Hi Thomas, One more thing--I did pick up a copy of VB .net from your site, and I find the interphase not quite as good. With the VB6 scripts, I have been able to access the toolbox, and I find the user interphase better suited to JAWS, in my opinion. Finding everything, and knowing where everything will be sent to etc etc, is a bit mor confusing, in VB .net. Also, I thought the toolbox was a might strange as well. However, I think I might give it a whirl anyway, and we'll see what happens... Best Regards, Hayden
-----Original Message----- From: gamers-boun...@audyssey.org [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Ward Sent: Wednesday, February 03, 2010 7:57 PM To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Programming language comparison Hi Milos, Well, like so many things in life what is considered to be easy is completely a personal opinion.So before we can really have a reasonable discussion which language is the easiest we have to take in account what you would consider easy.Still I don't know what you personally would find easy I'll have to use my personal judgment here. Personally, in all my years of programming the easiest language for me to learn was C# .Net, called C-Sharp, because it has a C-style syntax without all of the complexity of C++. However, since C# .Net wasn't one of the options you have given me I'll try and compare the languages you did request information on. First, we have Python. As you pointed outyou didn't really understand the language so perhaps it is not a language you would personally consider easy.As for me I find the language easy enough to learn, but what I find confusing is keeping track of the formatting and spacing to define blocks of code. The formatting is a completely visual aid, and therefore it is more difficult to keep track of the code when using a screen reader. Other languages such as C++ and Java use braces to define blocks of code which I personally find more logical and easier to keep track of. So on account of the specific formatting and lack of syntax makes Python not as easy as it could be. As far as C++ goes it is the most difficult language on your list.The basic functions, headers, and syntax are easy enough to learn, but C++ also puts a lot of the responcibility of doing all the advanced low-level programming yourself.This is what trips up new programmers because they simply aren't equipped to manage his/her system resources on their own. For example,if you were to use system pointers in your C++ application to handle something like game sounds you have to remember to manually delete those pointersand release the system memory back to the free stack before loading new sounds or exiting the program. Failior to do so could result in some major memory leaks in your application. Unfortunately,asigning memory and cleanning up after you are done with it is something many new programmers fail to do correctly and do poorly. So C++ is largely considered an advanced programmer's language because of the skill and experience required to truly master the language. Ultimately I believe the easiest language on your list to learn is Visual Basic. It was my first programming language, the one my college taught first, and it is safe to say programmers generally find it to be a good starter language in terms of ease of use. The one thing that makes the basic type languages good choices for early programming training is the fact they tend to usewords to define blocks of code rather than relying on special formatting as Python does or relying on braces and brackets as C-style languages do. Plus basic languages like Visual Basic don't get into really advanced programming such as managing resources and memory which is both a advnatage and disadvantage depending on your outlook. So if you are talking where to start in terms of ease to learn I'd say try VB .net. Before I close I think it might be helpful to show you an example ofsome different programming languages to give you a better idea of what I am talking about above. I'll use a very simple program like Hello World as my example. // Hello World C++ #include <iostream> int main () { std::cout << "Helo world!" << std::endl; return 0; } ' Hello World VB .Net Module Hello Sub Main () System.Console.WriteLine (0, "Hello world!") End Sub End Module As you can see the VB .Net version of the typical Hello World program is far simplar than it'sC++ counter part. As programs get bigger and more complex the ease of use factor of VB .Net over C++ will only become more so. The .Net Framework certainly simplifies many aspects of day to day programming simply because all of the low-level stuff you have to do in C++ is incorperated directly into the .Net Framework ready to pick up and use right away.For example, in my VB .Net sample I called the WriteLine() function. WriteLine() is actually a .Net wrapper function for the cout function used in the C++ code above. In larger more complex applications such as games this really pays off. One example that comes to mind is using the Microsoft XAudio2 library forgames. If you use the C++ library you pretty much have to design a custom sound manager from scratch to load wav files and get their attributes. Microsoft has sample code showing you how to do this, but never-the-less it is quite a lot to ask from a totally new programmer. If you use the C# .Net or VB .Net language with the SlimDX API for DirectX you don't have to worry bout all that low-level stuff.You simply make a link to the SlimDX library, include the XAudio2 namespace, and start programing since all the really low-level stuff is already taken care of for you. All you need to do is call the proper load functions and initialization functions contained in the library. As far as Inform goes I have had very little experience with it, andit is less a programming language and more like a smple script fo the inform compiler.It is not hard to use in my opinion, and if you are into text adventures then I'd say try it. However, it isn't a programming language per say. The Jaws scripting language is a programming language, but is totally specific to Jaws. I havent' kept up with the scripting language since I stopped using Jaws four or five years ago, but at the time I was able to quickly pick up and learn the scripting language on my own. However, I'll make it clear i was already a skilled programmer at the time I started learning the Jaws scripting language so that would certainly acount why I had no problems learning it. For you it might not be that easy. Finally, I want to leave you with this thought. I've been programming for several years and all of the major programminglanguages have comon concepts and skills that carry over from programming language to programming language.What makes it so hard for a new programmer to learn any programming language is simply they are unfamiliar with the concepts of functions, variables, data types, classes, objects,and so on. They don't know all the technincal terminology for things. Once you overcome these limitations suddenly you will find it easier to pick up and learn any language you choosebecause a large part of what you aready know will carry over to the next programming language you try to learn. That's why I pointed out we need a definition of ease of use or easy to learn. There comes a point where a very highly skilled programmer who knows say C++ can easily learn another C-style language like Java or C# .Net in a matter of a few days simply because he can skip over all of the introduction to programming material and get directly into hands on training with actual programming using that language. That skilled programmer doesn't need to have an explanation of a class, object, variable, whatever because he already knows that.What he needs is to be shown what diferences exists between language x and language y. HTH --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
