Basic

[Knives]

Does anyone here wanna give me a tutorial on basic?

[btboy500]

If by basic, you mean the programming language BASIC, I wouldn't be able to help you. Personally, I think a good beginning language would be Python, but that's my opinion. This goes along with my belief that BASIC is fairly antiquated. By the way, BASIC stands for Beginner's All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. You can find information about the programming language Python at http://www.python.org . Enjoy.

[madphilb]

I'd be curious as to which BASIC as well.... the original versions that where used for years where a mess of spagetti code with all those line numbers and GOTOs.... shudder....

The old DOS Quick and Power BASICs where a bit better as you could treat them as more structured languages...

Most of the newer BASICs are the Visual kind and are quite a bit different than when things started...

Unless you have a specific need to program BASIC I'd go with one of the scripting languages or get a free C or C++ compiler (there are a few around, even ones for Windows).

[Knives]

I'd be curious as to which BASIC as well.... the original versions that where used for years where a mess of spagetti code with all those line numbers and GOTOs.... shudder....

The old DOS Quick and Power BASICs where a bit better as you could treat them as more structured languages...

Most of the newer BASICs are the Visual kind and are quite a bit different than when things started...

Unless you have a specific need to program BASIC I'd go with one of the scripting languages or get a free C or C++ compiler (there are a few around, even ones for Windows).

Ok i guess i should learn C++

[madphilb]

Ok i guess i should learn C++

That was a pretty easy sell

It'll be far more usefull to you in the end... maybe I can dig out my old bookmark files and see if I have a link to one of those free compiler sites.

Here is a free C compiler for Windows... it might be a good place to start (along with a good book on learning C):

http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~lcc-win32/

You may be able to find some on-line resources for learning C as well... try googling it (along with "free c compiler" if you want to look for another one).

[MyrrhLynn]

Well I'm going to put in my $0.02 since I'm a computer science combo business major. My school is always bragging about the stupid awards we win (yeah sure *gag*), so whatever here are the languages they teach:

Visual Basic - no longer required to take but pretty easy to pick up yourself
Java - 3 semesters of the horror
Cobol - optional class
Lots and lots of database classes. They don't even teach C or C++ anymore.

Lots of other schools still teach C++ though, so just because my school has decided to basically only teach Java doesn't mean much.

[andyroo]

Another good beginner's programming language is PASCAL. It focuses alot on good program structure. Python does that as well, but the structure is much cleaner in my opinion.

Here's a link for Free PASCAL: http://sourceforge.net/projects/freepascal/
If you are using windows downlaod the Win32 package.

[skynes]

If you're interested in game design - DarkBasic and BlitzBasic could help. I'll need to dig out the links for the site. They provide trials of the program and LOTS of tutorials on how to use them.

C++ and Java are similar they follow similar layouts and similar patterns - It's not the same language though.

If you learn one it's easier to learn the other (I've done both).

Visual Basic is GUI based - Graphical User Interface. It has buttons and pictures and text boxes n stuff. All you do is drag n drop

In Java or C++ you need to CODE the buttons, what they do where they go. More complex but gives you MUCH more control.