Why java or c++.

I would go with C# if you're up to it.

You're shooting down Java but suggesting C#? Good stuff.

If you're having fun at home, doing hobby programming, go with Python. It's less of a hassle, and will do what you need absolutely fine. Even more, it will teach you the standard things, so your next (professional?) language will be easier for you to learn, rather than dealing with pointers and memory and all sorts of "irrelevant" stuff right off the bat.

I would, too.

You suggest c# over java - where C# is basically Microsoft's take on java, except less portable since usually only MS products will be able to run it ..... also i like how you say "if your up to it" as if it's like this ridiculous thing lol.



But seriously - I would learn scala. I've been learning a lot about it recently and feel it is the way of the future. Maybe not scala in particular, but object functional programming in general. Scala is a statically typed, object oriented functional language that runs on top of the JVM. It fully inter-operates with java code and pretty much vice versa. It has the most powerful features in a language I have used to date and I really feel like someone new to the game learning a language like scala as their first language would be a very powerful developer.

Really think about this -- your about to learn a language. Do you learn some crappy language that leaves out half of the concepts (like some of these dynamically typed 'easy to learn' languages) and then have that be your native language that is your reference point? or do you want to learn a real full blown language so that you can pick up a dynamically typed language in a day because you have seen it all and have a very strong reference point.

In summary, scala is an awesome language, it FULLY inter ops with java and has more poweful features then java with a much more terse syntax and feel (so why not learn it over java) and it runs on the jvm so it's as portable as java.
http://www.scala-lang.org/

1. C# is a lot nicer than java. closures, linq, inferred typing, operator overloading, indexers, partial classes, pass by reference, extention methods....
2. Ever heard of mono? either way he's doing it as a hobby.





i'm currently learning scala and groovy. i chose scala first since it can compile to MSIL, too, but now i'm more drawn to groovy since some of scala's syntax irks me. but they're both far superior to java, and neither is well-accepted in the business world unfortunately

c# ftw, nice, simple, efficient

I really wanted to suggest scala too. It's a great language, but, importantly, it's a very difficult language to learn, so I don't think it's a good choice here.

HTML5 is going to take a lot of business away from Java and Flash programmers. Go look at it. It's amazing.

Uh, what?

thanks for all the input, i'm probably just going to go Java, since i've already started learning a little bit from college