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Programming |
Sometimes it's hard to believe that anyone could have a hard time understanding how to program, but the same could probably be said about most professions. It takes all kinds to make a world. If you give it a try only to discover that programming just isn't your bag, leave it at that - I've seen some very, very sharp people who just don't seem to be 'wired to program'.
Your typical bookstore has easily a hundred books on programming in a variety of languages, so not a lot of space will be devoted to the subject; the real aim here is just to get you rolling.
Four languages are presented here: C++, Perl, Visual Basic and ASP. Really and truly it's three languages - ASP is simultaneously a subset and extension of Basic.
C++ and Perl are syntactically very similar. Perl has some nifty features that C++ doesn't have, and C++ has many capabilities which Perl doesn't. Both are very concise - if you aren't keen on typing, you will probably appreciate that aspect. Perl is geared toward string manipulation and data extraction (Perl is an acronym for 'Practical Extraction and Report Language'). C++ can be used for darn near anything. It is a very powerful language. Its power comes from placing few restrictions on the programmer. The power has a price - the programmer has to remember to be responsible for cleaning up after him/herself and for not allowing the program to run rampant.
Visual Basic is a great general purpose language (after all, it is a descendant of BASIC - Beginner's All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code). Program development is comparatively fast, and using it to develop user interfaces is practically painless. It isn't nearly as powerful as C++, but it cleans up after itself well and the environment makes it hard to do something that's going to lock up the user's computer.
To program in any of these languages you need a compiler, which is a program that takes your program and turns it into machine code that your computer's processor executes. In addition to the several commercial compilers, a number of compilers are available in the public domain or as shareware. If you have a Linux box, you more than likely installed several compilers along with the operating system. If not, you will more than likely find several on your Linux distribution cd that you can install.
Several compilers exist for Perl as well. Some of them compile the Perl program into executable binary code (synonym for machine code) while others are intended to interpret Perl scripts attached to HTML.
You may already have the ability to write programs in Visual Basic - if you have Microsoft® Office, you can write programs to use under the word processor, spreadsheet, or database.
ASP is intended to be used as script for HTML. To experiment with ASP, you need web server software which can serve ASP code. Two examples are Microsoft's Personal Web Server and Apache with ASP module.