What language should Firestarter learn???

Great poll. That "other" thread got really long.
I'm sure people will vote with their hearts (ie what they like) rather than what is best for him though.

What! no Esperanto?

Not in my case. I voted for Java because that will give him the best bang for his buck.

Then he can switch to the best language later he wants to write real programs.

Who voted Brainf*ck? It looks like someone doesn't want Firestarter to like programming!

Jeff, do you want me to post the "wiseguy's" name? Perhaps the voter is trying to send the message "it doesn't matter. just pick one and keep at it."

I thought ObjC was Esperanto.

I also will rant that the following are missing...
Pascal
Modula (or whatever they call it now )
Assembly
Squeak

BTW... What is "Malbolge?"
Also, should AppleScript be in that list? Except for the "AppleScript Games" I see on VersionTracker has anyone made a game? Perhaps if AppleScript Studio hooked into the never released QuickTime-based HyperCard than it should be. I think an argument could also be made to place C and C++ in different categories.

I think FutureBasic should have been added to the list. I just got FB 7 along with book and it looks real nice. I also think METAL and TNT are different enought to be put into different categories. Perhaps the poll should be re-done with "What language/IDE should a complete newbie start with?" Since this is a question that is asked every month in the forum. Then we can say 1 out of 3 Mac game programmers recommend... like the aspirin commercials.

Cheers

I clicked C/C++ but now I've done it I'm suddenly more in favour of Obj-C.
So, one of those 3, anyway.

Quote:BTW... What is "Malbolge?"

A programming language so fiendishly difficult, that so far the only working program written in it does nothing

Whoever can write "Hello, World!" using it is a genius!

http://www.mines.edu/students/b/bolmstea...index.html

"The" esoteric programming languages site:

http://www.catseye.mb.ca/

This is apparently a Malbolge hello world program:


No, I didn't write it. I haven't got that much time on my hands . I found it here:

http://www2.latech.edu/~acm/HelloWorld.shtml

Quote:Jeff, do you want me to post the "wiseguy's" name? Perhaps the voter is trying to send the message "it doesn't matter. just pick one and keep at it."

Eh. It doesn't matter to much.

Quote:I also will rant that the following are missing...
Pascal
Modula (or whatever they call it now )
Assembly
Squeak

Then I will rant that the following are missing :
Awk
Shell scripting
Perl
Ruby
Tcl/Tk
LISP/Scheme
Haskell/Clean
Forth
Prolog

Granted some of them can't really be used for games, but I'm sure there are some people that would recommend each of them as a first language to learn. Well, maybe not Awk or Shell scripting, and Forth and Prolog are iffy.

(BTW, Squeak is an interpreter for the Smalltalk language.)

Quote:Originally posted by OneSadCookie

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ROTFLOL!!!!!

I have GOT to learn Malbolge! That's the coolest thing EVER!

If you want to learn multiple languages, I recommend doing C first, then Java, then Objective-C. You can't really do much Objective-C without knowing C (it was built as an extension to it, after all), and learning Java helps build up a good foundation in object-oriented programming.

Or you could ignore all that and spend the rest of your life trying to write a 3D RPG entirely in Malbolge.

Perhaps we should require all uDevGame 2003 entries to be written in Malbolge next year then.

Don't they have competitions every year to see who can write their C code in the most craziest/coolest-looking way while still keeping it functional? Think about the Malbolge code block, only arranged so that it looks like something. I remember seeing some really cool entries for this contest... if someone knows what i'm talking about and has the URL, that would be great.

Quote:Originally posted by DJBlufire
Don't they have competitions every year to see who can write their C code in the most craziest/coolest-looking way while still keeping it functional? Think about the Malbolge code block, only arranged so that it looks like something. I remember seeing some really cool entries for this contest... if someone knows what i'm talking about and has the URL, that would be great.

That's the obfuscated C contest. http://www.es.ioccc.org/main.html

Yeah!!! That's the one

its pretty funny looking at some of those entries... at least you can piece together what they do if you read them carefully, unlike Malbolge...

Start with C++, it's fairly easy, common, and easily interpreted to a few other languages (including Java). Learn others when you can make stuff work well.