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I want to learn a programming language

Programming languages, Coding, Executables, Package Creation, and Scripting.
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johnmb
Posts: 14
Joined: 2006-11-30 13:29
Location: Bedfordshire UK

Fortran

#41 Post by johnmb »

As the others have stated, I wouldn't use Fortran unless there is a specific need for it.

Basically, Fortran has survived simply because it has the most comprehensive and fastest maths libraries of them all. It also supports complex numbers as a concrete type.

If you are new to programming, it may be an idea to cut your teeth on a language like VB.net that protects you from yourself quite a lot. C is much more of an expert language as it will let you do anything; which can be dangerous if you haven't programmed before.

Perhaps C# is worth looking at as well; as it is a logical progression from using VB.Net not in terms of the language itself but because it is based on .Net as well.

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FolkTheory
Posts: 284
Joined: 2008-05-18 23:02

Re: Fortran

#42 Post by FolkTheory »

johnmb wrote:Perhaps C# is worth looking at as well; as it is a logical progression from using VB.Net not in terms of the language itself but because it is based on .Net as well.
ahhh!! no M$ $%&@%!!!

i say go for java or python.
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drl
Posts: 427
Joined: 2006-09-20 02:27
Location: Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA

Re: Fortran

#43 Post by drl »

Hi.
johnmb wrote: Basically, Fortran has survived simply because it has the most comprehensive and fastest maths libraries of them all. It also supports complex numbers as a concrete type.
Also the Fortran compiler algorithms are well-established to generate very good instruction sequences, and there are a large number of codes for engineering that are written in Fortran ... cheers, drl
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katofiad
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#44 Post by katofiad »

Learning programming concepts is always going to do more for you in the long run then any particular language will. But you will still need that practical experience writing code in a language along the way. You could do a helluva lot worse then Wirth + Python. You will discover that the more closely you can envision how the computer will handle your code and data in a literal internally mechanical sense, the more possibilities you can envision with your program, and the more realistic you can be with the computer's actual limitations. Distrust all advocations for "one true way" of doing things (eg. don't assume object-orientatedness is superior to structural programming just because more programmers might tell you it is). Likewise, Too many possibilities too quickly can be really confusing, too, and sidetrack a young programmer from the bigger picture (eg. trying to cram every data structure into the least space w/o padding or mallocing every word-sized entity individually).

Microsoft's langauges aren't technically worse then any other, it is just that the tools and usual learning pathes teach the programmer to develop an artifically blind eye to the internals of other parts of the code. The few classes I took on programming a few years ago were heavily influenced by Microsoft, including cultivating the idea that the programmer's should hide or obfuscate their code. I saw many other students with a very strongly held fictional belief that they were going to stumble upon some clever Knuthian-esque discovery in the code of their Hello, World!'s that they would have to guard jealously from prying eyes least that secret get out and benefit the world before they could carve their first house out of the side of a mountain next to Bill Gates'. Needless to say, most of them didn't even pass the final project of their first year programming class.
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ramack
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#45 Post by ramack »

Although it's not a "language" as much as an environment, MATLAB is applicable to your engineering studies. There are are open source programs that are out there that are MATLAB clone such as Octave that are useful as well.

Good luck in your studies, which area of engineering are you going to study. Classes have probably started by now.....
Last edited by ramack on 2019-02-04 21:55, edited 1 time in total.

manuhack
Posts: 123
Joined: 2007-03-23 20:49

#46 Post by manuhack »

ramack wrote:Although it's not a "language" as much as an environment, MATLAB is applicable to your engineering studies. There are are open source programs that are out there that are MATLAB clone such as SciLAB that are useful as well.

Good luck in your studies, which area of engineering are you going to study. Classes have probably started by now.....
AFAIK octave is more a Matlab clone than Scilab.

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ramack
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Re: I want to learn a programming language

#47 Post by ramack »

Agreed. After reading my post, I see that I should have stated Octave and not SciLab. I've corrected that statement. SciLab is Python based which is useful but not really comparable to Octave. At the time of posting I got those two switched. The date stamp was almost 11 years ago, long days, long nights and I was using MATLAB, Octave and SciLab. A brain flatulence, ha.
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pylkko
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Re: I want to learn a programming language

#48 Post by pylkko »

What's up with these decade old necros? like zombie attack or sometihng?

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jalisco
Posts: 94
Joined: 2013-09-01 17:30

Re: I want to learn a programming language

#49 Post by jalisco »

pylkko wrote:What's up with these decade old necros? like zombie attack or sometihng?
These questions about "what programming language should I learn" are like the zombie apocalypse, they don't die, they just multiple.

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