Which language is best to use ?

[Graham Pollitt]

I know bits of VB/c++ from my student days but to be honest I havent done any programming for a while so have forgot quite a bit!

As microsoft have released several updated versions of Visual studio since then I was wondering where to start again.

Is it worth learning C or C++ or sticking to VB (although I know from searching these forums that maybe VB is not the way to go!) I may as well learn the language which is the most versatile with FSUIPC.

Also any good compilers/environments recommended? Or should I stick with MSVS?

Thanks

Graham

[Pete Dowson]

Also any good compilers/environments recommended? Or should I stick with MSVS?

It depends on what you want to do and how much you know already. VB is easier for beginners but, in my opinion rather limited. C/C++ is powerful and very flexible but it is easier to make mistakes.

MSVC doesn't seem to be available on its own these days. In order to get the best optimising C compiler I had to fork out for Visual Studio .Net 2003 (the 2005 version should be out soon if not already). That comes with all sorts of things I didn't need or want, like VB, C#, MFC and C++ (I only wanted C). But I think it has the best optimised code output for C and the best debugger, especially if you are doing stuff for Windows XP.

Regards,

Pete

[Graham Pollitt]

I will just stick to my Visual Studio 6 for now and learn C++

I also have VS 2003.net and VS2005.net is out as of today.

Maybe I will upgrade to that at some point

Thanks for your reply

Graham

[Pete Dowson]

I will just stick to my Visual Studio 6 for now and learn C++

I also have VS 2003.net and VS2005.net is out as of today.

Maybe I will upgrade to that at some point

I used VS6 all the time till I decided to lash out and buy VS .Net 2003. The differences are mainly that the debugger is much better and the optimising compiler leaves VS6 miles behind. But for developing your C/C++ programming skills VS6 is fine.

But if you also have VS2003 .Net, why not use it?

I suppose 2005 includes 64-bit compiling capabilities? No doubt I'll need to upgrade in due course ...

[LATER]

Of course, I forgot. The super-optimising version of the C/C++ compiler was only available in the Professional Edition and above, which is why it came with all the other stuff I didn't really want. The cheaper editions don't produce such good code I'm afraid, but you could get C++ without the other stuff.

I just checked on the 2005 version. Seems it'll be here in the UK in about 5 days or so. I'd need to go for the Pro Edition upgrade, which isn't cheap, so I think I'll leave it till I really do need to think more seriously about 64-bit (which, I note, is included in the Pro Edition).

Regards,

Pete