Steps to take to learn Development, what first?

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I have a bunch of questions, I know that this forum isnt really development intensive, but Ive come to know some of you and would like to seek opinions/answers here first.

I have a legitimite registered copy of REALBasic, and of course I installed xcode, I also dug up numerous free online ebooks about C/C++ Etc.

So onto the questions.....

1.)The last programming I did was in basic as a child on an Apple IIe, so Id have to say Im an ultra curious beginner, Should I start in REALBasic and then move up to learning to use xcode?

2.)Is REALBasic worth having? is it powerful and useful enough to write simple useable applications? or will I totally abandon it as I learn C and eventually cocoa?

3.)What the heck is with all this C,C++,C#, and objective c stuff, AAAARRRGGGGHHHH which one am I looking into learning for purposes of advancing into learning cocoa?

I like REALBasics interface, and have worked through my first tutorial, it was fun, I opened Xcode and the interface and stuff look similar, so I hope Im taking the right route here.

Advice and opinions are appreciated and will be Well Met!!!!

Thanks in advance.
 
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Icicle
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Awesome....thanks for all the answers and help??????
 

rman


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Icicle said:
I have a bunch of questions, I know that this forum isnt really development intensive, but Ive come to know some of you and would like to seek opinions/answers here first.
I believe that you answered the question, yourself. This board is not a major hang out for programmers. There maybe a few.

So to give you a simple answer. I picked a book when I started to code fortran a long time ago. So if you want to learn c, just get a book. Go to the book store or library, find a book that you like and go for it.
 
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Icicle said:
I have a bunch of questions, I know that this forum isnt really development intensive, but Ive come to know some of you and would like to seek opinions/answers here first.

I have a legitimite registered copy of REALBasic, and of course I installed xcode, I also dug up numerous free online ebooks about C/C++ Etc.

So onto the questions.....

1.)The last programming I did was in basic as a child on an Apple IIe, so Id have to say Im an ultra curious beginner, Should I start in REALBasic and then move up to learning to use xcode?

2.)Is REALBasic worth having? is it powerful and useful enough to write simple useable applications? or will I totally abandon it as I learn C and eventually cocoa?

3.)What the heck is with all this C,C++,C#, and objective c stuff, AAAARRRGGGGHHHH which one am I looking into learning for purposes of advancing into learning cocoa?

I like REALBasics interface, and have worked through my first tutorial, it was fun, I opened Xcode and the interface and stuff look similar, so I hope Im taking the right route here.

Advice and opinions are appreciated and will be Well Met!!!!

Thanks in advance.

Just work through the examples that come with Xcode and all should become clear as mud. :p

You don't give any idea as to what sort of applications you are interested in developing so it is hard to suggest more. At one end of the scale Apple script will suffice for simple user applications and you won't have to learn C whereas if you want to create anything really fancy you may need to delve into OpenGL & Quartz as well as C.

Otoh if you are more interested text based applications you could do a lot worse than start with Perl.

Amen-Moses
 
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Thanks guys, Im still not really sure what I want to do yet, but I do appreciate the replies, I started a book on C, and made it to page 15 before bedtime LOL :)
 
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And then again I am a PHP programmer and I did the same.. got a book and started reading, been doing that ever since.. that was 7-8 years ago :)
 
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Murlyn said:
And then again I am a PHP programmer and I did the same.. got a book and started reading, been doing that ever since.. that was 7-8 years ago :)

When I started my present contract, writing air traffic control software, I was promised a course in Ada as I'd never coded in Ada before and about 80% of the code I deal with is written in Ada.

That was 10 years ago and I'm still waiting for the course. :p

Amen-Moses
 

rman


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I learned Ada a long, long time ago. I never thought that Ada caught on. The same with PL/1.
 
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rman said:
I learned Ada a long, long time ago. I never thought that Ada caught on. The same with PL/1.

Ada is only used in real time applications and mainly restricted to very large military systems, I do know that a large US car manufacturer uses it in their embedded software (probably for engine management software) but apart from that our 20 million lines is the only civil use I know of.

Amen-Moses
 
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Ok so this thread has inspired me to take up programming... I want to learn realbasic, i think, I really don't know. But I downloaded a trial of it. I want to learn it more before I pay for it. I will eventually want to program custom programs for the mac I am going to put in the trunk of my car with a touch screen in the front. so that is my ambition, so what should be my first program, I don't really know where to start.
 
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PowerBookG4 said:
Ok so this thread has inspired me to take up programming... I want to learn realbasic, i think, I really don't know. But I downloaded a trial of it. I want to learn it more before I pay for it. I will eventually want to program custom programs for the mac I am going to put in the trunk of my car with a touch screen in the front. so that is my ambition, so what should be my first program, I don't really know where to start.

Why not start out with Applescript studio? For in-car stuff it will do everything you need.

As a matter of interest what touch screen have you got and where did you get a driver for it. I found that my driver stopped working with Panther and I can't seem to find a newer one (I haven't tried Tiger yet as I've recently sold my last touchscreen so I've got nothing to test it with).

Amen-Moses
 
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I am stilll looking into buying the touch screen. actually putting everthing with the car on hold because my audi had an accident. JUST SITTING THERE IN THE GARGE! there are to many people at my beach house, lol so I am going to get that fixed before I start putting money into the computer system. So should have the finished computer system in the car by the end of summer, I am estimating the cost at a little over 1500 am I correct in this estimation or under?
 
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PowerBookG4 said:
I am estimating the cost at a little over 1500 am I correct in this estimation or under?

Sounds about the right amount but you may have problems finding a driver for the touch screen.

I have one that works with Jaguar but maybe by the time you have a touch screen there may be a new version out. Drop me a PM when you get to that stage.

Amen-Moses
 
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