Its that time again (suggest a language)

What's the best language for a complete beginner to pick up and learn?

I'm able to read through sources in various languages and understand whats happening on a fundamental level.

I want to learn a language over the next 3~5 months and i cant make any informed desicions on which.

Suggest the language best suited to an entry level programmer.

IN BEFORE SHITSTORM

Start with machine-code.

And I don't mean using any fancy assembler or something.

You have to study the documentation of the chipset until you know how to use every opcode, and then code everything by hand.

>>80
Programs in Visual Basic.

You can tell by the inane verbosity.

>>80
Even with the speed of the ruby-car limited to 20kmh you'd be home from work before the haskell/java/c car would've even started.

"Dynamic typing" people are like pagans. They've just never been introduced to the truth (i.e. Haskell). It's sort of sad, really.

>>83
If Ruby is so great, show me how to make a copy of a 2d array.

array_1 = [[0,1],[2,3]]

array_2 = Marshal::load( Marshal::dump( array_1 ) )
array_2[ 0 ][ 0 ] = 2

p array_1
p array_2

>>85
My point exactly.

>>84
And haskell fanboys are outright scary, they prophetize about the superior truth but you've never seen any proof of haskell actually doing anything useful.

It's like religious people.

and >>86
uuh, what's your point really? how do you copy arrays in haskell that's oh so bloody much more efficient/easier?

I see merits in both methods, I however use none of them. FOR I AM AN EXPERT PROGRAMMER.

>>87
You can surely come up with a deep copy function if Ruby doesn't come with one, right?

Something like:

>>> from copy import *
>>> a = [[1,2],[3,4]]
>>> b = deepcopy(a)
>>> a
[[1, 2], [3, 4]]
>>> b
[[1, 2], [3, 4]]

>>89
Eh? what are you onto? that's it's possible to copy an array by calling a function which copies arrays? Well no shit sherlock, i could never belive such a thing was possible! You've revolutionized programming!

>>90
Lol. It was more of a suggestion to do it right now and post it so >>86 would STFU.

>>91
well, >>85 already showed how to copy any kind of object in ruby. so it feels rather redunant to provide more ways.

>>91
You want it embedded in a method? OK.

class Array
  def deep_copy
    Marshal.load(Marshal.dump(self))
  end
end

WELL, HERE'S A FUCKING HINT: IF YOU HAVE TO SERIALISE/DESERIALISE JUST TO MAKE A FUCKING COPY, YOUR LANGUAGE FUCKING SUCKS!

>>94
>YOUR LANGUAGE FUCKING SUCKS

uhm, lol you are stupid.

>>94
Now now, just because your language is worthless for any practical applications doesn't mean you have to be angry when it turns out other languages can do your languages fancy moves just as gracefull, you just have to accept that you're coding aids incarnate and go cry in a corner instead.

OP here:
Ok ive decided to go with C++ (generaly because i have my majority of experience with it which places it above every other language at this point)

Anyway, ive installed Code::Blocks (the stable release rather than a nightly) and im wondering about setting up QT, its downloading right now (qt-in-opensource-src-4.2.3.zip) and i was wondering do i need to compile it myself?
Or is it just a fuckton of libraries llike the various OpenGL packages around?
Or does it install itself to some location and i need to set up my compiler to link to it?

Ive read through some of the faq's and documentation but it really doesnt make anything aparent, the only thing that leads me to think i need to compile it is the fact it has src in the filename.

Guidance would be appreciated.

What's the best language for a complete beginner to pick up and learn?

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST I HATE FUCKING NUBS THAT 'GO WITH C++ AND DOWNLOAD QT' SO THEY CAN START MAKING GUI PROGRAMS, AND WELL WHO KNOWS MAYBE THE NEXT WoW.
.
.
.
JESUS FUCKING CHRIST

ok apparently ive got to build it myself, not really a problem i figured, i followed the documentation and used "configure -platform win32-g++"
This seemed to do the trick right up till it spewed forth

Creating qmake...
execute: File or path not is not found (mingw32-make)
execute: File or path not is not found (mingw32-make)
Cleaning qmake failed, return code -1

I figured i should manualy install GCC so i did that, edited my environment variables to reflect this and BAM still the same shit.

I need to go to work but i'll have a play later, if anyone has any insights then id be glad to hear them.

>>99
Enjoy your aids and coding at 9000 levels above your actual level of expertise.

also 100get.

>>99
C++ hits! C++ bites! C++ drains your will to live--more--

C++ tears at you! You try to do something nontrivial in C++ and fail--more--

C++ hits! C++ drains your will-power! C++ hits! You die...--more--

Would you like your posessions identified? [ynq]

>>98
>>100
Why assume that its OVER NINE THOUSAND levels above my expertise?
And even if this turns out to be the case i can easily get hold of readily available documentation and actualy figure out what im doing wrong and what to do to correct it.

I can read and follow whats going on in source code (of which theres a fuckton available) and at the end of the day i'll wind up with a very good understanding of a language thats actualy of some use in the real world.

I made no assumptions anywhere that learning c++ was going to be a straightforward and easy task, but nothing worthwhile ever really is.

I could do a lot worse, i could be learning pascal or basic or any other multitude of languages that serve no proven real world application.

Im also under no allusions that i will be programming any MMORPG software, i'll leave that up to the Koreans. My interests don't lay with developing games, i rarely even play the things.
If you had read the post you would see exactly what im trying to achieve, nothing hueg just small projects geared towards learning the learning curve shouldnt be all that steep and im pretty sure i'll wind up advancing to a timescale that suits me.
I dont need to know a language inside and out yesterday, im happy taking my time on smaller details knowing that i will benifit my education in the longer term.

>>102
If you can't figure out how to compile QT then C++ is definitely 9000000000000000000 levels above you. May I suggest VB.NET? It has a nice clickity-click interface you'd just loooove.

To put this in a non-condescending tone, this really is way above your current skill level. There is a crapload of stuff in C++ to sink your teeth into before you even get anywhere near setting up GUI libs, let alone using them. I've been programming for years, and even I don't like the C++/QT combination.

New to programming? Python, or any of the other suggestions in this thread.

>>102

Starting with C++ and GUI programming is nuts. It's too abstract and it's too easy to shoot yourself in the foot. Learning how to program in any language is not a straightforward or easy task. Why make it even harder?

Reconsider Python or Ruby. They are, in contrast to what you suggest, 'real world' languages. Lots of companies are starting to take them seriously, as they should. Nasa, Intel, Google, Microsoft and HP to name a few big companies. _why has written an excellent tutorial for you:
http://poignantguide.net/ruby/

I'm not saying you should not learn C++. Just don't start with it. Come to it when you really, really need that extra speed (even then, you could write only those few parts in C and the rest in Python or Ruby). For most programming tasks there are better tools available.

PYTHON ｷﾀ━━━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━━━ !!!!

One word, The forced indentation of code. Thread over.

I don't understand why some people are so adamantly against typed variables.

Why do some people not like static typing? Because it's more boilerplate, code, and effort. Unfortunately, some people also fail to notice that dynamic typing causes some errors to take a long time to be caught. That's bad for development time too. What takes longer: catching a type error with a test case or during compilation?

The correct answer is optional and inferred typing. Unfortunately, not a lot of languages have optional typing at the moment, but the least the Ruby and Python fanboys could have done is ripped off Perl's lexical typing and strict mode; it's better than nothing, without losing anything.

Of course they didn't. Idiots.

lexical scoping

fix'd

>>Because it's more boilerplate, code, and effort.

lol no.

>>108
JScript .NET has optional typing... I'm pretty sure ActionScript and JavaScript 2.0 do, too...

>>108
bitches dont know bout my MULTI-PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE SKILLS

>>110
lol yes

Show me an implementation of a heterogeneous list in a statically-typed language that's as short as almost any dynamically-typed language. x = [1, "z", [3.141]] is pretty hard to beat.

Or what about message and dynamic dispatch or polymorphism? Sure takes less code than interfaces or class hierarchies, wouldn't you say?

>>113
lol heterogenous lists, i have never wanted them. it's a completely retarded feature to make up for your lack of type classes and algebraic data types.

go back to your basement and cry me an enterprise web 7.0 ruby-on-fails blog, you incompetent developer.

>>113
char *x = malloc(10000);

WTF is the point of x = [1, "z", [3.141]] then??

>>114
Go back to /newpol/ where people are stupid enough to fall for your trolling, kthnx.

>>115
That's not a heterogeneous list, mate. That's an array of a single type.

>>116
It's just an example demonstrating that the list can contain elements of different types with little boilerplate. Have you never use polymorphism or (in C) structs with an element for id?

Why are you bragging about having to use something retarded like heterogenous lists because your language lacks an easy way of making a data structure?

how would anonymous make something like
data Term = Add Term Term
          | Mul Term Term
          | Number Intin a dynamically typed language?

Personally, I prefer to have all my types defined before I compile. It's more logical and neat that way. I can't stand the sloppiness and carefree lazy attitude of dynamic typing. But then, I do program 99.99% uptime systems that have to be rock solid.

OMG, I suck penis.