhead C++ oop adds makes C++ about twice as slow as straight up C. Personally I'd love java if you didn't need to run everything through the jvm.

[Nuke]

i was an honor student all the way through highschool. did well in college too. i didnt start the downward spiral till i started attempting to become part of the real world. i kinda think hanging out with a shady crowd might be a good thing. you would have no illusions to **** with your head. you would know that the world was **** from day one, and do your best to get on top of the pile, instead of getting buried by it. so id say hes likely on the right track to success.

java has its place, but it shoudnt even be the first language you learn. you should start as close to the cpu as you can get and work your way up, instead of starting with a high level language and staying there. the first language you should have to learn should be assembly. its sad that a lot of programmers are completely unaware of what happens past the compiler.

Agreed, I've heard C++ described as 'nothing more than machine-code with go-slower stripes', so it's all up to personal definition

The impressions I have recieved are that Java has particular strengths in ease of use, multi-platform support and connectivity, whereas C++ excels in low-level manipulation, optimisation and deployability. Even the speed argument is heavily debated, there is a version of Quake written in Java3D that actually runs faster than the original C program.

Might move this to the programming section...

of course you missed the point. quake's minimum requirements were a 486 with math co-processor and 8 megs of ram. lets see a java vm run in that. and you still have to run the game. quake was never meant to be fast, it was meant to run on almost every pc available at its time, and in very little memory.

i find the further your code is from the processor, the less efficient it becomes (for example: lua is a very fast scripting language, but it does it my being a total memory whore). java compiles to byte codes that the jvm can understand, and it translates them to equivalent instructions that are compatable with the hardware platform. when you do something like that it completely excludes the possibility of low level optimizations (unless you have the source to the vm). it may be possible for java to outperform c/++ in some situations, but a c/++ programmer has the option of low level optimizations.

i also kinda think that in many cases object oriented programming is completely unnecessary, and can really slow a program down if used haphazardly.

[Flipside]

So because it wasn't very useful 10 years ago, it must therefore be crap now?

Interesting reasoning...

As of OOP, the whole point of OOP is not about speed, it's about modularity and flexibility.

Oh, and for the record, the first programming language I learned was Z80 machine code. In Hex.

Personally, I think Java is a far better place to start because 90% of applications are not speed-centric. Certainly, if you want to judge a language by it's speed then Machine code upwards is the way to go, but that's a pretty archaic viewpoint, almost everyone who works in programming isn't interested in speed, it's only the gaming market that really pushes in that direction, and even then not entirely, most programmers are more concerned about cross-compatability and ease of coding, they don't want to spend months on a project which should take weeks, and in that respect, Java is a very useful language. It has good database access, RMI support, and a good UI interface, the easier it is to put together and maintain an app, the better in almost every every business situation.

[Mika]

Not to meddle with the original topic, but I think you are both right and approaching programming from different backgrounds.

What I know from hardware development (optical measurement systems and other stuff you don't want to know about), programming is almost always done with C/C++. There is always the case you are doing something completely new and it is you who needs to write the drivers. Occasionally with a little bit of Assembly involved, but not that much from what I have heard.

From general programming point of view, cross platform languages tend to become more popular for reasons listed above.

Depends on what you are trying to accomplish with programming.

[Flipside]

Agreed, I'm not saying, nor would I ever say, that one is better or worse than the other, but declaring "**** java" because it doesn't suit your own programming purposes is just plain wrong, I suppose that's the point I'm trying to make

I'll split this out and move it to Programming because it's pretty much derailed Zacks original thread.

Edit: Did what I could, but some posts were a mixture of opinions on both topics.

[Mika]

Agreed, I'm not saying, nor would I ever say, that one is better or worse than the other, but declaring "**** java" because it doesn't suit your own programming purposes is just plain wrong,

This depends on if you read "**** java" as an opinion or as a statement of general truth. 

I haven't learned Java, but know some fundamentals of Assembly, C and MATLAB. OOP stuff really isn't for me.

Sigh, if I only had time and the occasional interest to learn DirectX... and the will power to tackle with Windows API.

[CP5670]

I would say C/C++ is the best thing to learn if you're only going to learn one thing. Most of the other languages are based on it anyway, and it's trivial to pick up the others one you get the basic ideas. There is also the fact that it's what games use, so you can mess around with the source code of things like FS2 or D2X-XL (this is a game modding site after all ).

Most of the programming I do is with numerical algorithms though. I use Mathematica for trying out my ideas (very inefficient, but it lets you test out things quickly that would take hours to do in lower level languages), Matlab for stuff I intend to distribute/publish (it's standard in academic circles) and usually pure C for things that are performance sensitive.

[Flipside]

I suppose the position I look at it from is that, if you are seeking a career in coding for organisations etc, Java doesn't hurt to know, it's far from useless as a language, and can be carried into several lines of work. Even at college we went from Pascal to VB to Java, fortunately, Pascal is a piece of piss, I was writing Turbo Pascal about 10 years ago, but no-one ever uses it any more. VB is more of a macro-language in my experience, it's great for things like writing complex Access or Excel forms, but its uses outside of that are somewhat limited.

C++ is a good language to learn if you want to get into the art of programming, you have to think a lot more deeply about what the computer is actually doing in order to get the best from the language, and have a deeper understanding of how and why a computer works the way it does, but the actual call for that level of coding ability in the general application market outside of gaming is limited, whereas Java is a more transportable language. I quite like working in C++, but the user-friendliness of Java means that if I want to put stuff together that is pretty complex, but within a limited time-frame for design and testing, I'll usually take the Java route.

[CP5670]

It depends on what sort of career you're looking at. C is widely used in engineering for embedded devices/controllers, with Matlab typically used for higher level design work. C++ is also very standard in the financial industry.

I certainly wouldn't say that other languages are useless, far from it. But the nice thing about C++ is it encompasses a bit of everything. If you then need to learn Java for work, it's easy to adapt to it. If you need to learn some form of assembly instead, that's also not too hard. For my part, if I'm using a general purpose language at all, it's either because I need speed in my algorithms or a game does something I don't like and I'm trying to change that in its source code.

[Flipside]

Actually, in my experience, Java is becoming more and more common in Finance for client-level programs

Though I will add an admission on my own part that it is impossible for me to view Java from the point of view of a first-time coder, since I wasn't when I learned it. It could also be a side effect of the fact that, apparently, lot of companies complain that programmers are not taught to document their work properly, and it's a lot easier for a new recruit to decode a poorly documented Java program than a C++ one

[Topgun]

Don't learn java first. other than that its okay but I prefer python for high-level stuff and c++ for low-level stuff.