Programming Languages (Coding)

[Boris®]

i learned in university so far:
c++ , assembly , VHDL , Pspice , xilinx , matlab , OrCAD , Labview

next semester i will learn software engineering & database using most probably MySQL or sth like it ...

Although i have to admit that i hate programming and dont have much pratice.

[NewB]

- Java (JSP & Servlets included)
- .Net (vb/C#/asp.net)
- SQL
- vbscript, javascript, html, css

Laerned PHP on my own even though I don't use it.

At work we use .Net, and most of our systems are being converted to .Net.

Depending on what country you are in, and what is the nature of the job you will use different languages. Mostly everyone upgraded from ASP to the .net version I don't know why they still teach that in Lebanon.

Every developer should have database and networking skills, otherwise you're useless :P

[Iceberg]

Originally Posted by Nadnoud

Questions to all computer scientists/computer engineers/ developpers/programmers/etc...(newbies and pros):

which languages have you learned in college?
which ones have you learned on your own?
which ones do you use at work?

share this and give us your opinion about them, the best ones, the most used on the market, in businesses...the easiest to implement, etc...

just say all what you have about coding languages, based on your experience or your researches...

Cheers!

I learned a few languages at college, first one was C++ then came Java. Lastly I took .Net as an elective. There were other "not-so-in-depth" languages such as microprocessor coding.
What I have learned on my own and proud to write here is Assembly, I have used it for personal reasons and still do sometimes when I have time. I also know some C from the old linux days.
I don't work with programming, I don't see myself working in software development and coding 8 hours a day every single day!
From experience, the most powerful languages are C and Assembly, the rest just follow.. and barely. C++ and C# were made way too easy and many functions are not doable anymore (things that could be done using C), there is a good free (Google It) C compiler for windows that emulates the gcc engine of linux I used to compile with when C++ really pissed me.

[Iceberg]

Originally Posted by NASR_MIN_ALLAH

i hate programing.
networking and database rule!

I second that all the way!

[Aounist05]

Originally Posted by Nadnoud

Questions to all computer scientists/computer engineers/ developpers/programmers/etc...(newbies and pros):

which languages have you learned in college?
which ones have you learned on your own?
which ones do you use at work?

share this and give us your opinion about them, the best ones, the most used on the market, in businesses...the easiest to implement, etc...

just say all what you have about coding languages, based on your experience or your researches...

Cheers!

The 1st language we learned at ESIB was Turbo Pascal 6:) Later on we got an introduction on C/C++.
What I have learned alone are VC++, Java, C#
Currently I am using C# at work.

Regarding my opinion. It is evident that if anyone has to start a new project he has only 2 choices, Java or .Net (either C# or VB.Net) so far I have never heard of project using VC++.Net. VC++ is already a complex thing, so adding the managed coding to it makes it even more complex. However, we can't imagine a better language in which you can switch from managed to unmanaged code within the same project even within the same class, other than VC++.Net 2005.

As for the difference between the Java language and the C#, I guess it is very slim and let's be logical, if any of these 2 languages takes the lead by far, the second will be doomed (it won't be used world wide anymore).
Let's take a very simple example. C# started by using attributes to add metadata to the code itself, plus it adopted the generics. Shortly after that, Java 6 was released with similar features.

My advice for people who want to learn a language and are hesitating between Java & C# (away from job requirements of course).
First decide what type of programs you want to do?
If you have a nice idea of a product that will be used by the public who is at 90% not a computer literate, go for the .net and c#. Here is why: 9 out of 10 PC in the world are running MS Windows and sooner or later they will have Vista installed. .Net 2.0 is embedded into windows Vista so users won't have to download any runtime environment to mke your program run.

On the other hand, if you are developping a product for professionals, you have 2 choices:
- Either you care about reaching people running different OS (Unix, Linux, Windows...) so in this case you MUST go for Java even if Windows users should download and install the Java Runtime (it is not a problem for professionals)
- Or you potential clients are only Windows addict, in this case it is better to use .Net/C# to be able to take full advantage of the features presented by Windows itself.

[Faithful]

Originally Posted by mephisto794

4 years at the university doing Business Computing.... the business side was a bit neglected, since we were doing "computing", as the computer courses mainly focused on "what's a keyboard.. duuuh.... what's a mouse..... eeuuuuuuh.... what's the difference between a laser printer and an Inkjet ..."

I think you already guessed i was at the lebanese university...
to be fair, we had some good courses (and [EVIL]curses[/EVIL]) of database structure, SQL and algorithmique.

Welcome to the club mephisto , yes this is the LU but i think now things changed for better.

When i was at the university i learned plus all the above in my 4th year Java and C++ , but the courses were not good at all and the teacher either. We were memorizing the courses without understanding anything. And we all had a very good points on our exam, keno yejo hinni zetoun . Our teacher didn't teach us the logic he just wanted us to get a good points in our exams no matter how.

Anyway after i graduated, i learned SQL and VB.Net on my own and it is a great language and easy to learn.

But now i am not working in programming just a little bit, i feel that i need more practice to be better programmer.

But once you get the logic you are IN and any language will be easy to learn.

[freedom4ever]

well i learned the c and c++ at first, and as i am an engineer student we are using matlab, and the assemly language its the low level language, we are kind of hardware engineers so we focus on the assembly and machine language its used to program CPU's and Microships, we are the base Dude, :P

[Aounist05]

Originally Posted by faithful

But now i am not working in programming just a little bit, i feel that i need more practice to be better programmer.

But once you get the logic you are IN and any language will be easy to learn.

I allow myself to comment on the above.
In fall 1998 after 3 months of graduation I had the opportunity to make an interview with MS recruiting team. They invited me and few others to Larnaka,Cyprus in the Hilton hotel where we spent 4 hours of interviews.
Some were told to leave early because of there bad performance, I was among those who continued to the end, but unfortunately the last decision was negative. I remember that one lebanese guy, graduate of cincinaty univ USA, was recuirted.
The axis of the interviews was little of coding and lot's of testing techniques:
Whenever you are asked to write an algorithm in C or C++ the next question will be how do u test it. Other questions were about testing machines, like cocacola distibutor or a printer etc etc..
When I go the negative result (the next day after I returned to beirut), I emailed one of the interviewer and asked him what was wrong, what should I do to improve. He replied by a list of books about testing techniques and told me "you will be a good developper when you become a good tester".
Needless to say that i have cursed ESIB & USJ for not teaching us about such techniques (as a matter of fact they never mentioned it).

At the end, if any fellow lebanese hopes to win a job in a multi national company like MS, IBM, SUN etc in a development domain, I strongly advice him to improve him/herself in the testing techniques.
Additionaly, the hype now is about coding securly which means work towards writing a code with no security breaches.
One book I can recommand, is "Writing Secure Code 2nd edition" by Michael Howard
(http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Secure...e=UTF8&s=books)

[suomynona]

Originally Posted by faithful

But once you get the logic you are IN and any language will be easy to learn.

HOW you code and WHY is the skill every respectable programmer needs to develop.
Things to think about: correctness - performance - resource requirements - security - testability.

A respectable programmer knows how to exploit both the underlying hardware and the application behavior to optimize whatever parameter is of interest.

--Suomynona

[lubnani]

say i started with C++, it was enjoyable course, took some PSpice, but didn't like the underlying logic

i have some experience with matlab and mathematica, which i will be going in depth in soon enough, and labview is coming in a week.

still second year life is hard ain't it? ;)