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Syklis Green
 Member 1892 Level 7.28 Mar 2006 
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Scripting languages are typically way easier to pick up than full-on programming languages, so if you're starting off I'd recommend Python. The syntax is clean, the dynamic typing makes it easy, and the garbage collection saves you from the horrors of memory leaks (for the most part). Ruby isn't too bad of a language, either. It's less ugly than Perl or PHP and Why's Poignant Guide is like the most awesome tutorial ever. Never used Ruby on Rails.
Cross-platform, although good, is not everything. Seeing as MOST people run Windows, C# is fairly solid. It improves upon Java, by making things slightly less verbose and adding nifty new features. Java is fairly ick in my opinion, unless you're really worried about supporting other platforms. C++ is a fairly solid choice, but it might be a little too powerful and catastrophic for a first language. There are lots of gotchas. SDL might be a good library to experiment with for a silly little game project. I'd really recommend your friend get a Computer Science degree to increase his chances of getting a job in his field of interest, but also stress a fair importance on constantly experimenting with various code projects along the way to learn how to develop things quickly and effectively. I mean, if you don't do anything outside of school work, how can you really be that good of a coder? He's gonna probably want to make a portfolio of some independent projects, to make himself stand out as well. Jam it back in, in the dark. |
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Syklis Green
Member 1892 Level 7.28 Mar 2006
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Yeah, that's true. But Visual Studio 2005 doesn't have that bad of an IDE (at least, the pro version, which is sort of uhm pirated). I suppose another big thing that I liked about coding with Java was using Eclipse. I don't MIND using makefiles, but I try to avoid them when an interface can automate these things for me and also allow me to automatically jump to the spot of any compile errors. Eclipse is especially nice, because it parses your code as you type. Visual Studio is nothing too fancy, but it gets the job done.
But then for light projects, I just use Textpad, or gedit. There's nowhere I can't reach. |
Overkill