ID:275683
 Aug 30 2004, 1:31 pm
|
|
I'm a senior in highschool this year and my school finaly has a computer programming class so I took it and I'm wondering what I should expect out of it.
| |
|
Aug 30 2004, 1:44 pm
|
|
SSJ2GohanDBGT
 |
Depends on the language mainly, but I wouldn't expect a whole lot. I took a Highschool programming class which taught an obsolete language, and very little of it at that.
|
SSJ2GohanDBGT wrote:
Depends on the language mainly, but I wouldn't expect a whole lot. I took a Highschool programming class which taught an obsolete language, and very little of it at that. Visual Basic! Woo! Just chapters 1-5 of the book from Microsoft taking up the whole semester! Woo! </sarcasm> Well, at least it's better than using QBasic. :) | |
I would be more enthusiastic about learning VB than Pascal, hehe. If you ever want to learn a programming language that is line-to-line annoying compilation this is definately the language for you. Oh, yes, fun.
| |
SSJ2GohanDBGT wrote:
I would be more enthusiastic about learning VB than Pascal, hehe. If you ever want to learn a programming language that is line-to-line annoying compilation this is definately the language for you. Oh, yes, fun. Well, from what I've heard with Pascal you can learn all the different concepts and apply them to other languages (ex C++). My "CS" class was more of a "Learn the Visual Basic language" class. | |
I have to agree, Highschool courses seem to not focus so much on the language as the history of the language for some reason, even though you signed up for the class because you wanted to learn how to utilize it. Not that knowing the history of a programming language is useless, it is just not needed to utilize it.
| |
I'm taking a class teaching me Java. Is that obsolete yet? I know Flash outweighs it right now but will it be useful to learn still?
| |
Java's definitely still useful. It may not be the latest thing in webgames anymore, but it's still a great language.
| |
This is true, Pascal is the "learning" language. Many new programmers begin learning this language because its one of the easier ones that still apply to newer languages.
| |
Yeah, computer programming languages definately don't become obsolete as fast as hardware or other things.. and in rare cases old ones are still used. COBOL for example is still used commonly for banking and its around 30 years old with minor changes from launch :D
| |
I'm taking a class teaching me Java. Is that obsolete yet? I know Flash outweighs it right now but will it be useful to learn still? Java is still fairly new. In fact when I first took a college course on it roughly 5 years ago it was still largely buggy so it was hard to tell if a bug was from your source code or the language itself :P. That and there was no IDE out for it yet so we needed to build our programs in a text editor and use a good 'ol compiler from the command line. | |
Well, that depends on what their teaching. For instance, at my school, before you can take C#, C++, Advanced C++, or Java, you have to take an introductory class which teaches VB.NET (2003).
For Flash, you have to be enrolled in the Web Design program, which runs from Sophomore to Senior year (at my school). [EDIT] Wow, from reading all your posts, my school owns yours 0.0 ~Kujila | |
Theodis wrote:
In fact when I first took a college course on it roughly 5 years ago it was still largely buggy so it was hard to tell if a bug was from your source code or the language itself :P. It still has bugs. Oh, believe me, it has bugs. Don't get me wrong, it has some nifty features and all; but I find that the syntax is long-winded and clunky, the compiler is annoyingly picky, and I really hate how Swing forces you to use at least two threads (one for graphics, one for everything else). I'm doing it at school at the moment. I think I can convince the teacher to let me do C next term though. =) | |
Crispy wrote:
... and I really hate how Swing forces you to use at least two threads (one for graphics, one for everything else). Then don't use Swing. There are other ways to get a window with Java. | |
Kunark wrote:
I'm taking a class teaching me Java. Is that obsolete yet? I know Flash outweighs it right now but will it be useful to learn still? java is *not* obsolete (well, not yet anyway). and Flash is not a programming language but a vector-graphic interactive movie maker. (unless you are referring to Flash's ActionScript language which is only useful to Flash- it's a derivative of Javascript (according to my Flash MX book)) | |
Don't knock Pascal: one of Borland's other languages, Delphi, is simply Visual Pascal and it can be very powerful when combined with database objects.
For example, I've started a hacking game in Delphi, and though it isn't quite playable yet (mainly because I can only work on it at school), it's coming along nicely. | |
so where does DM fall on these lists of coding languages?
Is it good for beginners? Doesn't really help? How about usefulness all in general? I personally haven't tried any other languages out there. | |
java is *not* obsolete (well, not yet anyway). Problem is it never really seemed useful other than to make simple cross platform applications :P. | |